Devotional Islam and Politics

in British India
Devotional Islam and Politics
in British India
Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi and his
Movement, 1870 —1920

U sh a S a n y a l

DELHI
O X F O R D U N IV E R SIT Y PRESS
BOM BAY CALCUTTA M ADRAS
1996
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PL

To the memory of
my beloved father

Bimalendu Kumar Sanyal

 Acknowledgements

It is with the greatest pleasure that I acknowledge the help of the

many institutions and individuals who have enabled me to reach the
end o f the long road that this book represents. I would like to thank
the American Institute of Indian Studies for a junior fellowship in
1986—7, which enabled me to travel to India and spend almost a
year there on fieldwork and the analysis of key texts. This research
was also assisted by a grant from the International Doctoral Research
Fellowship Program for South Asia of the Social Science Research
Council and the American Council of Learned Societies with funds
provided by the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for
the Humanities, for three months’ research in Pakistan during
1986-7. Finally, a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation
Fellowship in 1989-90 permitted me to devote myself fulltime to
writing in my final year of research.
O f the individuals who have helped me, I am heavily indebted
to my many teachers. To Tony Milner, whose MA student I was at
Canterbury, UK, I owe my interest in history. It was he who first
raised interpretive questions about Southeast Asian history, and
encouraged me to do research. His expression of confidence in me
contributed importantly to my decision several years later to pursue
an interest in history.
Since coming to Columbia, I have been greatly influenced in my
thinking by Bill Roff. I owe to him in particular my sensitivity to
internal forms of discourse within the Islamic world, and my
awareness of the importance of understanding these on their own
terms, within their own historically determined cultural systems o f
meaning. Working on the dissertation under his supervision has

\
 Acknowledgements vii

been a rewarding experience, given his keen interest in the research.

Always at hand to guide, raise questions, and ensure that the work
moved forward, he nevertheless gave me the opportunity to set my
own pace and agenda. In more recent years, he has commented on
portions of the revised manuscript from Scotland, where he now
lives in retirement.
I have had the benefit throughout the period o f research, also, o f
suggestions and criticism to drafts of the dissertation by Barbara
Metcalf. It was she who first suggested the topic, then helped me
get started. David Lelyveld has offered useful criticism and taken an
unflagging interest in the work’s progress. I am grateful to Frances
Pritchett for having taught me Urdu and for correcting my poetry
transliterations. Khalid Mas'ud, of the Islamic Research Institute,
Islamabad, periodically suggested new ways of thinking about the
material, at long distance. Christian Troll gave me the benefit of his
knowledge of Muslim theology when commenting on several
chapters. Greg Kozlowski gave encouragement and moral support.
In the course of revision, Muzafiar Alam has helped me with the
sections on Rohilkhand history and the intricacies o f eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century land tenure systems. I am grateful to Yoha-
nan Friedmann for his careful reading of the dissertation, and
particularly for correcting my translations and transliterations of
Arabic words and tides.
I o w e a great deal to Sandy Freitag, who has been unstindngly
generous with time and in offering suggestions as to new ways of
conceptualizing the study. She has tried to get me to stand back, to
disengage from the details and think about the ‘big picture’ o f what
I w as describing.
T o those who offered hospitality and access to source materials I
o w e the deepest gratitude. As Pakistanis, and particularly as emi­
grants (muhajirs) from India after the Partition o f 1947, I can only
im ag in e how difficult it must have been for them to take in an
u n k n o w n Indian Hindu woman into their homes. Professor Muham­
m a d M as'ud Ahmed, currendy retired in Karachi, was my host for
se v e ra l weeks at Thatta (Sind) in 1986, where he was then Principal
o f th e Government Degree College. His wife accompanied me to
K a ra c h i more than once, staying with me and looking after me at
viii Acknowledgements

their apartment there while the family managed without her at

Thatta.
Furthermore, it was through Professor Mas'ud Ahmed that I
made contact in Karachi, Lahore, and Delhi with others whose
assistance proved crucial to my work. My special thanks go to
Maulana Yasin Akhtar Misbahi of Delhi, Vice-President o f the All-
India Muslim Personal Law Conference and Director, Almajmaul
Islami, to whom I was introduced by Professor Mas‘ud Ahmed (the
two men had never met, but knew o f each other by reputation).
For four months Maulana Yasin Akhtar was my ustad, reading
Ahmad Riza’s fatawa with me and helping me understand the
difficult and often technical vocabulary and style o f argument. It was
largely due to work done in Delhi with Misbahi Sahib, as I called
him, that after returning to New York I was able to follow other
texts by myself.
I would also like to thank the many persons who generously
permitted me to photocopy journals and pamphlets in their posses­
sion, several o f which are unavailable in national libraries. Mr. Khalid
S. Hasan, Senior Executive Vice-President o f the National Bank of
Pakistan at Karachi, gave me access to his personal collection o f
Jinnah’s correspondence with Maulana Burhan ul-Haqq Jabalpuri
in the 1940s. Khwaja Razi Haidar of Karachi shared with me his
Tuhfa-e-Hanafiyya collection as well as other Nadwa-related material.
Maulana Muhammad Athar N a‘imi o f Karachi permitted me to
copy issues o f Al-Sawad al-A ‘zam. Professor Muhammad Mas‘ud
Ahmed allowed me to copy unpublished documents such as Ahmad
Riza Khan’s letters. Mr Mustafa ‘Ah Razwi, advocate in Bareilly,
whose personal collection of Ahmad Riza’s fatawa was the richest
source o f its kind in the subcontinent (surpassing by far the major
national libraries), put me gready in his debt by permitting me to
make photocopies of whatever I wished. Maulana Muhammad
Zuhur ud-Din Khan of Lahore gave me newspaper cuttings and
books no longer in print. Maulana Rizwan ud-Din N a‘imi o f
Muradabad permitted me to photocopy issues o f Al-Sawad al-A ‘zam.
Syed Jamaluddin, lecturer of history at Jam‘iyya Milliyya Islamiyya,
shared with me a precious family history o f the Barkatiyya Sayyids
of Marahra and copies o f the journal Ahl-e Sunnat ki Aw az published
 Acknowledgements ix

by ‘ulama’ of this family. In addition, the staff ofjam'iyya Na‘imiyya,

Muradabad, and of Manzar al-Islam, Bareilly, gave me valuable
original source material.
In June 1987, the librarian of Raza Library, Rampur, helped me
generously as well. Thanks in large part to his personal interest in
my research, and the practical assistance of Mr. Ashutosh Gaur of
Modi Xerox Company, Rampur, I was able to photocopy sections
o f the Dabdaba-e Sikandari newspaper from the Raza Library’s vast
holdings. Mr Gaur arranged for the temporary installation of a
photocopying machine in the library, as rules did not permit any
library materials to leave the building, and personally supervised the
photocopying under trying circumstances resulting from frequent
electricity breakdowns in a searing June heat.
O ther useful source materials were obtained from the Islamic
Research Institute Library at Islamabad, the Khuda Bakhsh Library
at Patna, the National Archives at Delhi, and the Nehru Memorial
Library at Delhi. I am most grateful to the staff o f each o f these
institutions for assistance rendered.
Finally, I owe a great deal to the affection and unfailing moral
support offered by friends and family. In Pakistan, Dushka Saiyid
and Anwar Kamal provided periodic breaks from work, and the
opportunity occasionally to be a tourist in Lahore. Anwar’s skilful
management also averted the dreadful prospect that I would have
to leave behind the materials so painfully collected, for a Pakistani
law forbade Indians from transporting books published in Pakistan
back to India.
To my parents, I give grateful thanks for loving support and
encouragement of my work. It was they who made my education
at Columbia possible in the first few years. I dedicate this work to
my father, who, sadly, is not there to see it completed. Together
with my mother, he had welcomed my interest in Muslim society
and culture, and rendered tremendous practical help and advice, as
well as moral support, in the course of fieldwork. My husband,
Gautam Bose, has been indispensable to my ability to see this book
through to completion. His willingness to act as sounding board on
diverse matters, and his talent for finding humour where I have failed
x Acknowledgements

to see it, are the least o f the many things he has done for me these
last several years. For this, and much besides, I thank him.
I end with the warmest thanks to all those at Oxford University
Press, Delhi, who have shepherded this book through to print,
thereby enabling me— as Adil Tyabji, formerly an editor at the Press,
so memorably put it—to become a ‘convoluted author’. Thanks to
friends and onetime colleagues at OUP, Delhi, I have thoroughly
enjoyed the experience o f publishing this, my first, book.

U. S.
 Contents

Note on Transliteration xii

Introduction The Ahl-e Sunnat and Identity Formation,

Late Nineteenth Century 1
Chapter I Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Centuries 15
Chapter II A Sunni Muslim Scholar: Ahmad Riza
Khan Barelwi 49
Chapter III Institutional Bases o f the Ahl-e Sunnat
Movement, 1880s-1920s 68
Chapter IV The Barkatiyya Sayyids ofMarahra, Late
Nineteenth Century 97
Chapter V Personalization o f Religious Authority 128
Chapter VI Ahmad Riza’s Concept o f the Sunna 166
Chapter VII The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims, 201
Late Nineteenth Century
Chapter VIII The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis
and ‘Wahhabis’ 231
Chapter IX Perspectives on the Khilafat, Hijrat and N on-
Cooperation Movements 268
Epilogue Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 302
Conclusion 328

Glossary 338
Bibliography 344
Index 359
 Note on Transliteration

The transliteration system followed here is based on John T. Platts,

A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English. I differ from his
usage, however, in the following respects: the letter che, as in chilla,
is transliterated as ‘ch’ rather than ‘c’, and ghain, as in tabligh, is
transliterated as ‘gh’ rather than ‘g’. I use ‘-e’ to indicate the izafat,
and ‘al-’ for the Arabic definite article. The transliteration o f South
Asian personal names, however, follows Urdu pronunciation: thus
Zafar ud-Din rather than Zafar al-Din (but ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani,
rather than ‘Abd ul-Qadir Jilani, because the latter is not South
Asian).
Likewise, in spelling usage I have been guided by Urdu pronun­
ciation where this differs from the classical Arabic, as in hadis, azan ,
and qazi. Departing from standard practice with regard to words like
‘Haramayn’, I substitute an ‘i’ for the ‘y’: thus, Haramain rather than
Haramayn, shaikh rather than shaykh, and Haidarabad rather than
Hyderabad. Also, the word ‘sunna’, when used in a compound, is
transliterated ‘sunnat’.
An apostrophe is used to signify the hamza. W ith the exception
of *ain, diacritical marks above and below the letters are indicated
only in the glossary.
 Introduction

The Ahl-e Sunnat and Identity Formation,

Late Nineteenth Century

Given the increasing prevalence o f religious nationalism— Sikh,

Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim— in late twentieth-century South
Asia, it is not surprising that historians are asking questions about the
relationship between ‘religion’ and ‘politics’ and making connec­
tions between the current scene and its history (or histories) in
colonial and pre-colonial India. Such issues are also in the forefront
for students of inter-religious conflict or communalism in the
subcontinent over the past century or so. While such interest is not
new, scholars now seem to be paying more attention to the ‘religion’
in the ‘politics’ o f religious nationalism than they did earlier. More
specifically, some historians are taking religious practice seriously,
and attending to the discourse and debate that accompanies that
practice, seeing in these exchanges important clues that could help
us see and understand underlying processes o f social change.
The present study, of a religious movement led by a group of
Sunni Muslim scholars of Islamic law (‘ulama’) in late nineteenth and
early twentieth century north India, may appear rather exclusively
centred on ‘religion’ and not at all on ‘politics’. While it is true that
the ‘ulama’ o f the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama*at movement maintained
a largely apolitical stance towards British rule in India, and were not
direcdy concerned with ‘politics’, there are several indications that
their movement did have political implications.
In the formative period o f this movement, a period that coincides
2 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

with the leadership o f Maulana Ahmad Riza Khan (b. 1856) from
the 1880s ♦until his death in 1921, the debates in which the Ahl-e
Sunnat ‘ulama’ engaged with other north Indian ‘ulama’ do not deal
specifically with politics. They deal instead with issues such as the
qualities o f the Prophet Muhammad, the permissibility or otherwise
o f the intercession o f dead ‘saints’ (pin), or the correct manner of
calling believers to the mosque for the Friday congregational prayer.
In laying out the arguments o f the Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ on these
and other matters in the chapters that follow, I hope to show,
however, that the debates themselves were intricately related to the
larger socio-political context o f north India at the time. The
religious discourse o f the Ahl-e Sunnat was at the core o f a process
o f identity formation which had wider ramifications, for relations
with competing Muslim and non-Muslim groups as well as the
colonial state.
In this context, the connections Freitag makes between local
community activities, the British Indian state, and the process o f
identity formation which fed into a wider political process in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, are most helpful.1She
points out that in late nineteenth century British India, religious and
cultural activity carried out by Indians in public spaces (such as
festival processions, Muharram mourning rituals, voluntary or­
ganizations, and the like) ‘became an alternative world to that
structured by the imperial regime, providing legitimacy and recog­
nition to a range o f actors and values denied place in the imperial
order’.2 Freitag argues that in this alternative world, people made
conscious choices about self-definition that enabled them to create
a new-found sense o f ‘community’:
Key to understanding the underlying connections between organizations,
id eo lo g y , a n d p o p u la r p articip atio n is th e process b y w h ic h particip an ts
c o n s tru c te d th e resp e c tiv e ‘com m unities* fo r w h ic h th e y acted. In this process
c e rta in sh ared values a n d behaviors w e re self-consciously ch o sen fo r em phasis:
p articip an ts sim ultaneously d efin ed th e ir o w n c o m m u n ity a n d c re a te d an
‘O th e r e n co m p assin g those o u tsid e th e b o u n d a rie s th ey d rew . T h e articu la tio n

1 San d m B. Freitag, Collective Action and Community: Public Arenas and the Emergence of
Communalism in North India (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1989).
2 Ibid., p. 6.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Identity Formation 3

o f these constructions, in turn, calls to our attention the universe in which

* «B

community came to be expressed.

Thus what people said and did in the ‘public arena’ (Freitag’s term,
following Habermas’s ‘public sphere’), in the colonial state was
intrinsic to the process o f community formation. Based on shared
religious or cultural concerns, in the early decades of the twentieth
century, some o f these local communities mobilized around issues
like cow-protection or the defence o f mosques to come together
on a larger national stage.
As Freitag indicates, and as my study o f the Ahl-e Sunnat amply
bears out, the process o f community formation was inherendy
conflictual. In the period studied here, the ‘Others’ against whom
the Ahl-e Sunnat defined themselves were primarily fellow Sunni
Muslims. They were for the most part ‘ulama’ who belonged to
important contemporary Sunni Muslim movements, such as the
Deobandi.4 The Ahl-e Sunnat also wrote against, and debated with,
the Tablighi Jama‘at,5 the Ahl-e Hadis, the Panjab-centered Ah-
madiyya movement,6 and the Nadwat al-‘Ulama’. Each o f these
movements, defining itself in terms o f Islamic ‘reform’ (which term
I examine below), was in competition with the others for hege­
monic influence over the Indian Muslim population as a whole. The
seriousness o f the debate between them was motivated by a sense
that only one of them could be right, only one of the many alternatives
offered would survive the test o f time and provide the tools with
which to build an alternative world to that dominated by the state.
However, the very process o f competition, divisive as it was at one
level, was also instrumental in creating common discursive ground
between the competitors, in this case a shared language o f Islamic
reform.7Or, to put this somewhat differendy— and borrowing R o ff s

3 Ibid., p. 13.
4 O n the Deobandi movement, see Barbara D. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India:
Deoband, 1860-1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982).
5 M . Anwarul Haq, The Faith Movement of MauAana Muhammad Ilyas (London: George
Allen & U nw in, 1972).
6 Yohanan Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Ahmadi Religious Thought and its
Medieval Background (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1989).
7 A point also made by Metcalf in Islamic Revival, p. 358.
4 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

memorable phrase— the ‘ulama’ were arguing in part about ‘how to

argue’, thereby making discourse about change possible.8 Those
with whom the Ahl-e Sunnat shared less common cultural space
were thus also more remote ‘Others’. After the immediate array of
‘ulama’ movements mentioned above, the Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’
defined themselves as distinct from Shi‘i Muslims. Then, at consid­
erable remove, they did so in opposition to ‘Hindus’ (a term which
came into currency as a working category only during British rule,
as Freitag reminds us) and the colonial state.
The creation of cultural space and alternative worlds removed
from state concerns was accomplished by the institutionalization o f
religious belief and practice in a number o f novel ways. Several o f
these, institutions were based on use of the printed word. Historians
have frequendy noted the importance of print technology in fur­
thering community formation in the late nineteenth century. In
Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson argues that ‘print
capitalism’ contributed powerfully to the growth of nationalism in
colonized countries.9
My research confirms the crucial role the written and printed
word played in the crystallization o f the Ahl-e Sunnat movement
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ahmad Riza’s
writings, chieflyfatawa (legal jurisprudential rulings), said to number
about an thousand, were made available to followers in a variety o f
Vu
formats: sometimes hand-written, they were also published in
newspapers, pamphlets (risalas), and as book-length treatises. They
constituted a good proportion of the literature published by the
printing houses of the Ahl-e Sunnat in Bareilly and elsewhere in
north India. Through the dissemination of these writings, other
Muslims in far-flung parts of British India were able to read Ahmad
Riza’sjudgments on a variety o f issues. Those who agreed with him
were able to signal their support by participating in a range o f

8 William R . Roff, ‘W hence Com eth the Law? Dog Saliva in Kelantan, 1937’, in
Katherine P. Ewing (ed.), Shari‘at and Ambiguity in South Asian Islam (Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1988), pp. 25-42.
9 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983).
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Identity Formation 5

collective activities. Thus the movement was gradually transformed

from a local one to one with a following in many parts o f India.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a whole
range o f institutional structures furthered the ongoing process of
community formation among the Ahl-e Sunnat. These included
seminaries (madrasas), periodic journals, and orah debates with
‘ulama’ o f competing movements. Voluntary organizations fol­
lowed, focusing on specific causes such as aid for Ottoman Turkish
Muslims in the early decades o f the twentieth century. Like Ahmad
Riza’s published writings, these activities were instrumental in
creating a sense o f community between members, and in enlarging
the audience addressed. From an exclusive and relatively small circle
o f religious scholars, this audience fanned out to include a larger
educated lay Muslim public.10
Controversy and contestation among the ‘ulama’, in verbal form
and in print, was particularly strong when it came to Ahl-e Sunnat
ritual practices. These included the observance o f the death anniver­
saries (‘urs) o f dead sufi preceptors pirs venerated by the members of
the movement. In particular, veneration of the Prophet Muhammad
and occasions such as his birth anniversary (milad), were definitive
to the self-image of the movement.
The intercessionary ritual practices o f the Ahl-e Sunnat move­
ment appeared to its opponents to invalidate its claims to being
‘reformist’, rendering it ‘backward’, and ‘ignorant’. This continues
to be the image of the Ahl-e Sunnat movement among adversarial
groups in the subcontinent today. To the Ahl-e Sunnat themselves,
however, following the Prophet’s path (sunna) with the help of
saindy intermediaries, provided a template for behaviour in the
modem world. Shrine-centred devotion, carried out in a spirit of
reform, was a conscious choice. In its self-consciousness the move­
ment was based on a sense of individual responsibility, not on
attachment to ancient custom (rawaj, Ar. ‘adat) as its detractors
alleged.

10 O n ‘lay’ leaders o f H indu and Muslim reform movements in the late colonial period,
see Barbara D. Metcalf, ‘Imagining Com m unity: Polemical Debates in Colonial India’,
in Kenneth W . Jones (ed.), Religious Controversy in British India: Dialogues in South Asian
Languages (Albany: State University o f N ew York Press, 1992), pp. 232-4.
6 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Van der Veer suggests in Religious Nationalism that ‘if we want to

take religious discourse and practice as relevant to the project of
religious nationalism, we have to attempt to understand religious
identities as historically produced in religious institutions that are in
a constant process o f transformation’.11 This study o f the Ahl-e
Sunnat ‘ulama’ at the height o f the colonial period until the second
decade o f the twentieth century and the political transformations o f
the post-World War I period (when segments o f the Ahl-e Sunnat
leadership began to more towards some form of nationalism) ex­
amines how, through shifting emphases during these forty-odd
years, they created an Indian Muslim identity that denied a
dichotomy between shrine and mosque. Indeed, the integration o f
mosque- and shrine-based worship belies the general assumption
that mosque-based activities are divisive and shrine-based ones
inclusive. O n the contrary, it is clear that the sufi institutions of the
movement were as instrumental in the process of drawing exclusive
boundaries as were other mosque-centred activities.
The historical context o f British Indian colonialism was crucial
to the emergence o f the Ahl-e Sunnat movement, as were events
in the wider Muslim world which shaped this and other Sunni
Muslim movements in the subcontinent. The annual pilgrimage to
Mecca (hajj), sometimes followed by extended periods o f study in
centres o f learning such as the al-Azhar in Cairo, was of course the
most important avenue for the exchange of ideas between Muslims
from different parts of the world.12 Ahmad Riza Khan performed
the hajj twice, at a twenty-year interval, and both occasions were
important for his stature as the leading ‘alim o f the Ahl-e Sunnat
movement. Moreover, he corresponded with several ‘ulama’ in
Mecca and Medina over the years, sometimes to ask their opinion
on controversial issues at home, but sometimes also to offer an
opinion of his own. The ‘ulama’ of other contemporary movements

11 Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India (Berkeley;
University o f California Press, 1994), p. 30.
12 T he classic study for the nineteenth century is by C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka in
the Latter Part of the 19th Century: Daily Life, Customs and Learning— the Moslims of the
East-Indian-Archipelago, tr. J. H. M onahan (London: Luzac and Co., 1931), R eprint
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970).
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Identity Formation 1

in British India likewise had sustained contacts with the Haramain.

Such contacts were a powerful source of validation in contestations
amongst the Indian ‘ulama’.
The north Indian ‘ulama’ were consequendy aware o f intellectual
currents in other parts of the Muslim world, and, to varying degrees,
were influenced by them. In the eighteenth and nineteenth cen­
turies, participation in study circles at Mecca may have acquainted
some Indian ‘ulama’ with the reformist ideas o f the Arabian Muwah-
hidun movement, widely known as ‘Wahhabi’. However, the exact
nature o f the interchange o f ideas between the Arabian movement
and nineteenth century Indian ones characterized as ‘Wahhabi’
remains unclear.
The Khilafat movement o f the early twentieth century, in which
a number o f the ‘ulama’ played leading roles, was notable in this
regard. In the late nineteenth century, Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani
(1838-97), the Iranian scholar and activist, had travelled around the
Muslim world (visiting India in the 1850s and 1860s) exhorting
Muslims o f all nationalities to unite under the spiritual leadership
o f the Turkish sultan in order to free themselves ofW estem colonial
rule.13The enduring hatred of the British which al-Afghani imbibed
during his Indian stay led him to attack Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan
(1817-98) as a tool o f British imperialism.14 In the Khilafat move­
m ent of 1919-22, members o f the ‘ulama’, influenced by al-
Afghani’s pan-Islamic message, entered into an alliance with the
Indian National Congress. While M. K. Gandhi, representing the
Congress leadership, supported the ‘ulama’ in their demand for
British recognition of the Turkish sultan as Caliph, the ‘ulama’ in
turn lent their support to the Indian nationalist struggle against
British rule. These decisions were made after extensive debate in
meetings held by the Jam'iyyat al-‘Ulama’-e Hind, the political party
formed by several north Indian ‘ulama’ in 1919. Ahmad Riza Khan,
then a well-known public figure in ‘ulama’ circles as leader of the

13 Nikki R . Keddic, Sayyid Jamal ad-Din 'al-Afghani': A Political Biography (Berkeley;

University o f California Press, 1972).'
14 Nikki R . Keddie, A n Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of
SayyidJamal ad-Din 4al-Afghani9(Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1983). O n Sir
Sayyid Ahmad Khan, see the discussion in Chapter I.
8 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Ahl-e Sunnat movement, refused however to support the Khilafat

movement or the pan-Islamic: idea, for reasons that I explore in
Chapter IX.

Many in South Asia are more familiar with the term Barelwi than
‘Ahl-e Sunnat wajama‘at. Barelwis are to be found today in Pakistan
and India, as well as Britain. The term Barelwi is, however, rejected
by those who identify themselves with the movement, and has
therefore not been used here. It may be useful to clarify at the outset
what is at issue in this particular disagreement over nomenclature.15
Ahmad Riza’s followers were called Barelwi simply because he
was a resident of the town of Bareilly, in Rohilkhand (the western
portion o f present-day Uttar Pradesh).16 It is common practice for
Muslims in South Asia (as elsewhere) to identify themselves by
place-name, or by profession, association with a sufi order (e.g.,
Qadiri, Chishd, or other), or family lineage (such as Qureshi or
‘Usmani), so as to distinguish between individuals with the same
personal name.17 As Ahmad Riza was the central figure around
which the movement sharing his views took shape, the name
Barelwi has come to stand not simply for him but for the movement
itself.
I deliberately use the words ‘central figure’ rather than ‘founder’
to describe Ahmad Riza’s relationship to the movement, because
followers consider the term founder misplaced. It is their belief that
Ahmad Riza was reviving the prophetic sunna (path, way) as
embodied in the Qur'an and the literature o f the traditions, hadis.
Because Muslims had become forgetful (ghajil) of the Prophet’s
message and had fallen away from it, Ahmad Riza had assumed the
task o f ‘reminding’ them and bringing them back to the ideal way.

15 Thus van der Veer, Religious Nationalism, p. 43: \ . . names are very significant parts
o f one’s social identity.’
16 Bareilly, in Rohilkhand, is not to be confused w ith Rae Bareilly, in Awadh. Ahmad
R iza and the Barelwi movement have no relationship to Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (d.
1831), from R ae Bareilly, who led the jihad m ovem ent o f the 1820s.
17 Such names are called nisbat or nisba. See M ohammed Haroon, Cataloguing of Indian
Muslim Names (Lahore: Islamic Book Centre, 1986), for a useful introduction to Indian
Muslim names and the technical terms for different kinds o f names.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Identity Formation 9

The Ahl-e Sunnat looked upon him as a mujaddid or renewer, a term

with specific meaning in Islamic tradition.18 It being their collective
purpose to return to the prophetic way— certainly not to found a
new group— they called themselves the ‘Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama'at,
or ‘people o f the [Prophet’s] way, and the majority community’.
Simply stated, they regarded themselves as ‘Sunnis’, part o f the
world-wide Sunni community.
I use the term ‘Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama'at (or Ahl-e Sunnat, for
short) as a means o f grasping the self-perception of those being
described. It allows one tp recognize the centrality o f the figure of
the Prophet Muhammad to the movement, and to understand the
internal logic o f the positions that were taken by Ahmad Riza on
various issues as a consequence o f his Prophet-centred vision. In
other words, it enables one to see the movement in its own terms
rather than those imposed on it from the outside. O n the negative
side, hotoever, because the term ‘Sunni’ has a very wide application
(standing in opposition to the other major Muslim category of Shi‘i),
such usage has the disadvantage o f possible confusion about its
denotation. Followers of the movement use the term in reference
to themselves and to those they consider faithful to the prophetic
sunna— that is to say, those whose vision of Islam coincides with
their own. I have used the word Sunni within quotes whenever it
signifies the particular meaning it had to the movement. This
necessary precaution will, I hope, dispel any impression that I share
the self-image o f the movement.

As indicated above, the Ahl-e Sunnat movement was one o f several

British Indian movements led by ‘ulama’ in the nineteenth century'.
Scholars have characterized some o f these as ‘fundamentalist’ or
‘orthodox’, or, speaking of those that seem to have roots in ‘popular
religion’, as ‘syncretist’, ‘traditional’, or (in Bengal) sabiqi. Such
characterizations are inevitably imprecise, as they mean different
things to different people. Moreover, they are often value-laden,
and as in the case o f the Barelwi versus ‘Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama‘at

18 I discuss the concept o f tajdid and the Ahl-e Sunnat claim in Chapters VI and VII.
10 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

discussion, involve imposing categories that are foreign to the people

being discussed.19
Most recendy, Kenneth Jones has spoken o f movements led by
the ‘ulama’ (and certain Hindu movements, led by Hindu religious
figures as well) as ‘transitional’. He defines this term as follows:
Transitional movements had their origins in the pre-colonial world and arose
from indigenous forms of socio-religious dissent, with little or no influence
from the colonial milieu, either because it was not yet established or because
it had failed to afreet the individuals involved in a particular movement. The
clearest determinant o f a transitional movement was an absence o f anglicized
individuals among its leaders and a lack o f concern with adjusting its concepts
and programmes to the colonial world.20

It is plain that for Jones the point o f reference is British colonialism.

The movements that come under this rubric are viewed as transi­
tional between a pre-colonial past and— where the movements
concerned survived the colonial era— a post-colonial present. While
necessarily shaped by the reality o f British political rule, Jones sees
these as definably different from movements that sought to
‘acculturate’ to that reality, to use his term for movements whose
members sought to take advantage of the changed situation and
opportunities created by colonial rule.
While this conceptualization may be useful as a means o f thinking
about movements originating in a variety of religious traditions
(Jones examines several Hindu and Sikh movements in addition to
Muslim ones), for our purposes it seems best to describe the
‘ulama’-led movements of the nineteenth century with reference to
their own terms o f discourse. Because the self-proclaimed goal o f
the Ahl-e Sunnat and several other ‘ulama’-led movements o f this
period was tajdid (renewal), the most appropriate way to describe
19 For a critical essay on the interpretive implications o f imposing categories on the data,
in the Southeast Asian context, see William R . Roff, ‘Islam Obscured? Some Reflections
on Studies oflslam and Society in Southeast Asia*, Archipel 29 (1985), 7-34. Also see
Roff, ‘Islamic Movements: O ne orM any?’ in William R . Roff(ed.), Islam and the Political
Economy o f Meaning: Comparative Studies o f Muslim Discourse (Berkeley: California
University Press, 1987), pp. 31-52, for a related discussion o f the analytical difficulties
associated with the term ‘Wahhabi*.
20 Kenneth W . Jones, Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India, T he N ew
Cambridge History o f India, III: 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 3.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Identity Formation 11

them would seem to be as renewal movements. The term ‘reform’

(islah in Arabic and Urdu) is also used in the literature, though usually
in the context o f a desire to improve ‘worldly’ conditions o f some
sort, such as education or living standards, rather than to effect
religious change. In this book I have used the word ‘reform’ as
synonymous with ‘renewal’, as it is close in meaning to the intent
o f the word tajdid. Reform in our context should not be understood,
however, to mean either ‘reformation’ in the Christian sense o f
restructuring o f ecclesiastical authority or ‘reformulation’ o f the
Islamic message. Rather, it implies restatement o f that immutable
message with the purpose o f recreating in an existing society or
community o f Muslims the moral climate thought to have existed
at the time o f the Prophet. As will become evident in the course o f
this study, the Ahl-e Sunnat conception of tajdid and o f the role o f
the Prophet as Allah’s messenger differed considerably from that o f
other ‘ulama’-led movements of the period.
The question remains, who were the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama‘at?
And how did they relate to the British colonial framework,, and to
the other renewal movements o f the nineteenth century?

T o the extent that the Ahl-e Sunnat have been subject to scholarly
investigation thus far, a certain amount o f confusion exists about
who they were and the social background they came from. They
are generally said to have been influential in the rural areas (unlike
the Deobandis, who are thought to have been urban-based). Hamza
Alavi, for instance, writes:
Historically, Deobandis have tended to be mainly urban and from middle and
upper strata o f society whereas Barelvi influence has been mainly in rural areas,
with a populist appeal. . . . Traditionally Barelvi influence has been weaker in
the U P (with the exception perhaps o f the peasantry o f South-W estern UP)
than in the Punjab and to some degree in Sind. O n the other hand die main
base o f Deobandis was in the UP especially among urban Muslims . . . .2!

It seems clear that Alavi is talking of rural sufi pin rather than the
‘ulama’ who called themselves the ‘Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama‘at in the
21 Hamza Alavi, ‘Pakistan and Islam: Ethnicity and Ideology’, in F. Halliday and H.
Alavi (eds.), State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan (N ew York: M onthly
R eview Press, 1988), p. 86.
12 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

late nineteenth century. While ‘ulama’ such as Ahmad Riza were

sympathetically inclined towards ritual worship centred around the
tomb-shrine complexes (khanqahs and dargahs) o f sufi pirs, it is not
the case— as is suggested by Alavi’s account— that all sufi pirs neces­
sarily regarded themselves as, or were regarded by Ahl-e Sunnat
‘ulama’ as, members o f the Ahl-e Sunnat movement. Only some
self-consciously ‘reformist’ pirs of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century period were actively involved in the Ahl-e
Sunnat movement as leaders. Failure to make these internal
distinctions creates the impression that all rural shrines were Barelwi
in orientation and that the movement was therefore made up o f a
large, undifferentiated mass o f Mu slim peasants. In this view anyone
not a Deobandi or a Nadwi or an Ahl-e Hadis (or a member o f some
other distinct movement) appears (by default) to be a Barelwi. This
is not far from the Ahl-e Sunnat claim that as ‘Sunnis’, they represent
all South Asian (and other Sunni) Muslims, other than a small
number o f ‘deviant’ groups such as the Deobandi, Nadwi, and
others, but it would be misleading nonetheless.
In order to delimit our group, then, I shall use the criterion of
self-conscious identification with the Ahl-e Sunnat. It will not be
assumed that every visitor to a shrine in our period was a member
o f the Ahl-e Sunnat movement simply because the Ahl-e Sunnat
looked upon shrine-associated rituals favourably. W e have no way
o f knowing whether at that time the term Ahl-e Sunnat (or even
Barelwi) had any meaning for people o f the rank and file, nor
whether, in the event that people had heard o f the name, they
thought of themselves in those terms.22
Consequendy, I confine myself to the leadership of the move­
ment centred around Ahmad Riza. Family histories and biographical
dictionaries (tazkiras) o f the ‘ulama’ indicate that the core Ahl-e
Sunnat leadership in the late nineteenth century consisted o f‘ulama’
and pirs from well-to-do, frequently landowning families, living in

22 Knowledge o f affiliations o f this sort is probably easier to gauge for the post-colonial
period, given the emergence o f political parties among the ‘ulama’. I doubt we can talk
o f ‘Barelwi’ or Ahl-e Sunnat influence at all precisely for our period, other than from
our knowledge o f the schools, journals, or organizations established where the term
‘Ahl-e Sunnat’ was specifically invoked. 1 have attempted to do this in C hapter III.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Identity Formation 13

small agricultural towns (qasbas),73 or, as in Ahmad Riza’s case, in

larger urban centres. In one way or another, they all had a close
intellectual relationship with Ahmad Riza.

The central source-materiai for this study has been the fatawa of
Ahmad Riza Khan. I do not claim to have made a complete study
o f all the fatawa he wrote: their volume (said by some to number a
thousand) precludes this, as does the fact that they are not all
published. Nevertheless, on the basis o f those that are known to have
been important to an understanding of his thought, as well as several
less well-known ones, it has been possible to establish a pattern o f
thought and belief that is for the most part consistent.
Ahmad Riza also wrote a diwan or collection o f poems, on themes
such as his love for the Prophet. Known as na ‘ts, these poems give
us a glimpse of Ahmad Riza’s ‘softer, gender’ side as ‘lover o f the
Prophet’. Verses from these poems have been quoted in Chapters
II and III, which deal with the sufi aspects o f the Ahl-e Sunnat
movement.
I have not attempted to study Ahmad Riza’s translation into Urdu
o f the Q ur‘an. Though this would undoubtedly have added to our
understanding o f his thought, I do not think it would have materially
altered the picture that emerges from his fatawa.
Among the other sources that have been important are the
full-length biographies and biographical dictionaries (tazkiras) of
Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’. The main biography o f Ahmad Riza is
Hayat-e A ‘la Hazrat by his disciple Zafar ud-Din Bihari, a didactic,
not historical, work that tells us a great deal about the Ahl-e Sunnat
ideal o f personal conduct, which Ahmad Riza naturally exemplified
to his followers. Yet it speaks only tangentially about his personal
experience, the sequence o f historical events or the larger social and
political context. Such details have to be put together (to the extent
23 For a discussion o f the qasba »nd its eighteenth-century history in north India, see
C. A. Bayly, ‘T he Small Tow n and Islamic Gentry in N orth India: The Case o f Kara’,
in K enneth Ballhatchet and John Harrison (eds.), The City in South Asia: Pre-Modem and
Modem (London: School o f Oriental and African Studies, University o f London, 1980),
pp. 2 0 -4 8 ; and C. A. Bayly, Rulers, Toumsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the
Age of British Expansion, 1770-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988),
paperback edition, Chapter 9.
14 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

possible) by consulting other tazkiras, cross-referencing between

them, and, most importantly, by consulting newspapers and journals
published by Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries.
O f these, the Dabdaba-e Sikandari published from Ram pur has
been the most valuable. To a large extent, I have been able to date
events and learn of calendrical rituals such as ‘urs and milad meetings
in different north Indian towns and cities by reading the columns o f
this weekly. Where available, secondary sources in English have
helped to provide a picture of the internal organization o f schools,
papers and journals in comparable settings.
I should add perhaps that there is a vast secondary literature on
the Ahl-e Sunnat movement which has only very occasionally been
consulted in the course of this study. The movement is currendy in
the midst of an intellectual revival in Pakistan, and some o f Ahmad
Riza’s fatawa are being published for the first time. While this has
been enormously helpful to me in the attempt to locate original
sources, I have ignored present-day judgments on Ahmad Riza’s
achievements and chosen to form my own by reading his fatawa
direcdy. This course was dictated partly by the practical difficulties
o f reading all that has been written about him in recent years. In
part, of course, it is also in good Muslim and Western scholarly
tradition to go back to the source.
Finally, fieldwork in Pakistan for three months (October-
December 1986) and in India for almost a year (during most o f 1987)
has contributed importantly to my understanding o f the movement.
Interviews with contemporary Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’, scholars and
others listed in the bibliography, as well as extended discussion with
some of them, enabled me to approach the texts with an empathy
that would otherwise have been lacking.
 Chapter I

Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and

Nineteenth Centuries

Bareilly, the city which has given the Barelwi or Ahl-e Sunnat wa
Jama‘at movement its name, lies in Rohilkhand, in the western
portion of what came to be known, under British rule, as the
North-W estern Provinces and Oudh (map l).1 In the seventeenth
century rival Rajput chiefs had encouraged the immigration of
Pathan or Rohilla Afghans, skilled mercenaries, into their territories
as a means of shoring up their power against one another. In the
eighteenth century two potentially powerful Afghan chieftaincies
grew to prominence in the region: the Rohillas centred on Bareilly,
and the Bangash centred on Mau-Farrukhabad farther south.

T he R o hillas o f R o h il k h a n d

W hen Mughal power began to decline with the death o f Aurangzeb

in 1707, the Rohillas came into their own under the strong and able
leadership o f ‘Ali Muhammad Khan (d. 1748) and his successor,
Hafiz Rahmat Khan (d. 1774). Between about 1720 and 1740 ‘Ali
Muhammad Khan, a soldier in the Mughal army, was able to carve
out an independent kingdom centred on the town o f Aonla (then

1 During Mughal times R ohilkhand had been a Raj pu t -do min ated province know n as
Katehr. For this period o f R ohilkhand (and m ore particularly Bareilly) history, see, e.g.,
Esha B. Joshi, Gazetteer of India, Uttar Pradesh: Bareilly District (Lucknow: Governm ent
o f U ttar Pradesh, 1968), pp. 50-4.
16 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Map I: Rohilkhand in 1768

(Adapted from Iqbal Husain, The Ruhela Chieftaincies, Delhi, Oxford
University Press, 1994, p. 109. By permission of the author.)
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 17

part o f sarkar Muradabad, an administrative division o f Delhi

province) at the Mughals’ expense, and came to control much o f
Rampur, Sambhal, Muradabad, Amroha, Shahjahanpur, Pilibhit,
and other districts in the region.2 Many o f these towns and districts
had formerly been under Rajput control.
This region, known after the Rohillas as Rohilkhand, was
bounded on the north by the foot-hills of the Himalaya (the terai)
and by the Ganga in the south. It was characterized by rich alluvial
soil. Indeed, early eighteenth century European reports included
northern Rohilkhand among those regions deemed ‘the most fertile’
in the subcontinent.3 It could therefore easily accommodate Afghan
troopers joining an up-and-coming Rohilla chief.
Given that the Rohillas were a threat to the authority o f the
Mughals, conflict was inevitable.4 At first the Mughal Emperor,
Muhammad Shah (r. 1719-48) had been pleased with ‘Ali Muham­
mad Khan’s military successes. In 1737, in recognition o f services
rendered, he granted the latter ‘a mansab o f 5,000/5,000’.5 How­
ever, by about 1740 ‘Ali Muhammad Khan’s growing power6began
to worry the Mughal court. He was forced to spend the last years
o f his life fending off repeated attacks on his territory by Safdar Jang
(d. 1754), then Nawab of Awadh and grandmaster o f artillery (mir-e
atish) in the imperial army.7

2 Amar Singh Baghel, Gazetteer of India, Uttar Pradesh: Rampur District (Lucknow:
G overnm ent o f India, 1974), pp. 37-8.
3 See Muzaffar Alam, The Crisis o f Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and the Punjab,
1707-1748 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 252-3, 254.
4 For a detailed treatment o f eighteenth-century Rohilla history, see Iqbal Husain, The
Ruhela Chieftaincies: The Rise and Fall of Ruhela Power in India in the Eighteenth Century
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994).
5 Iqbal Husain, The Ruhela Chieftaincies, p. 46. A mansab is a military rank reflecting the
num ber o f horsemen the holder o f the tide was supposed to bring to the battlefield. As
Iqbal Husain comments, with this mansab ‘Ali M uhammad Khan ‘obtained the status
o f a Mughal noble’, and was entided to use ketde-drum s (naubai), a royal privilege. Ibid.,
p. 47.
6 Joshi, Gazetteer of India, Uttar Pradesh: Bareilly, p. 56, estimates that ‘Ali M uhammad
Khan had a private army o f betw een 30,000 and 40,000 men, though Iqbal Husain
appears to think this an exaggeration.
7 As Iqbal Husain explains, Safdar Jang’s anti-Afghan sentiments (and actions) were
rooted in the politics ofT urani-Irani factionalism in the imperial capital. T he Rohillas
18 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

In 1745 Safdar Jang led a Mughal force against ‘Ali Muhammad

Khan, forcing him to surrender. After being deprived o f his recent
conquests, he was given a revenue assignment (jagir) in Sirhind
(Panjab) to prevent him from regrouping his forces in Rohilkhand.
Furthermore, his eldest sons ‘Abdullah Khan and Faizullah Khan
were kept under royal custody in Delhi, as a guarantee for his good
behaviour.8
Despite these setbacks, ‘AH Muhammad Khan was able to recoup
his losses when in 1748 confusion overtook Mughal ranks in the
wake of Ahmad Shah Abdali’s invasion o f Delhi and the death o f
Emperor Muhammad Shah that year. While Mughal forces were
pre-occupied with Ahmad Shah’s invasion, he swifdy returned to
Rohilkhand and repossessed himself o f his former territories with
the help o f Afghan troops happy to desert to him once again.
‘Ali Muhammad Khan’s unexpected death in September 1748,
however, resulted in political confusion in Rohilkhand. W ith his
two eldest sons still in captivity (now in Kabul), and the next in line
a minor, control over Rohilla affairs fell to Hafiz Rahmat Khan (d.
1774), whom ‘Ali Muhammad Khan had appointed regent prior to
his death.9

T he N aw abs o f F arrukhabad

Meanwhile, south of Bareilly and across the Ganga in the Doab,

another Pathan tribe, the Bangash, was establishing its political
control centred on the town of Mau. Led by Muhammad Khan
(1665-1743), the Bangash Afghans enlisted as soldiers in Farrukh-
siyar’s army during the latter’s bid for the throne in 1713. W hen

were, by and large, supported by the Turani facdon, while Safdar Jang was part o f the
Irani group. Iqbal Husain, The Ruhela Chieftaincies, pp. 53, 61.
8 Baghel, Gazetteer of India, Uttar Pradesh: Rampurr pp. 40-1.
9 Hafiz Rahmat Khan and ‘Ali Muhammad Khan had a complex relationship themselves,
as ‘Ali M uhammad Khan’s adoptive father, Daud Khan, had been responsible for the
m urder o f Hafiz Rahm at Khan’s father, Shah Alam Khan. A blood feud between them
was avoided when they agreed to set aside old animosities in the 1730s, and Rahm at
Khan accepted ‘Ali M uhammad Khan’s leadership o f the Rohillas. ‘Ali M uhamm ad
Khan’s ancestry was his weak spot, since he had been a Hindu prior to his adoption by
Daud Khan. Ibid., pp. 37, 39.
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 19

Farrukhsiyar became emperor, Muhammad Khan assumed the tide

of Nawab, receiving among other things eight subdistricts (parganas)
in Bundelkhand for the upkeep of his troops.10 In 1714, seeking to
build up a power base in and around Mau, he founded the fortified
towns o f Kaimganj and Muhammadabad, and also began the con­
struction of Farrukhabad, which he named after Farrukhsiyar.11
As with ‘Ali Muhammad Khan, Muhammad Khan’s fortunes
initially rose during the reign of Emperor Muhammad Shah, Farrukh-
siyar’s successor, but then fell. In favour with the Emperor at least
until 1720, he was appointed governor (suhahdar) of the province o f
Allahabad.12 Thereafter, the Mughal court appears to have tried to
curb his growing influence. Ordered to proceed to Gwalior to lead
a campaign against the Marathas, his jagirs were resumed in the late
1720s. In 1729, when the Marathas besieged his fort at Farrukhabad,
no help was forthcoming from Delhi. Moreover, Allahabad, a
lucrative province, was taken away from him, and the troubled one
o f Malwa (subject to repeated Maratha incursions) allotted him
instead.13
Despite these setbacks, by the time ofhis death in 1743, Muham­
mad Khan’s authority extended over a considerable area:
Nawab Muhammad held the western half of the Cawnpur district. . . the
whole o f the Farrukhabad district; all o f the Mainpuri district except perhaps
one parganah; the whole o f the Eta district. . . nearly one half of the Budaon
district across the Ganges; and one parganaH o f the Shahjahanpur district. . . .
The local tradition states that parganah Marahra in the Eta district was obtained
in farm . . . in 1738.14

10 Farrukhsiyar rewarded M uhamm ad Khan with a ceremonial robe, and more

importandy with the ‘rank o f Com m ander o f four thousand. From that day [in January
1713] he was styled Nawab’. Irvine, ‘The Bangash Nawabs o f Farrukhabad’, Journal of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, IV (1878), 274.
11 Ibid., 275-80.
12 Ibid., 282-3. Earlier honours had included the following: In 1719, the Em peror raised
M uhamm ad Khan’s rank to 6,000 as reward for having backed him against his rivals; in
1720, he raised it to 7,000, also bestowing on him the ride o f ‘Ghazanfar Jang’ (‘T he
Lion o f W ar’), and some m ore parganas.
13 Ibid., 287-308.
14 Ibid., 348.
20 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Muhammad Khan was succeeded by his eldest son Q a‘im Khan (d.
1748). Well liked by Emperor Muhammad Shah, he was confirmed
in his possession of Muhammad Khan’s territories, and obtained
from the Emperor the tide o f ‘Farzand Bahadur’.
Thus far the two regional Pathan powers— ‘Ali Muhammad
Khan’s Rohillas in the Muradabad-Bareilly region, and Muhammad
Khan’s Bangash Pathans around Farrukhabad—had expanded at the
expense of the Mughal centre without coming into conflict with
each other. But when ‘Ali Muhammad Khan died in 1748, Safdar
Jang attempted to divide them by appointing Q a‘im Khan faujdar
(military and administrative officer) o f Muradabad. The latter ac­
cordingly led his forces against Rohilkhand.15 In the batde that
ensued, he was killed by Hafiz Rahmat Khan’s forces. Farrukhabad
and many other Bangash territories now fell to Hafiz Rahmat Khan.
These events were to eliminate the Afghans of Rohilkhand as a
regional power on par with Bengal or Awadh. Hitherto, strong
military leadership coupled with an ethic of loyalty amongst Afghans
had enabled them to unite in the face o f outside threat. So strong
was their sense o f loyalty that the Afghans even had Ahmad Shah
Abdali’s support against Mughal or Maratha attack. By the end of
the eighteenth century, however, they were a spent force both in
terms o f military strength and economic resources. Moreover, the
political landscape was changing. New threats had emerged.

A wadh s D o m in a t io n O ver R o h il k h a n d

Rohilla expansiomsm was decisively checked in the second half of

the eighteenth century by a combination of forces: the westward
expansion of Awadh as an autonomous province under SafdarJang16
and his son Shuja ud-Daula (d. 1775); Maratha incursions in the
region, whether as' an independent power or in alliance with the

15 Muzaffar Alam, Crisis of Empire, p. 269. Also jcc Iqbal Husain, The Ruhela Chieftaincies,
pp. 62-4.
16 As Muzaffar Alam points out, Safdar Jang ‘regarded the possibility o f a powerful chief
on the borders o f Awadh as a threat to [his] ambition'. (Crisis of Empire, pp. 269-70.)
Consequendy he saw the Bangash nawabs and the Rohilla chiefs as a potential threat.
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 21

Nawab o f Awadh and Mughal forces; and, after 1774, the British
presence.
Safdar Jang’s response to Qa'im Khan’s death and the defeat of
the Bangash forces by Hafiz Rahmat Khan was to attempt to annex
Farrukhabad to Awadh. Initially the attempt was repulsed by Q a‘im
Khan’s successor, Ahmad Khan Bangash (d. 1771). Indeed, the
Bangash retaliated by occupying ‘the important Awadh town of
Bilgram’ and sacking the town in 1750.17 Later that year, they
occupied Malihabad, on the outskirts o f Lucknow,18 and then
entered Lucknow itself. Their occupation o f Lucknow, however,
was of short duration. According to Cole, ‘the haughtiness o f the
new conquerors and the harshness o f their exactions provoked
sanguinary riots between the Afghans and the Shaykhzadahs [Sunni
landholders in Lucknow]’.19 More importandy, the local ‘Sunni
middle landholders based in small [Awadh] towns chose the Shi‘i
Safdar Jang over the Sunni Bangash tribesmen because his rule
offered more continuity o f political culture and revenue structure
than did that of the coarse new conquerors’.20 By 1752, Safdar Jang,
with assistance from Maratha and Jat forces, had succeeded in
defeating the Bangash and putting the Rohillas on the defensive as
well. But Ahmad Shah Abdali’s invasion o f north India that year
prevented him from decisively beating the Rohillas.
During the 1750s the Rohillas were also being attacked on their
southern and western flanks by successive waves o f Marathas. Their
only source o f hope and support at this stage lay with Ahmad Shah
Abdali (now styled ‘Durrani’), who, as a fellow Afghan, wanted to
see their power restored and that o f the Marathas crushed. Thus
both the regional Rohilla powers (Ahmad Khan Bangash and Hafiz
Rahmat Khan) supported Ahmad Shah in the Batde of Panipat of
1761. Despite their victory at this important batde, however, the

17 J. R . I. Cole, Roots of North Indian Shi'ism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh,
1722-1859 (Delhi: O xford University Press, 1989), p. 46.
18 Abdul Halim Shanu-, Lucknow: The Last Phase of an Oriental Culture, or, and ed. £ . S.
H arcourt and Fakhir Hussain (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 43, mendons
Malihabad.
19 Cole, Roots of North Indian Shi'ism, p. 46.
20 Ibid., p. 47.
22 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

tide o f events was not reversed, this time because o f the growth o f
East India Company power in north India, clearly indicated by the
British victory over Shuja ud-Daula at the Batde of Baksar in 1764.
That, in turn, was to lead to Awadh’s increasing load o f debt to the
British, and, ten years later, to Awadh’s annexation o f Rohilkhand
with British help.

R a m pur State, T he L ast R o h illa O utpo st

Ironically, while the eighteenth and nineteenth century regional

courts ofMuradabad-Bareilly-Aonla, Farrukhabad, and even Luck­
now (not to speak o f Delhi, the Mughal capital) came gradually
under direct British rule between 1774 and the Mutiny o f 1857,
Ram pur survived as an autonomous princely state down to 1949
following Indian independence. In large part, the political astuteness
o f successive nawabs of Rampur seems to have kept the state from
being swallowed up by the British; perhaps its small size and lack o f
strategic importance for the British also offers an explanation.
Rampur state was created in 1774. After the British and the
Nawab of Awadh defeated the Rohillas that year and usurped their
territory, Warren Hastings concluded a treaty with Faizullah Khan
(d. 1794) granting him Rampur, a small estate (c. 900 square miles)
wedged between Muradabad and Bareilly districts, in return for a
promise to render military assistance to the Nawab o f Awadh.21 This
Faizullah Khan, the first Nawab of Rampur, was none other than
‘Ali Muhammad Khan’s son, who had been taken to Qandahar and
Kabul by Ahmad Shah Abdali in 1748. Abdali had sent him back in
1751 to Aonla to help the Rohillas fight the Marathas and the Nawab
o f Awadh.22 Given his aristocratic origins, leadership qualities and
fighting skills, he became over the next two decades an important

21 O n these events, see Sir John Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1892), Indian reprint (Delhi: Prabha Publications, 1985), p. 275;
Baghel, Gazetteer of India, Uttar Pradesh: Rampur District, pp. 52-3.
22 Ibid., p. 44. The terms o f the Treaty o f Laldhang (1774) requiring Faizullah Khan
to furnish military troops to the Nawab o f Awadh were revised in 1783. U nder the
terms o f the new treaty, Faizullah Khan absolved himself o f any such future obligations
by paying fifteen lakhs o f rupees to the Nawab o f Awadh. Ibid., pp. 54-6.
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 23

Rohilla leader in Hafiz Rahmat Khan’s circle. W hen the latter was
killed in 1774, Faizullah Khan became ‘the acknowledged chief of
the Rohillas, . . . daily joined by men who had nothing to lose by
striking one more blow for their lands’.23 Deeming further warfare
against the combined forces o f the East India Company and Awadh
to be futile, however, Faizullah Khan consented a few months later
to the terms o f the treaty mentioned above.
W ith the end o f Rohilla military might, Faizullah Khan devoted
the remaining years o f his life to administering his little state and
attracting men o f artistic and literary talent to his court. There is
some evidence that the Raza Library was founded by Faizullah
Khan.24 Furthermore, the late eighteenth century poet Qa‘im (d.
1793-4), a pupil of Sauda, was patronized by the Rampur court.25
Sauda himself (1713-80), a poet of Shi'i persuasion, was patronized
by NaWab Ahmad Khan Bangash for seventeen years until his
departure for the Awadh court in 1771-2.26
The nawabs o f Rampur and Farrukhabad appear to have been
strongly influenced by the Shi'i court of the then reigning Nawab
o f Awadh, Asaf ud-Daula (d. 1797).27 Following Asaf ud-Daula’s
decision to move the capital of Awadh from Faizabad to Lucknow
in 1775, Lucknow experienced a construction and population
boom. Over the next quarter-century, Cole estimates, Lucknow’s
population grew from 200,000 to 300,000.28 Given the Shi‘i faith
o f the nobility and upper classes o f the Awadh court, Lucknow also
began at this time to acquire a reputation for Shi‘i scholarship,
religious practice, poetic talent, and grand architecture.29
In time, the nawabs o f Farrukhabad and Rampur became Shi‘i as
well. Cole reports that the ‘nawabs o f Farrukhabad became Shi'is in

23 Ibid., p. 51.
24 Abid Raza Bedar, Raza Library (Rampur: Institute o f Oriental Studies, 1966), p. 5.
(U rdu te x t)
25 M uhamm ad Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature, 2nd ed. (Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1984), pp. 142-3.
26 ibid., p. 108.
27 I ow e this insight to Carla Pedevich. Personal communication, 12 May 1993.
28 Cole, Roots o f North Indian Shi'ism, p. 94.
29 Ibid., pp. 93-100 and passim. Also see Sharar, Lucknow: The Last Phase, pp. 4 4 -9 .
24 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

the late eighteenth century’.30 Those o f Rampur appear to have

converted to Shi'ism somewhat later, for the writer of the 1911
Gazetteer of the Rampur Stqte suggests that the first nawab to become
a Shi'i was Muhammad Sa'id Khan (r. 1840-55), and that he did so
under the influence of Nawabs Amjad ‘Ali Shah (r. 1842-7) and
Wajid ‘Ah Shah (r. 1847-56) of Awadh.31 Subsequendy, all the
succeeding nawabs of Rampur—except one, Kalb ‘Ali Khan (r.
1865-87)— were Shi'i Muslims.
Ram pur’s patronage of religious learning and the arts blossomed
in the mid-nineteenth century, during Muhammad Sa‘id Khan’s
reign. He initiated efforts to expand the Arabic, Persian, and Urdu
MSS in his library:
There were several calligraphers, gilders, decorators o f wood slates, and
bookbinders employed [at the library]. New books were copied. Gold work
was done on precious books . . . . The Nawab invited . . . preeminent copyists
and Arabic hand-writers [from Kashmir], After them, their sons kept their skills
alive. From Lucknow, the Nawab invited and employed M ir Auz ‘Ali
Khushnavisi [a calligrapher] . . . . The Madrasa ‘Aliyya, that famous center for
Oriental sciences, also came into being at this time.32

Nawab Muhammad Sa‘id Khan was also acquainted with some o f

the leading literary and religious figures ofhis day: among them were
Mufti Sadr ud-Din Khan Azurda (d. 1863), a poet and scholar o f
Persian who held the judicial post o f Sadr al-Sudur until the 1857
Revolt; Maulana Fazl-e Haqq Khairabadi (d. 1862), a leading scholar
of his day who was held in great esteem by the Ahl-e Sunnat wa
Jama‘at; and Hakim Momin Khan Momin (d. 1851), who came
from a well-known family of Yunani physicians in Delhi and was
also a poet and scholar o f repute.33
Muhammad Sa'id Khan’s successor Yusuf 'Ali Khan had only
been in power about a year when the British ousted Wajid ‘Ali Shah
as ruler o f Awadh in 1856. The collapse o f the Awadh court left a

30 Cole, p. 103.
31 Baghel, Gazetteer of India, Uttar Pradesh: Rampur District, p. 68. Baghel’s source is the
1911 R am pur Gazetteer whose author appears (though this is not made entirely dear)
to be Syid A. H. Khan. See Baghel, ‘Preface'.
32 Abid Raza Bedar, Raza Library, p. 6.
33 Ibid., p. 5.
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 25

number o f poets, writers and scholars without patronage, and many

consequendy chose to come to Rampur. Sharar names a number o f
them in his history of Lucknow: among them Sayyid Muzaffar ‘Ali
Khan Asir (d. 1881), a scholar from Firangi Mahal; Munshi Mufti
Amir Ahmad Amir Minai (d. 1900), a writer of ghazal poetry; and
Hakim Sayyid Zamin ‘Ali Jalal (d. 1909), a Yunani doctor and
scholar o f Arabic and Persian.34
W hile the eclipse of the court of Awadh as patron had thus helped
enlarge the circle o f luminaries in Rampur, the Revolt o f 1857,
which led to the formal liquidation of the Mughal empire, had the
same effect. Y usuf‘Ah Khan had chosen to be loyal to the British
during their hour of peril; in fact he administered Muradabad district
on behalf of the British during their absence in 1856-57.35 Rampur
was thus spared the widespread destruction o f homes and displace­
ment o f families that the British visited upon the citizens o f Delhi.
Among those who found refuge in Rampur were, according to.
Sharar, Nawab Mirza Dagh Dehlavi (d. 1905), stepson o f Bahadur
Shah Zafar’s heir-apparent, and a writer ofghazals, and the poet Mir
Mahdi Majruh (d. 1902).36
The star of the court circle at Rampur was, however, Mirza
Ghalib (d. 1869), teacher (murshid) of poetry to Nawab Y usuf‘Ali
Khan who wrote under the pen name (takhallus) ‘Nazim’.37 In 1859,
Yusuf ‘Ali Khan began to send Ghalib a regular monthly grant for
correcting his poetry and writing occasional panegyrics on important
state occasions. Contrary to custom (and the preference o f the
Nawab), Ghalib was permitted to live in Delhi, making only
occasional visits to the Rampur court. In letters to friends Ghalib
sometimes referred to his relationship with the Nawab and visits to
Rampur. In 1865, he wrote:
About ten to twelve years ago the late Nawwab of Rampur Yusuf Ali Khan
began sending me his verses to correct; and every month he had a draft for a
hundred rupees sent me. Judge o f his tact and courtesy by the fact that he never

34 Sharar, Lucknow: The Last Phase, pp. 256-7, notes 278, 283, 288.
35 E. 1. Brodkin, ‘The Struggle for Succession: Rebels »nd Loyalists in the Indian M utiny
of 1857’, Modem Asian Studies, 6:3 (1972), 277-90.
34 Sharar, Lucknow: The Last Phase, p. 256, notes 284 and 287.
37 Abid Raza Bedar, Raza Library, p. 6.
26 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

demanded receipts for the money . . . . Besides this monthly allowance he

would send me other sums from rime to time— sometimes two hundred,
sometimes two hundred and fifty. During the rime o f the troubles (the M utiny
o f 1857J my income from the Fort [i.e., the Mughal court] ceased and my
pension from the British was stopped. This good man continued to send my
monthly allowance and occasional extra gifts from time to time; and that is
how I and my dependants managed to survive. The present Nawwab [Kalb
‘Ali Khan]— may God preserve and prosper him for ever and ever— continues
to send the draft for my monthly allowance as o f old. Let us see whether he
continues the practice of the occasional gifts or not.38

Although Ghalib did not fare as well under Kalb ‘Ali as he had under
his father, for reasons set out by Daud Rahbar,39 he must havd been
too important an asset to the Rampur court for Kalb ‘Ali to disown
entirely: as Rahbar adds, for all the differences between them, Kalb
‘Ali Khan continued the monthly payments and helped defray other
costs such as the wedding expenses of one of Ghalib’s sons. After
the poet’s death he settled some of his outstanding debts.40
Ghalib’s association with the Rampur court illustrates, in fact, the
increasingly important.role of the Muslim princely states in fostering
and preserving an Indo-Persian culture at a time when most of India
was under British rule. In patronizing Ghalib, Kalb ‘Ali’s larger
purpose must have been to make Rampur an important (if small)
regional court where Persianate cultural traditions associated with
learning, the arts, and Urdu letters, might flourish. To this end, he
also built up the resources of the Raza Library, and in 1886

38 Ralph Russell and Khuishidul Islam, tr. and eds., Ghalib 1797-1869, vol. 1: Life and
Letters (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), pp. 319-20. As the editors clarify,
the grant from Yusuf ‘Ali Khan began in July 1859, not in 1853 or 1854, as Ghalib here
suggests.
39 Daud Rahbar, tr., Urdu Letters of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (Albany: State
University o f N ew York Press, 1987), p. xxxviii: ‘the two men had never been, nor
were ever to be, terribly comfortable with each other. Ghalib’s grandfatherly atutude
towards the Prince was taken as condescension, and the former’s steadfast refusal to take
up residence in R am pur was not unreasonably taken as a slight. In addition, Kalb-i ‘Ali
was a staunch Sunni while Ghalib, though raised in a Sunni family, leaned towards the
Shi'ite faith. T he Prince took an exceedingly dim view o f drinking and gambling, tw o
activities in which Ghalib was known to indulge. T o make matters worse, the tw o also
clashed over their divergent views o f literature and Persian usage’.
40 Ibid.
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 27

inaugurated the construction o f a new library building.41 In addition

such patronage provided a favourable environment for the ‘ulama’
and institutions o f religious education such as the Madrasa ‘Aliyya.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Rampur
court attracted some figures who were later to be important in the
Indian nationalist movement. Pre-eminent among them was Hakim
Ajmal Khan (1863-1927), who was in charge o f the Raza Library
for seven years, from 1896 to 1903, and under whose direction £he
collection o f books on medicine (tibb) ‘grew to become one o f the
most priceless’ in the country.42 A protege o f Nawab Hamid ‘Ali
Khan (r. 1889-1930), he continued to visit Rampur after 1903,
whenever summoned by the Nawab for medical or other reasons.
W hen he died in 1927, Hamid ‘Ali Khan declared that even though
Ajmal Khan had been a Sunni while he, Hamid ‘AH, was a Shi'i, he
knew ‘that if [he] were anyone’s disciple in this world, [he] would
have been Ajmal Khan’s.’43

R o h il k h a n d U nder the E a st I n d ia C o m p a n y , 1801-57

While Ram pur retained its nominal independence, the rest of

Rohilkhand came under Awadh in 1774, and then under the East
India Company in 1801. The economic prosperity of Rohilkhand
became a thing o f the past, the result o f heavy revenue demands
from Nawab Asaf ud-Daula in Lucknow (who was himself under
pressure to pay the British in keeping with treaty obligations
entered into by his father Shuja ud-Daula). Brodkin writes, ‘Rohil­
khand . . . staggered into the British Raj in 1801, an exhausted and
impoverished state ravaged both by war and by twenty-seven years
of malign rule from Lucknow’.44
Rohilkhand’s impoverishment grew worse under the East India

41 Abid Raza Bedar, Raza Library, p. 7.

42 Ibid., p. 9.
43 Barbara D. Metcalf, ‘Hakim Ajmal Khan: Rais o f Delhi and Muslim ‘Leader’’,’ in R.
E. Frykenberg (ed.), Delhi Through the Ages: Essays in Urban History, Culture and Society
(Delhi: O xford University Press, 1986), pp. 306-7.
44 E .J. Brodkin, ‘British India and the Abuses o f Power: Rohilkhand U nder Early
Com pany R u le ’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, X:2 (June 1973), 130.
28 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Company, Brodkin argues, because o f the absence o f a landholding

class and an unrealistically high revenue demand: ‘The Pathans had
effectively destroyed the old proprietary body [the Rajput élite that
had governed the area before Pathan rule] and the Lucknow
administration had hardly taken measures to reinstate it’.45 Settling
for the revenue with registrars or record-keepers (qanungos) and local
headmen or muqaddams by means of auction, successive British
collectors fixed the revenue demand at a high and continually
increasing rate. The new ‘proprietors’ were promised that their tide
would be made permanent after a ten-year period; but before the
end o f this period, their inability to meet the revenue demand
resulted instead in their indebtedness to the British administration
and eventual dispossession.
At the end o f thirty years o f British rule, in Brennan’s view the
ryots or peasants seemed no better off than before.46 Despite rack-
renting by those who engaged for the revenue, the availability o f
uncultivated land provided possibilities o f escape while the force o f
custom also kept a lid on the extent to which the ryots might be
oppressed. Brennan argues that there were two significant changes
at the end o f this period: an increase in the acreage under agriculture
(and the growth of an important new cash-crop in the 1820s,
sugarcane), and the creation of a new landlord class o f government
officials, muqaddams, revenue-farmers, and bankers and merchants.
The last group (bankers and merchants), which was drawn largely
from Hindu bania castes, made up close to ten percent of the
landlord class. It had come to own property through money-lending
and control over cash resources.47
Such changes in the countryside were accompanied by changes
in the social composition o f the major towns of Rohilkhand. During
Rohilla rule, Bareilly had been dominated by the Rohilla élite.
Essentially a military élite, its members also occupied important
positions in government, administration, and landòwnership.

45 Ibid., p. 138. Iqbal Husain, however, disputes the view that the Afghans destroyed
the old zamindari class. See The Ruhela Chieftaincies, pp. 197-9.
46 L. Brennan, 'Social Change in Rohilkhand 1801 -3 3 ’, Indian Economic and Sodai
History Reiriew, VII:4 (December 1970), p. 465.
47 Ibid., pp. 45 8 -6 0 .
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 29

Additionally, the Rohillas had fostered religious education and

preserved an Indo-Persian cultural style. W ith the onset of British
rule their material base in landownership and military service disap­
peared. This urban ‘gentry’, as Bayly calls them, consequendy
suffered a decline in fortune and influence, while certain Hindu
castes (Brahmins, Rajputs and Banias) profited at their expense. It is
illustrative o f the social conflict generated by this process that
Bareilly, the largest and most important town in Rohilkhand,
experienced two major riots in the first half of the nineteenth
century, in 1816 and 1837.48 Bayly believes that the ‘local decline
o f the Rohilla gentry was the real cause’ of the 1816 riot.49
Driven by the need to increase revenues, the British had decided
to impose a house tax in Bareilly. However, both Hindu and Muslim
community leaders— the muhalladats or leaders of the city’s neigh­
borhoods or muhallas— were united in their opposition to the new
tax. As Bayly notes, their opposition was rooted in part in their
notions o f propriety and status: ‘There was a profound objection to
any system which not only released police spies into the neighbour­
hood communities, but which also invited people o f dubious origin
to assess others’ status and honour as represented in exchanges with
the rulers’.50 So great was public clamour against the tax that
‘business [came to] a standstill, the shops were shut, and crowds
assembled at the cutcherry to petition against the impost’.51
Leading the revolt was Mufti Muhammad Ewaz, a descendant of
Hafiz Rahmat Khan, who apparendy perceived the tax as a new
kind o f jizya, one which the Christian British were imposing on the
Muslims in a total reversal of its legitimate use.52 ‘For him India was
no longer a land o f Islam, but dar ul-harb, a land of war in which

48 My account o f these events is based on tw o sources: Sandria Freitag, Collective Action

and Community, chapter 3; and, on the 1816 riot, also C. A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen
and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770-1870 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 323-8.
49 Bayly, p. 323.
50 Bayly, ibid., p. 328.
51 Freitag, p. 105, quoting from the Bareilly District Gazetteer o f 1911.
52 Bayly, p. 325.
30 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

jihad (holy war) was possible’.53 The crowd’s perception that the
Mufti’s life was in danger led the call to war to be sounded:
It was when the crowds began to think that the mufti was in danger o f arrest
that the real explosion o f mob anger began. A very large crowd retired to the
Shahdana mosque and the green flag o f holy war was unfuded. The British
moved troops and cannon to surround the rebels.54

The rebellion was notable both for the cooperation between élite
Muslims and lower-class Muslims— artisans, day labourers, dyers,
weavers, and others— and for that between Hindu and Muslim élites.
Freitag notes that British rule in Rohilkhand had imperilled the
economic fortunes not only o f Pathans, but also those o f Khatris and
Kayasthas, who had shared in the Indo-Persian culture o f the
Pathans. Indeed, both these ‘old élites’ were in retreat before the
rising new class o f Hindu merchants who were profiting from the
revenue-farming and money-lending opportunities being created
by the British.55 As Freitag shows, the old élites responded to their
economic dislocation by groping for new cultural forms that would
at once recognize ascribed status and make space for a new style of
devotionalism which placed the individual at the centre.
By 1837 community leadership had moved more decisively into
the hands o f the new class, though the old élite families still enjoyed
some influence. In the twenty-one-year interval between the two
riots, the expansion of sugar-cane cultivation in the countryside had
further boosted the wealth and standing of the new élite. These changes
in social structure found expression in 1837, when the dates o f the
Hindu festival o f Ramnaumi (commemorating the god Rama’s
birth) and the Shi'i Muslim mourning rituals of Muharram (com­
memorating Imam Husain’s martyrdom at Karbala) coincided. W hen
British administrators ‘permitted full-scale observances of the Ramnaumi ’

53 Ibid.
54 Ibid. In footnote 63 on p. 325, Bayly incorrecdy identifies Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi
(d. 1831) as a resident o f Bareilly rather than R ae Bareilly* in Awadh. This leads him to
the further conclusion that ‘Key members o f the Rohilkhand ulema were thus closely
related to the m ore militant strain o f north Indian Islam’. In fact, the ‘Barelwi* ‘ulama’
o f R ohilkhand were opposed to Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi’s m ovem ent, as I show in the
course o f this book.
55 Freitag, pp. 106--7.
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 31

members of the old élite tried to defuse Muslim discontent by

disarming the Muharram crowd and leading it in the direction of
the Karbala, or field set aside for Muharram rituals.56 The Muslim
leaders then worked out a compromise with the Hindu leadership,
agreeing ‘to refrain from killing catde in the bazaar on Hindu festival
days in return for keeping the days o f Muharram free o f Hindu
processions’ 57As Freitag notes, the agreement reflected the growing
influence o f the Hindu mercantile élite, inasmuch as they were able
to persuade the Muslims to recognize their ceremonial rights in the
first place. And while the search for a compromise, led by the old
H indu and Muslim élites, showed that the latter were still influential
in Bareilly city politics, the compromise was fragile.58 By the 1870s,
w hen Hindus and Muslims clashed again over similar issues, the
H indu mercantile élite refused to be bound by previous agreements.
I shall end this brief survey o f major landmarks in eighteenth and
early nineteenth century Rohilkhand history with a few comments
about the 1857 Revolt in the region. According to Brodkin the
disappearance o f British authority in Rohilkhand in the first phase
o f the revolt led to a struggle for control by Rohilkhand’s old rivals,
the Rajputs and Pathans. Because the Pathans won, the British later
generalized that ‘Muslims’ were ‘rebels’ while ‘Hindus’ were ‘loyal’.
Brodkin argues that these labels are misleading, because the picture
was in fact much more complex. The British assumption o f‘Muslim’
guilt in fact led some Pathan leaders into rebellion by late 1857
against their will.59 In Rohilkhand the districts ofBareilly, Badayun,

56 Ibid., pp. 107-8.

57 Ibid., p. 108.
58 T he H indu leader o f the compromise, Chaudhari Basant Rai, was m urdered a few
years later by a Muslim carpet maker, ‘and when Ramnaumi and M uharram again
overlapped in the early 1850s, his son had great difficulty extending the agreement o f
1837\ Ibid., p. 108.
59 Brodkin’s paper, ‘The Struggle for Succession*, illustrates this basic argument with
reference to M ahm ud Khan, Nawab o f Najibabad (in northern Rohilkhand). T he fact
that M ahm ud Khan came from a family that had looked to the nawabs o f R am pur for
leadership is im portant, Brodkin argues. R am pur’s Nawab Y u su f‘Ali rem ained loyal
to the British throughout 1857—8. See E. I. Brodkin, ‘T he Struggle for Succession:
Rebels and Loyalists in the Indian M utiny o f 1857’, Modem Asian Studies, 6:3 (1972),
278-86.
32 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

and Shahjahanpur were controlled during the summer o f 1857 by

anti-British forces led by Khan Bahadur Khan, a grandson o f Hafiz
Rahmat Khan. Nawab Yusuf‘Ali Khan o f Rampur, as noted earlier,
remained loyal to the British, even administering Muradabad on
their behalf until the British re-established control in 1858. The
Nawab o f Farrukhabad, Tafazzul Husain Khan, though labelled a
rebel by the British (and deported to Aden for his alleged role in the
rebellion), had by his own account reluctandy co-operated with the
anti-British forces for fear of his life in October 1857.60

R e l ig io u s D edates a n d R enew a l M ovem ents

If the political situation in north India had been highly fluid in these
two centuries, the religious climate among the ‘ulama’ was hardly
any less so. As early as 1803, shortly after the British assumption o f
control over the city o f Delhi, debate started among the north Indian
‘ulama’ as to the shar(i (Islamic jurisprudential) status o f India under
British rule: was it still (as it had been under Mughal domination)
dar al-islam (a land of peace) or had it become dar al-harb (a land o f
war), Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz Dehlawi (d. 1824), son of the famous
eighteenth-century ‘alim, Shah Wali Ullah (d. 1762), was asked.61
Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz’s answer, though equivocal, is thought to
have inspired the jihad movement led by Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (d.
1831) in the NorthrW est Frontier Province and Panjab in the late
1820s.62
In Bengal, in 1821 another ‘alim, Haji Shari'at Ullah (d. 1840),
inspired by long residence in the Haramain, launched a reform
movement among Bengali Muslim weavers and peasants known as
the Fara’izi movement.63 The movement took its name from

60 Ibid., 277.
61 The debate on the religious status o f British India is addressed m ore fully in Chapter
VII below.
62 O n this movement, see Harlan O tto Pearson, ‘Islamic R eform and Revival in
N ineteenth C entury India: T h e Tariqa-i M uham m adiyah’, Ph.D. dissertation,
Departm ent o f History, Duke University, 1979.
63 O n the Fara’izis, see M u‘in ud-Din Ahmad Khan, History of the Fara’izi Movement in
Bengal (1818-1906), (Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society, 1965).
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 33

Shari'at Ullah’s insistence that the people fulfill their fundamental

duties (fara’iz, sing, farz) as Muslims— the daily prayer and other
so-called ‘pillars’ of Islam—and discard practices seen by him as
reprehensible innovations (bid‘a). Under Shari'at Ullah’s leadership,
the Fara’izis were also markedly anti-British. While not jihadists,
they refused to recognize the legitimacy o f British rule. In view of
the absence o f duly functioning qazis (judges) and amirs (com­
manders), they forbade the observance o f the Friday congregational
prayer (namaz-ejum'a or ju m 'a ki namaz) and ‘Id (festival) prayers.64
Haji Shari‘at Ullah’s son, popularly known as Dudhu Miyan (d.
1862), subsequently constructed a political framework based on a
complex hierarchy of khalifas (deputies) reporting ultimately to
himself. Refusal to pay land taxes brought the Fara’izis into increas­
ing conflict with the (largely Hindu) landowners and with the British
Indian government as well.65
Yet another Muslim reaction to the ongoing intensification of
British control was migration (hijra) to the Hijaz. Abu‘l Kalam Azad’s
(1888—1958) great-grandfather Munawwar ud-Din was one of
those who chose this option in the early nineteenth century.66 N ot
until the end of that century did the family return, led by Azad’s
father Khair ud-Din (1831—1908). Maulana Muhammad Ishaq
(1778-1846), Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz’s successor at the Madrasa
Rahimiyya in Delhi, also migrated in 1841, along with his younger
brother Ya‘qub.67
Several others left in the aftermath of the 1857 Revolt. Because
the British believed at the time that Muslim participation in the
Revolt had been decisive, they were particularly harsh toward

fi4 T he absence o f qazis was the result o f the progressive anglicization o f the law, both
in terms o f content and administration, starting in the late eighteenth century. See Um a
Yaduvansh, ‘T he Decline o f the R ole o f the Qadis in India, 1793-18 7 6 \ Studies in lslamy
6 (1969), 155-71.
65 This brief summary o f the Farai’zi movement is based on Roff, ‘Islamic Movements:
O ne or Many?*, pp. 40-1.
66 O n Azad, see Ian Henderson Douglas, Abul Kalam Azad: A n Intellectual and Religious
Biography, eds. Gail M inault and Christian W . Troll (Delhi: O xford University Press,
1988), pp. 32-3. M unawwar ud-D in probably left India in the early 1830s.
67 Barbara Metcalf, Islamic Retrival, p. 71.
34 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Muslims in its aftermath. Haji Imdad Ullah (1817—99) was one o f

several ‘ulama’ to migrate from India at this time.68
As for the ‘ulama’ who stayed, many retreated from large cities
such as Delhi to the relative security of the qasbas dotting the north
Indian landscape:
The ‘ulama now tended, by and large, to leave their beloved but desolate Delhi
behind in favor o f the qasbahs in which many o f them had their roots. The
places they chose, such as Deoband, Saharanpur, Kandhlah, Gangoh, and
Bareilly, were less touched by the British presence and were, increasingly, die
centers for preserving Muslim culture and religious life.69

Although Muslims suffered disproportionately from the after-effects

of the 1857 Revolt, the transformation in the conditions under
which social and economic life was conducted after this date affected
a wide range of Indians o f diverse religious and professional affilia­
tions. W ith the absorption o f several princely states into British India
by the mid-nineteenth century, large numbers o f soldiers who had
served in the private armies of various princes came to be un­
employed. Like Rampur, other princely states had also been a source
o f patronage to the ‘service gentry’, a category which included poets,
musicians, medical practitioners (tabib), and the ‘ulama’.70 The loss,
or substantial reduction at any rate, o f state patronage naturally
caused the livelihoods o f many literary, artistic and religious families
to suffer.71 Inversely, merchants (banias) in newly-emerging towns
along British-built railway routes prospered.
The late nineteenth-century Muslim renewal movements o f
north India, of which the Ahl-e Sunnat was one, emerged in this

68 Ibid., pp. 76, 7 9 -8 0 . Haji Imdad Ullah was pir to Maulanas M uhammad Qasim
Nanaueawi (1833-77), and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (1829-1905), tw o o f the founders
o f the Dar al-‘U lum at Deoband.
69 Ibid., p. 85.
70 O n state patronage o f medical practitioners, see Metcalf, ‘Hakim Ajmal K han/ in
Frykenberg (ed.), Delhi Through the Ages, pp. 301,305. O n court patronage o f musicians,
both Hindu and Muslim, see Daniel M. Neum an, The Life of Music in North India: The
Organization of an Artistic Tradition (Detroit: W ayne State University Press, 1980), pp.
170-1.
71 See Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, pp. 354—9, for a vivid and m ulti­
dimensional picture o f the causes for the decline o f the qasbas under colonial rule.
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 35

context o f a post-1857 British-dominated India. A new cultural

system was taking shape, dominated by Hindu merchant patronage
in an urban milieu. The non-viability o f the military option, given
the supremacy o f British power, and new developments in com­
munications technology, were also determining factors. The rapid
building o f railroads facilitated travel and advances in printing
methods opened up new possibilities for the ‘ulama’ in the fields of
education and publication. N ot surprisingly, therefore, the late
nineteenth century renewal movements concentrated their efforts
on education and publication in an attempt to provide personal
guidance to individual Muslims, rather than on state-related action.
As the Ahl-e Sunnat movement indicates, the new technologies
could be used both to preserve older cultural forms that emphasized
ascribed, hierarchical statuses and roles, and to promote newer, more
egalitarian ones focused on individual action and responsibility. Each
o f the major Muslim renewal movements made its own distinctive
choices from those available.

T he R enew a l M ovem ents

T o understand the religious perspectives and distinctive features of

the renewal movements that arose in north India after 1857, it is
necessary to go back to the eighteenth century. For, numerous and
diverse as these movements were, many saw themselves in one way
or another as heirs and followers of the teachings o f the famous
eighteenth century theologian of Delhi, Shah Wali Ullah.72 The
eclecticism and originality o f his thought are indicated by the range
o f those who have claimed to be his intellectual followers. Among
the ‘ulama’-led renewal movements, the Deobandis and the Ahl-e

72 T he most recent work to appear on Shah Wali Ullah's thought is J. M. S. Baljon,

Religion and Thought o f Shah Wali Allah DihlauH 1703-1762 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986).
Briefly, Baljon’s research indicates the importance o f certain currents in Shah Wali
U llah’s thought which had not thus far been appreciated by earlier scholarship on him.
Shah W ali Ullah’s leaning 'ow ard lbn al-‘Arabi (d. 1240) against Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi
(d. 1624) on the wahdat al-wajud vs. wahdat al-shuhud debate, for instance, does not seem
to have previously been recognized: see pp. 60-3. Shah Wali Ullah apparently
incorporated elements o f the teachings o f theologians as different from one another as
lbn al-‘Arabi, Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi and lbn Taimiyya (d. 1328).
36 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Hadis advanced a particularly strong claim. At the other end o f the

spectrum, modernist intellectuals such as Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan
(1817-98), founder of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College
at Aligarh in 1875,73 Maulana Abu‘l Kalam Azad, and Sir Muham­
mad Iqbal (1876-1938) acknowledged their debt to him.
W hat men like Sir Sayyid and Azad imbibed from Shah Wali
Ullah’s thought has naturally been very different from that which
the ‘ulama’ have incorporated. The former interpreted Shah Wali’s
rejection o f taqlid (legal conformism, following one of the main
Sunni law schools) in favor o f ijtihad (the exercise o f individual
reasoning or deduction) and talfiq (jurisprudential eclectism),74 for
instance, in the light o f their own modernist inclinations.75 The
‘ulama’, for the most part, took from Shah Wali Ullah different
aspects of his legacy, such as a renewed emphasis on hadis scholar­
ship. The Deobandis, who were in sufi terms primarily Chishtis but
shared Shah Wali Ullah’s affiliation to the Naqshbandi order, also
saw him and his successors as a ‘source o f spiritual blessing’.76 Finally,
the ‘ulama’ followed Shah Wali Ullah’s lead in their efforts to
provide moral guidance to the Muslim community, although the
context of political subjection to the non-Muslim British was far
from what Shah Wali Ullah had hoped and striven for.77
The Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya, the early nineteenth-century
movement led by Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi, was closely linked to Shah
Wali Ullah’s successors at Delhi. Sayyid Ahmad himself became a
disciple o f Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz in 1806; later, Muhammad Isma'il
(1781-1831) and ‘Abd ul-Hayy (d. 1828), two of Shah Wali Ullah’s
descendants, became Sayyid Ahmad’s disciples and close associates.

73 O n Sir Sayyid, see David Lelyveld, Aligarh's First Generation: Muslim Solidarity in
British India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), and Christian W . T roll,
Sayyid Ahmad Khan: A Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology (Delhi: Vikas, 1978).
74 See Baljon, pp. 1 66-8.
75 O n Sir Sayyid’s rejection o f taqlid, see, e.g., Troll, pp.128, 131, 275; on Azad and
taqlid, see Douglas, pp. 52, 75-76.
76 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 160; also pp. 28, 37, 43.
77 O n Shah Wali Ullah’s hopes for a stable Muslim politicalorder inIndia and attem pts
to bring this about, see, e.g., ibid., p. 35.
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 37

Aziz Ahmad describes the Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya in glowing

terms as
the practical culmination o f the religio-political thought o f Shah Wali-Ullah
. . . [a] movement o f religious purification and political revolution . . . . [The
movement marked] the progress o f Shah Wali-Ullah’s programme from theory
to practice, from life contemplative to life active, from instruction of the elite
to the emancipation o f the masses, and from individual salvation to social
organization.78

The programme o f ‘religious purification’ was spelt out in detail in

Muhammad Isma'il’s Taqunyat al-Iman (Strengthening the Faith),
written in Urdu in the 1820s. It dealt with the centrality o f the
concept o f tauhid (Allah’s transcendental unity), and denounced
popular devotional ritual at shrines and other beliefs or practices
regarded as shirk (polytheistic). As the name ‘Tariqa-e Muham­
madiyya’ indicates, its leaders took as their model the Prophet
Muhammad. The term ‘tariqa’ (sufi way or path) did not mean
however that this was a new sufi order; rather, the leaders preached
faithfulness to the prophetic sunna. The activist aspect o f the
movement, namely the jihad against the Sikh kingdom of Ranjit
Singh, was also modelled on the Prophet’s hijra to Medina.79
The Deobandi renewal movement, centred on the Dar al-‘Ulum
in Deoband, Saharanpur district, was dominated in its early years by
Maulanas Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi (1833-77) and Rashid
Ahmad Gangohi (1829-1905). The two men were united by a
friendship that went back to the 1840s when they had both been
private pupils at Delhi College. Subsequently, both became disciples
o f Haji Imdad Ullah Makki (1817-99) in the Chishti order (and
secondarily in the Qadiri, Naqshbandi, and other orders).80 Their
common commitment to the reform o f customary ritual practice,
and to an emphasis on hadis scholarship in the Shah Wali Ullahi
tradition, further cemented the relationship.81 In 1867, following

78 Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1964), p. 210.
79 This summary is based on Pearson, pp. 4 6 -8 ; Metcalf, pp. 5 6-62.
80 Metcalf, p. 158.
81 Ibid., pp. 7 6 -9 , 100-1.
 \

38 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

the Mutiny and the subsequent desolation of Delhi, both joined in

founding the Dar al-‘Ulum at Deoband.
As muftis (jurisconsults), the Deobandi ‘ulama’ attached great
importance to the writing o f fatawa as a means o f providing moral
guidance and instruction at the personal level. According to Metcalf,
the fatawa reflected the Deobandis’ concern for religious reform in
the following important ways:
The fatawa in general reflected three underlying principles: to revive lapsed
practices such as undertaking the hajj and permitting widows to remarry;
second, to avoid fixed holidays like the maulud [birth anniversary] o f the
Prophet, the ‘urs [death anniversary] o f the saints,. . . and the elaborate
celebration o f ‘Id [a Shi'i practice]; and, third, to prevent optional practices
being made obligatory— for example, the reading o f certain passages in super­
erogatory prayers or the distribution o f sweets upon the completion o f the
reading o f the Q ur'an. O n this foundation the reformers built, point by point,
to convey to their followers the conviction that they conformed to the sunnat.82

As had Shah Wali Ullah, the Deobandi ‘ulama’ also integrated sufism
into their lives. In their role as sufi guides and masters, they sought
‘to influence people to conform to the sunnat’,83 and emphasized
aspects o f sufi belief and practice that reinforced the reformist
message they sent out.
The Deobandis’ insistence that the prophetic sunna be the
measure o f approved belief and action indicates that, as for the
Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya o f the early nineteenth century, so for
them the Prophet was the ultimate model and exemplar of human
conduct. He was also the object of spiritual devotion, approached
through the experience of discipleship to a personal pir. The Prophet
intervened direcdy in the lives o f the Deobandi ‘ulama’, appearing
to them in dreams, giving guidance, and sanctioning their educa­
tional work at the school.84 As Metcalf says, the ‘ ‘ulama’ modeled
themselves on the Prophet, and ordinary people modeled themsel­
ves on them’.85
The centrality o f the prophetic model was expressed rather
82 Ibid., p. 151.
83 Ibid., p. 172.
84 See, e.g., ibid., pp. 92, 175.
85 Ibid., p. 350.
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 39

differently by the followers of the renewal movement o f the Ahl-e

Hadis. Initially calling themselves ‘Muhammadi’ to emphasize the
importance they attached to the Prophet’s example, they later used
the name Ahl-e Hadis in response to criticism that they were exalting
their relationship with the Prophet over that with Allah.86 They
believed that Muslims should act in accordance with the injunctions
of the Q ur’an and the prophetic sunna recorded in hadis, bypassing
the opinions o f the four Sunni law schools as embodied in Jiqh
(jurisprudential) scholarship. It was better to study the sources
directly in light ofthe application of qiyas (analogy) and ijma ‘ (consensus),
as the founders o f the law schools had themselves once done, they
argued, than to depend on commentaries, glosses, and the like.
This approach to the religious tradition, as Metcalf notes, could
hardly have been advocated for the uneducated. The Ahl-e Hadis
leadership consisted overwhelmingly o f the well-to-do and the
well-connected, people who had the necessary learning to interpret
the texts unaided.87
The Ahl-e Hadis preference for direct access to the sources o f
religious authority was also transparent in their disapproval o f sufism,
believed to be ‘a danger to true religion’.88 In this respect, as in their
rejection o f taqlid (i.e., of the authority of the Sunni law schools),
they differed dramatically from the Deobandis who, like the
majority o f Indian Sunni Muslims, were followers o f the Hanafi
school. Yet the two groups to some extent had common intellectual
roots in their affiliation to the Delhi reformists of the Shah Wali
Ullahi family, in their disapproval o f ritual practices such as ‘urs and
other shrine-related practices, and in their desire to promote social
reforms such as widow remarriage.89 These issues were the focus o f

86 Ibid., p. 272. N o scholarly monograph has yet been published on the Ahl-e Hadis
m ovem ent. T he following brief account is based on Metcalf, Islamic Revival, pp. 268-96.
87 In the front ranks o f the leadership were Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan (1832-90), who
m arried into the Bhopal ruling family, Sayyid Nazir Husain Dehlawi (d. 1902), and
Sayyid M ahdi ‘Ali Khan, also know n as Nawab M uhsin ul-M ulk, w ho was Sayyid
Ahm ad Khan’s successor as administrative director at the Anglo-M uhammadan Oriental
College at Aligarh. Metcalf, pp. 268-70.
88 Ibid., p. 274.
89 Ibid., pp. 2 7 3 -4 , 2 7 6 -7 .
40 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

‘ulama’ debate in the latter half o f the nineteenth century, and

provided the framework around which the ‘ulama’ created their
new institutional structures.
Despite the common intellectual roots shared by the Deobandis
and the Ahl-e Hadis, there was more to distinguish the Ahl-e Hadis
from the Deobandis and other nineteenth-century ‘ulama’ than
there was to bring them together. In addition to the heated debates
engendered in ‘ulama’ circles by the Ahl-e Hadis’s uncompromising
positions on taqlid and sufism, the latter also incurred British
displeasure by giving the appearance o f political disloyalty.90 This
was further exacerbated by the Ahl-e Hadis’s friendly relations with
certain Arab Muslims, which aroused British fears that the move­
ment might be sympathetic to the contemporary followers o f the
reform movement of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab o f Arabia.91
In the 1860s the British arrested Sayyid Nazir Husain, one o f the
Ahl-e Hadis leaders, for suspected involvement in the jihad move­
ment on the north-west frontier.92 Later, however, having proved
his innocence, Nazir Husain received a tide from the British.93
In the 1870s and 1880s the Ahl-e Sunnat movement emerged
under Ahmad Riza’s leadership in opposition to the movements
described here. Like the others, the Ahl-e Sunnat too centred their
vision of Islam on the Prophet, saw themselves as ‘reformist’, and
traced their intellectual heritage to the Shah Wali Ullahi tradition.94
90 T he truth o f these allegations is not known. According to a newspaper article dated
1881, Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan o f Bhopal had sent Bhopal state funds to aid the M ahdi
o f the Sudan, and had asked the Turks to help his state militarily. H ow ever Siddiq Hasan
him self w ent to some lengths to point out the many ways in which he had been loyal
to the British. See Metcalf, pp. 279-80.
91 Ibid., pp. 2 7 7 -8 ; Pearson, ‘Islamic R eform ', p. 162.
92 This was the same jihad m ovem ent which had started in the 1830s under Sayyid
Ahmad Barelwi’s leadership. Kept alive by a small leadership based in Patna, Bihar, it
was finally suppressed by the British in the 1860s and ’70s. T he m ovem ent provoked
considerable debate in British circles, stimulated by the publication o f one book in
particular, namely W . W . H unter’s work, The Indian Musalmans: Are They Bound in
Conscience to Rebel Against the Queen? published in 1871. O n this, and the so-called
‘W ahhabi Trials* o f 1869-71, see Pearson, pp. 215-26.
93 Metcalf, p. 281.
94 Though not entirely: they did not accept Shah Wali Ullah’s claim to be the mujaddid
o f the twelfth Hijri century, and disagreed w ith him on his position on ijtihad and talfiq.
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 41

Nevertheless, differing interpretatively from the Tariqa-e M uham-

madiyya, the Deobandis, the Ahl-e Hadis and other ‘ulama’ groups
about the significance to Muslims of the Prophet Muhammad, but
also on other matters, the Ahl-e Sunnat came by the 1880s to speak
with a voice distincdy their own.
Because the Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ were actively engaged in a
network o f relationships with certain sufi families in the United
Provinces and elsewhere, we must turn finally to intellectual
developments in north Indian sufi circles in the period of Ahl-e
Sunnat influence. As later chapters will show, Ahmad Riza had close
ties with the Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra, Etah district, and with
the ‘Usmani pin of Badayun. Both considered themselves reformist.
Reformist sufism, thus, constituted the third element (along with
British colonial rule and the rise o f reformist movements among the
‘ulama’) which shaped the direction taken by the Ahl-e Sunnat
movement in the late nineteenth century.

R e f o r m is t C u r r e n t s in S ufism

At the height o f British rule in late nineteenth century India, the

Barkatiyya pirs of Marahra and the ‘Usmani pirs of Badayun took
pride in the belief that their ancestors (buzurg) had at all times
accorded precedence to the shari‘a over tasawwuf (sufi belief and
practice). They considered the latter to be a necessary complement
to the shari'a, enriching it but not superseding it in any way. This
attitude, which accorded well with the Ahl-e Sunnat emphasis on
following the sunna, was what defined a sufi as ‘reformist’.95 The
Ahl-e Sunnat contrasted it with the ‘excesses’ o f ‘false’ sufis who

H ow ever, they regarded Shah W ali Ullah's eldest son, Shah ‘Abd ul-\Aziz, as the
m ujaddid o f the thirteenth Hijri century. Their attitude to the next generation o f scholars
in the family, represented by the leaders o f the Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya, was different
again, for they rejected the Tariqa’s legitimacy entirely. For the Ahl-e Sunnat and the
mujaddid issue, see Chapter VII o f this study; for the Ahl-e Sunnat on the Tariqa-e
M uhammadiyya, see Chapter VIII.
95 T he term reformist is widely used in the scholarly treatment o f sufism, though it is
n ot a translation o f any single w ord in Arabic or U rdu by which the sufis may have
described themselves. T he w ord ‘orthodox* is also frequendy used in the scholarly
literature to describe sufis w ho put the shari‘a above tasawwuf.
42 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

thought they had attained such spiritual heights that they need not
fulfill the daily ritual prayers and other prescribed duties. In his daily
conversations with followers, Ahmad Riza frequendy condemned
such sufis, saying they were inspired by Satan.96
While Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ were affiliated with all the major sufi
orders (tariqas) current in British India, as were ‘ulama’ in other
movements, most emphasized their ties to the Qadiri order over the
Chishti and Naqshbandi.97 Nevertheless, their respect for the other
orders was evident. For one thing, some of Ahmad Riza’s followers
belonged to the Chishti and Naqshbandi orders. Furthermore, the
Ahl-e Sunnat regarded Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz Dehlawi, whose affilia­
tion was primarily Naqshbandi, as the mujaddid o f the thirteenth
Hijri century.
In each o f these three orders— Qadiri, Naqshbandi, and Chishti—
certain key figures were thought to have been particularly associated
with the attempt to subordinate sufi ‘excesses’ to shar‘i sobriety. O f
them Shaikh ‘Abd ul-Haqq Muhaddis Dehlawi (1551—1642) and
Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (1564—1624) lived during some part o f the
reign o f Emperor Akbar (d. 1605). Scholars have generally assumed
that the hostile attitude o f these two shaikhs toward Akbar’s religious
policy, including their objection to the occupation of important
positions of state by Hindus and Shi'is,98 was representative o f the
views o f many Sunni Muslims in Akbar’s day.
For Ahmad Riza, Shaikh ‘Abd ul-Haqq Muhaddis Dehlawi, o f
the Qadiri order, is the more important o f the two men. In part,
this is related to Shaikh ‘Abd ul-Haqq’s valuable contributions to

96 See, e.g., Ahmad R iza Khan, Malfuzat-e A "la Hazrat (Gujarat, Pakistan: Fazl-e N u r
Academy, n.d.), vol. 3, pp. 22-3.
97 T he Suhrawardi order, though usually included as one o f the four major Indian
tariqas, is m entioned relatively infrequently in the lists o f different orders into which
individual ‘ulama’ were initiated.
98 Hostility to the Em peror is particularly associated with Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi. See,
e.g., S. A. A. Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements in Northern India in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries (Agra: Agra University, 1965), pp. 210-24, and passim. Yohanan
Friedmann, however, cautions against the tendency in m odem scholarship to make m ore
o f this than is justified. See Yohanan Friedmann, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi: A n Outline o f
His Thought and a Study of His Image in the Eyes o f Posterity (Montreal and London:
M cG ill-Q ueen’s University Press, 1971), pp. 106-11.
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 43

hadis scholarship (acknowledged by Sunni Muslims o f all schools,

not just the Ahl-e Sunnat). Ahmad Riza cites him frequendy in his
fatawa. Additionally, Shaikh ‘Abd ul-Haqq, contributed to Qadiri
intellectual discourse through his writings on sufi themes. According
to S. A. A. Rizvi,
[his] writings on sufism are generally an attempt to reconcile the Shari'a with
the T ariqa; nevertheless they also assert the superiority o f Shaikh ‘Abdu‘l-Q adir
Jilani and the Wahdat cd- Wujud. His celebrated Akhbaru 1- akhyar, relating to
Indian sufis. . . emphasizes die belief that Shaikh ‘A bdui-Q adir was superior
to all his predecessors and that his precedence over all future generations o f
saints o f God was also guaranteed. T o Shaikh ‘Abdu‘l-Haqq, the Ghausul-
A'zam’s claim, ‘My foot is on the neck o f every saint o f G od’ was a well-
considered statement."

Ahmad Riza shared in these views completely. He too revered

Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani (d. 1166), the founder o f the Qadiri
order in ‘Abbasid Baghdad, over and above all other saints. He also
affirmed his belief in the sufi doctrine o f wahdat al-wujud (ontologi­
cal or existential monism) against that o f wahdat al-shuhud
(phenomenological monism) which came to be associated with the
Qadiri order after Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani’s death.100 In part
because he believed that discussion o f this doctrine should be
confined to the learned (the khawass, as against the ‘awamm, ordinary
people), and in part perhaps because he was not particularly inter­
ested in the debate, the occasional references to this issue in Ahmad
Riza’s writings are (to my knowledge) rather brief.101

99 S. A. A. Rizvi, A History o f Sufism in India, vol. 2 (Ddhi: Munshiram Manoharlal

Publishers, 1983), p. 90.
100 This im portant but complex philosophical debate among sufis has been frequendy
dealt w ith in the scholarly literature. T he wahdat al-wujud position is associated with
Ibn al-‘Arabi (1165-1240), and takes a pantheistic view o f creation. This is the Qadiri
position as well, though it is opposed by the Naqshbandis. For details, see, e.g., Burhan
Ahmad Faruqi, The Mujaddid's Conception of Tawhid (Lahore: Sh. M uhamm ad Ashraf,
1940).
101 See, e.g., Ahmad Riza Khan, A l- *Ataya li-Nabawiyya fi'l Fatawa al-Rizwiyya, vol. 6
(Mubarakpur, Azamgarh: Sunni D ar al-Isha*at, 1981), p. 132; McXfuzaU vol. 1, p. 48. In
the Malfuzat reference, Ahmad R iza specifically told someone w ho asked him to explain
the doctrine o f wahdat al-wujud that if he w ent into the details his explanation would
not be understood by the questioner.
44 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Ahmad Riza— and the Ahl-e Sunnat generally—were also drawn

to Shaikh ‘Abd ul-Haqq’s approach to the Prophet. In Madarij
al-Nubuwwa, a Persian ‘biography o f Prophet Muhammad in five
. . . parts,’ Shaikh ‘Abd ul-Haqq defended the belief tliat Muham­
mad had performed miracles.102 He also wrote in praise o f Faqr
al-Muhammadi, a book by the Arab sufi al-Wasiti (d. c. 932), on love
of the Prophet and the excellence o f the ‘Muhamntadiyya Tariqa'.
al-Wasiti exhorted sufis to regard the Prophet as their ‘Shaikh and
Imam’, and to strive to attain mystical union with him .103 In outward
behaviour, they were enjoined to be chaste, emotionally restrained,
and faithful to the shari'a.
Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, a Naqshbandi sufi and contemporary o f
Shaikh ‘Abd ul-Haqq, was widely accepted by the nineteenth
century ‘ulama’ as the renewer o f the eleventh Hijri century, and
perhaps even as ‘Renewer of the Second Millenium’ (mujaddid-e
alj-e satii), whose task was of particular significance because it
happened to inaugurate a millenium.104 Ahmad Riza respectfully
refers to him on one occasion as ‘Hazrat Shaikh Mujaddid’, and
mentions with approval his work Mabda’ o Ma ‘ad.w5 I am not aware
o f any discussion o f Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi’s thought in Ahmad
Riza’s vast corpus o f writings. Yet Ahmad Riza’s evident familiarity
with Sirhindi’s works makes it unlikely that he would not have
known about Sirhindi’s ‘unorthodox’ views on Muhammad’s
prophethood, and of Shaikh ‘Abd ul-Haqq’s strong objections to

102 Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements, p. 171; and A History of Suftsm in India, p. 89.
103 A History o f Suftsm in India, p. 94.
104 Shah Wali Ullah accepted Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi’s claim to the tide o f renew er o f
the eleventh Hijri century, but makes no m ention o f the larger claim. See Friedmann,
Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, pp. 103—4; Deobandis and Ahl-e Hadis looked upon him as a
reformer, and presumably acknowledged him as renew er o f the eleventh Hijri century,
though M etcalf does not mention this specifically. Metcalf, pp. 183, 277, 353.
105 The context for this reference to Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi was an argument about
the second azan (call to prayer) on Fridays. Ahmad Riza supported his position against
some Naqshbandi Mujaddidis on this issue by attempting to prove that their position
was in opposition not only to him, Ahmad Riza, but also to Sirhindi, founder o f their
own line o f Naqshbandi sufis. Dabdaba-e Sikandari (Rampur), 50:16 (March 16, 1914),
5 (Question 18). Sirhindi’s w ork Mabda’ o Ma'ad was apparendy very popular in the
seventeenth century. See Friedmann, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, pp. 5-6.
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 45

these.106 The controversy over Sirhindi grew even greater during

Aurangzeb’s reign. In 1682, some Indian ‘ulama’ asked certain others
in the Haramain for their opinion, and the Sharif o f Mecca wrote
that ‘the ‘ulama’ o f Hejaz thought Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi was a
kajir (infidel)’.107 In 1679 Aurangzeb issued a decree forbidding the
teaching o f those ‘false ideas’ contained in Sirhindi’s Maktubat
w hich ‘are apparendy opposed to the views o f ahl al-sunnah wa-al-
jam a‘a h \m
Debate about Sirhindi appears to have ceased in the eighteenth
century. Perhaps Shah Wali Ullah’s acceptance o f Sirhindi as
renewer o f the eleventh Hijri century (though not the Renew er o f
the Second Millenium) set the tone for later ‘ulama’, who do not
appear to have interested themselves in the controversy. Metcalf
writes that the Naqshbandi order, increasingly influential in
eighteenth century north India due to the contributions o f mystics
and poets like Mirza Mazhar Jan-i Janan (1700-80) and M ir Dard
(1721-85), both o f Delhi, ‘was to shape the views o f many ‘ulama’
toward sobriety in spiritual experience and rigorous adherence to
the religious Law’.109 In this their position resembled Shaikh ‘Abd
ul-Haqq Muhaddis Dehlawi’s insistence that tasawwuf be guided
by shari'a.
The same trend is also associated with the Chishti order, though
along somewhat different lines than the Qadiri and Naqshbandi

106 Friedmann, pp. 8 8 -9 , discusses ‘Abd ul-H aqq’s objections to aspects o f Sirhindi’s
th o u g h t For a clear and detailed exposition o f Sirhindi’s ideas themselves, Friedmann’s
book should be consulted, particularly Chapter 2.
107 S. A. A. Rizvi, Shah Wali-Allah and His Times: A Study o f Eighteenth Century Islam,
Politics and Society in India (Canberra: Ma'rifat Publishing House, 1980), p. 324. John
Voll thinks that one o f the Medinese ‘ulama’ w ho opposed Sirhindi’s ideas at this time
may have been an ancestor o f a nineteenth-century M edinese ‘alim w ho in 1905 attested
a fatwa by Ahmad Riza Khan in which certain Deobandi ‘ulama’, and Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad, founder o f the Ahmadiyya m ovem ent, were condem ned as kafir. T he family
connection is suggested by similarity betw een the names M uhamm ad bin ‘Abd al-Rasul
al-Barzanji Shafi‘i (one o f the Medinese ‘ulama’ to consider Sirhindi a kafir) and Shaikh
Sharif Ahm ad Barzanji, Shafi‘i mufti o f M edina in 1905 (Jo h n Voll, personal
com m unication, February 24, 1990).
108 Friedmann, p. 94. N ote that Sirhindi is here being described as being in opposition
to the *Ahl al-sunnah wa-al-jama‘a h \ Ahmad Riza presumably did not share the opinion.
109 Metcalf, p. 28.
46 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

orders. The Chishti has probably been, since its inception in the
thirteenth century, the most popular o f all the orders in India, both
in court circles and among the population.110 Founded by M u‘in
ud-Din Chishti o f Ajmer (d. 1235), the order quickly spread to Sind,
the Panjab, and the Deccan through a network o f disciples tracing
their spiritual genealogy to M u'in ud- D in.111 In time it branched
into two distinct silsilas (chains o f spiritual authority), the Chishti
Nizami and the Chishti Sabiri.
Subsequendy, in the Panjab, Chishti influence apparendy suffered
a decline until the eighteenth century. A renewed emphasis on
obedience to the shari4a then formed part o f the Chishti attempt at
spiritual regeneration.112 Prior to this however, during the years o f
Mughal decline, the order revived in Delhi under the leadership o f
Shah Kalimullah (1650-1729).113
At the initiative o f Shah Fakhr ud-Din o f Delhi, a khalifa
(successor) of Shah Kalimullah, the Chishti resurgence spread to the
Panjab, where the Muslims lived in subjection to the Sikhs. W orking
through the sufi mediational institutions o f khanqah (hospice) and

1,0 T he most recent study o f the order is P. M . Currie, The Shrine and Cult of M u ’in
al-din Chishti of Ajmer (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989). C urrie attempts to
disentangle the M u'in ud-D in o f legend from the historical figure, and also gives a
detailed picture o f the current social and economic organization o f the shrine. O n this,
also see Syed Liyaqat Hussain M oini, ‘Rituals and Customary Practices at the Dargah
o f Ajm er’, in Christian W . Troll (ed.), Muslim Shrines in India (Delhi: O xford University
Press, 1989).
111 T he early spread o f the order has been studied by, among others, Simon Digby,
‘T h e Sufi Shaikh as a Source o f Authority in Mediaeval India’, in Marc Gaborieau (ed.),
Islam and Society in South Asia (Paris: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1986).
Digby has an illuminating discussion, on pp. 67-9, o f the inherent contradictions
betw een the ‘professed aims and necessary practice in the pursuit o f the role o f a great
Shaikh’. O ne o f the greatest o f these contradictions related to the order’s ideal o f poverty
and independence from the state, as against its record o f landownership, patronage by
the state, and territorial jurisdiction.
1.2 M. Zam eeruddin Siddiqi, ‘T he Resurgence o f the Chishti Silsilah in the Punjab
during the Eighteenth C entury’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 1970 (N ew
Delhi: Indian History Congress, 1971), 1, p. 409.
1.3 According to Gilmartin, in the context o f ‘declining central power, he reorganized
the Chishti order and emphasized the central importance o f tabligh, or the active
propagation o f Islam, as its fundamental mission’. David Gilmartin, Empire and blam:
Punjab and the Making of Pakistan (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1988), p. 57.
 Politics and Religion, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 47

dargah (tomb-shrines), rather than through madrasas as did the

reformist ‘ulama’, leading Chishtis such as Khwaja N ur Muhammad
Maharwi (1730-91) and Khwaja Suleman o f Taunsa (1770-1850)
extended the influence o f the order in the western Panjab.
During British rule most Chishti pirs in the Panjab were drawn
into association with the British government.114 Reformist pirs such
as Pir Mehr ‘Ali Shah o f Golra (1856-1937), a disciple o f Khwaja
Suleman, however, distanced themselves from such ties. As Pir
M ehr ‘Ali was directly associated with the Ahl-e Sunnat movement
in the Panjab,115 it is important to refer to Gilmartin on his career
and intellectual orientation at some length:
Like many Punjabis who sought an advanced religious education in Bridsh
India, M ehr Ali Shah traveled to the United Provinces, where he studied hadis
and tafsir (Qor'anic exegesis) with leading ‘ulama’ in the reformist tradition.
Returning to Punjab with a concern for reform, he became the disciple o f an
important khalifa o f Khwaja Suleman . . . ; under his influence M ehr Ali Shah
transformed Golra into a major Chishti center . . . .
H e refused to be drawn into direct association with the British government.
He maintained his deep reformist concern with the personal instruction o f his
disciples in the individual obligations o f Islam, issuing numerous fatwas (rulings)
on points o f religious law and gaining a reputation for religious learning among
a section o f ‘ulama’.116

As Gilmartin goes on to say, Mehr ‘Ali illustrates two major aspects

o f the Chishti revival. O ne was a concern for obedience to the shar‘,
the other a continued commitment to the mediational ties o f the
lpiri-muridi bond, the shrine, and the urs’.117
In Gilmartin’s view, sufi reformist pirs o f the Panjab such as Mehr

,14 O n the relationship between the Panjab pin and the British governm ent, see
Gilmartin, Empire and ¡slam, pp. 39-72.
1,5 H e was at one time Muhaddis Surati’s fellow student o f hadis in a class taught by
one Maulana Ahmad ‘Ali M uhaddis Saharanpuri, and was associated w ith the Anjuman
N u'm aniyya w hich administered the Dar al-‘Ulum Nu'maniyya, an im portant Ahl-e
Sunnat school in Lahore. Khwaja Razi Haidar, Tazkira-e Muhaddis Surati (Karachi: Surad
Academy, n.d.), pp. 320-1.
116 Gilmartin, Empire and Islam, pp. 5 8 -9 .
1,7 Ibid., p. 59.
48 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

‘Ali were helped by the emergence o f the Ahl-e Sunnat movement

in north India and Panjab. Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’
c h a m p io n e d a religious o u tlo o k in w h ic h religious m e d ia tio n a n d c u sto m h a d
a c o n tin u in g a n d central place . . . . T h e arg u m en ts o f th e B arelvi ‘u la m a ’
a im e d at leg itim iz in g th e religious a u th o rity o f all th e sufi revival pirs, b u t
a c c o rd in g to th e standards o f religious e d u c a tio n an d d e b a te d e v e lo p e d b y th e
refo rm ers. T o an im p o rta n t d eg ree, th e p resen ce o f these ‘ulam a’ thus h e lp e d
to ju stify th e e n tire m o v e m e n t o f ru ral sufi rev iv al.118

While the Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ would probably not have defined
their purpose as the desire to ‘justify the entire movement o f rural
sufi revival’ (they would have said they were reviving and following
the sunna), Gilmartin’s comments are useful in the connections he
makes between the Ahl-e Sunnat, other nineteenth century ‘ulama’,
and the movement of sufi reform.

" 8 Ibid., pp. 6 0 -1 .

 Chapter II

A Sunni Muslim Scholar:

Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi

Colonialism set the framework for what could or could not be done
in late nineteenth century India: while appropriating political power
the British nevertheless provided conditions favourable for the
emergence o f movements such as the Ahl-e Sunnat. The com­
munications and transportation networks, so effectively utilized by
the ‘ulama’ in order to organize and unite, were a British creation,
put in place in order to further the needs o f empire. The British also
provided Western models of administration and organization that
the ‘ulama’ adapted in innovative ways across the country. Most
importantly, though, the British policy o f support for pre-colonial
elites enabled religious families who had acquired an economic base
in landownership prior to British rule to survive, even to prosper.
This was most evident in Panjab, where the rural pirs came to play
a ‘hinge’ role, to use Gilmartin’s term, mediating between the British
at the top and ordinary villagers below.1 As we shall presently see,
religious families associated with the Ahl-e Sunnat movement in the
United Provinces, such as the Barkatiyya pirs of Marahra and the
‘Usmani ‘ulama’ o f Badayun, suffered economically during the
nineteenth century, though this was less the result o f hostile British
policy than of mismanagement. Some ‘ulama’-led institutions
benefitted from British patronage, as in the case of Badayun’s

1 See Gilmartin, Empire and Islam, pp. 5 6-62, and passim.

50 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Madrasa Shams al-‘Ulum, wliich also received material assistance

from the independent nawabs o f Haidarabad and Rampur. British
rule also opened up new economic possibilities in government
service, o f which some ‘ulama’ availed themselves.
In addition, the ‘ulama’ accepted the British presence because o f
British non-interference in religious practice. The Ahmadis in the
Panjab were notably pro-British, because that government, as
Ghulam Ahmad saw it, ‘allow[edJ everyone not only to profess and
practice but also to preach and propagate his own religion’.2 In the
United Provinces both Deobandis and the Ahl-e Sunnat ruled for
the same reason that late-nineteenth century British India was dar
al-islam (a land o f peace). Nevertheless, their acceptance o f British
rule was pragmatic rather than whole-hearted, and they distanced
themselves from the sources o f power.3 For the most part, the Ahl-e
Sunnat literature o f the period takes the British presence for granted
and ignores it.
Emerging in this political context, then, the Ahl-e Sunnat
fashioned a movement centred on one ‘alim in particular, Ahmad
Riza Khan. The litany of tides with which his biographer, Zafar
ud-D in Bihari, introduced Ahmad Riza in his 1938 Hayat-e A la
Hazrat illustrates the reverence in which his followers held him:
[His] exalted presence, Imam o f the Ahl-e Sunnat, Renew er o f the present
[fourteenth Hijri] century, Strengthener. . . (mu ‘aiyid) o f the pure miUat,
Maulana Mauiawi Haji, Reciter (qari) and Memorizer (hafiz) o f the Q ur'an,
Shah Muhammad Ahmad Riza Khan Sahib Qadiri Barkad Barelwi, May his
grave be hallowed . . . .4

Although the movement’s self-perception denies the role offounder

to Ahmad Riza, the sources make clear the centrality o f his life and
work in the formulation by the Ahl-e Sunnat of a particular
interpretation o f din—seen within the movement as a restatement o f
an original, pristine ‘Islam’ going back to Muhammad’s day.

2 Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous, p. 34.

3 O n the Deobandi attitude, see Metcalf, pp. 154 -5 ; for that o f the Ahl-e Sunnat, see
Chapter IX below.
4 Zafar ud-D in Bihari, Hayat-e A la Hazrat, vol. 1 (Karachi: Maktaba Rizwiyya, 1938),
Preface.
 Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi 51

A hmad R iza K han: C h il d h o o d a n d Y outh

Ahmad Riza Khan was o f Baraich Pathan (or Rohilla) ancestry.

Biographical sources are vague about when his ancestors first came
to India. Perhaps it was in the seventeenth century that a branch of
his family left its home in Qandahar for India, joining the Mughal
imperial bureaucracy as soldiers and soldier-administrators.5A family
ancestor eventually setded in Bareilly, where he was awarded a land
grant for military service. Then followed a brief interlude during
which Ahmad Riza’s great-grandfather, Hafiz Kazim ‘Ali Khan,
served the Nawab o f Awadh in Lucknow.6 This may have occurred
in the second half o f the eighteenth century, when Mughal fortunes
were in considerable decline and north Indian politics in a state o f
flux as a result o f Maratha incursions and the growing British power.7
As Rohilkhand had become subject to the suzerainty o f Awadh in
1774, service under the nawabs must have seemed promising to a
soldier. The Nawab is said to have granted Hafiz Kazim ‘Ali two
revenue-free (mu'aji) properties, which remained in the family’s
possession until 1954.8
But by the end o f the eighteenth century Hafiz Kazim ‘AH
probably returned to Bareilly, for Ahmad Riza’s grandfather, Riza
‘Ali Khan (1809-65/66), is said to have grown up in that town.
Making a break with the family tradition o f military service, he
became well known as ¿faqth (jurisconsult) and sufi gnostic in the
Qadiri order.9 He was educated at Tonk, the only Muslim state in

5 Ibid., p. 2 ; Hasnain Riza Khan, Sirat-e A la Hazrat (Karachi: Maktaba Qasimiyya

Barkatiyya, 1986), p. 40. T he sources give no dates for these events beyond the fact that
the m ove to India occurred during M ughal time$. As it is implied that the Mughal empire
was flourishing at the time, it seems plausible to suggest that the event may date to the
sixteenth-seventeenth centuries.
6 Sirat-e A 1a Hazrat, p. 41. The move to Lucknow is not m entioned by Zafrr ud-D in
Bihari in his Hayat-e A ‘la Hazrat.
7 O n eighteenth-century politics in north India, see Richard B. Barnett, North India
Between Empires: Awadh, the Mughals, and the British, 1720-1801 (Berkeley: University
o f California Press, 1980).
§ Sirat-e A 1a Hazrat, p. 41.
9 Zafar ud-D in Bihari refers, in this context, to numerous miracles performed by Riza
‘Ali, as well as his fondness for a majzub or ascetic. See Hayat-e A*la Hazrat, pp. 4-5.
Also see Metcalf, p. 298.
52 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Rajputana, completing his study o f the dars-e nizami syllabus at

twenty-three.10 After his time the warrior’s profession became a
thing o f the past, as succeeding generations came to enjoy a reputa­
tion for Islamic scholarship and/or saintliness.
Historically speaking, this switch from the military to the scholar­
ly life was a reflection in part of changing times, for (as the previous
chapter indicated) one o f the great changes brought about by British
rule was the fact that large numbers o f soldiers came to be un­
employed in the mid-nineteenth century.11 Fortunately for Riza
‘Ali, the family’s wealth was secure, for it owned several villages in
Bareilly and Badayun, adjoining Bareilly to the south-west. The
properties were looked after by Maulana Naqi ‘Ali Khan (1831-80),
Ahmad Riza’s father, who was known both as a scholar and as a
local notable (ra’is)}2
In his biography of Ahmad Riza, Zafar ud-Din Bihari relates a
story about Riza ‘Ali following the British resumption o f control
over Bareilly after the 1857 Revolt:
After the tumult o f 1857, the British tightened the reins o f power and
committed atrocities toward the people, and everybody w ent about feeling
scared. Important people left their houses and went back to their villages. But
Maulana Riza ‘AH Khan continued to live in his house as before, and would
go to the mosque five times a day to say his prayers in congregation. O ne day
some Englishmen passed by the mosque, and decided to see if there was anyone
inside so they could catch hold o f them and beat them up. They w ent inside
and looked around but didn’t see anyone. Yet the Maulana was there at the
time. Allah had made them blind, so that they would be unable to see him . .
. . He came out o f the mosque, they were still watching out for people, but
no one saw him .13

10 Maulawi Rahm an ‘Ali, Tazkira-e 'Ulama'-e Hind, tr. M uhammad Ayub Qadiri
(Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society, 1961), p. 193. T he course o f studies is described
as ‘ulum-e darsiyya. For the books included in the dars-e nizami course, see G. M . D.
Sufi, Al-Minhaj, Being the Evolution o f Curriculum in the Muslim Educational Institutions o f
India (Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli, 1941), pp. 73-5.
11 M etcalf writes, ‘T he greatest change [resulting from Bridsh rule] took place in military
service, as successive princes were brought under British control and their armies, both
formal and informal, were disbanded’. Islamic Revival, p. 49.
12 Sirat-e A 'la Hazrat, p. 36.
13 Hayat-e A ‘la Hazrat, p. 5.
 Riza ‘Ali Khan
(1809-66)
I
Naqi ‘Ali Khan
(1831-80)
I
Ahmad Riza Khan Hasan Riza Khan Muhammad Riza Khan
(1856-1921) (1859-1908)
(Aman Miyan)* (Manjhle Miyan) (Nanhe Miyan)
r I i
Hamid R i za Khan Mustafa Riza Khan Husain Riza Hasnain Riza a daughter**
(1875-1943) (1892-1981) Khan Khan
I I
Drahim Riza
Ibr Hammad One son Murtaza Idris Ja^jis Tahsin Sibtain Habib
Khan Riza Khan (died in in­ Riza Khan Riza Khan Riza Khan Riza Khan Riza Khan Riza Khan
(Jilani Miyan) (Nu‘mani fancy), seven
(1907-65) Miyan) daughters
---1
Rehan Akhtar
Riza Khan Riza Khan
(Rehani Miyan) (Azhari Miyan)
I
Subhan
Riza Khan
(Subhani Miyan)

* Affectionate name used by elders or close family associates. All names in parentheses are of this category.
** Married to Mustafa Riza Khan, Ahmad Riza’s younger son, whose uncle and father-in-law Muhammad Riza Khan regarded him as a son. Muhammad
Riza resided in his house.
Dates are indicated where known.
Daughters were not regarded as bearers of spiritual or scholarly authority, and are therefore seldom mentioned. The marriage pattern was for die most
part endogamous.

Figure 1 Family T ree o f Ahm ad Riza

54 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Bihari quotes the Q ur‘anic verse ‘And We have put a bar in front
o f them and a bar behind them, and further, we have covered them
up; so that they cannot see’ (36:9, Y usuf‘Ali tr.) after narrating this
miracle (karamat). It is one o f the relatively few references to the
relations between Ahmad Riza’s family and the British in the
biography. For Zafar ud-Din Bihari, as for others who revered
Ahmad Riza, the telling o f this story establishes both Riza ‘Ali’s
piety and his distance from the British.
Indeed there is no evidence that Riza ‘Ali was involved in the
events o f 1857 on either side. In later years Ahmad Riza’s family
(see figure 1), while never engaged in government service, appears
to have had indirect but cordial relations with British officials. His
father, a wealthy landowner, apparendy suffered little loss o f proper­
ty after 1857.14 Ahmad Riza’s nephew Hasnain Riza (d. 1981),
owner o f the Hasani Press in Bareilly which published a number o f
Ahmad Riza’s works (Chapter III) was reportedly well regarded by
the British. While he never worked in an official capacity, it is said
that he used to collect fees (chungi) from the police tribunal for the
British, act as arbitrator (hakam) in disputes between Muslims in the
town, and exercise his personal influence with the administration
on behalf o f local citizens.15 Ahmad Riza’s father-in-law, Shaikh
Fazl-e Husain, was a government officer in the Ram pur Post Office,
and attended the Nawab’s court.16
By the time Ahmad Riza’s education began in the 1860s, the
family already had a well-established reputation for scholarship. Its
inclination was toward rationalist studies (ma'qulat) and fiqh (juris­
prudence), specialties also of the ‘ulama’ o f Badayun and Khairabad
(the latter lies east o f Bareilly in Awadh). This was in contrast to the
hadis (prophetic traditions) scholarship o f the descendants of Shah

14 Maulana Tahsin Riza Khan, a grandson o f Ahmad Riza’s brother Hasan Riza, said
that tw o villages ow ned by the family in R am pur were lost to them after 1857, because
o f failure to find the tide deeds. Interview, April 18, 1987.
15 This was reported by Sibtain Riza Khan, son o f Hasnain Riza. Interview, April 18,
1987.
16 Hasnain Riza Khan, Sirat-e A la Hazrat (Karachi: Bazm-e Qasimi Barkati, 1986), p.
152. As noted in C hapter I, the Nawab o f R am pur himself was pro-British, though
politically independent.
 Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi 55

Wali Ullah.17 In fact, by the second half o f the nineteenth century,

the ‘ulama’ o f Badayun and Bareilly had distanced themselves
considerably from the Delhi ‘ulama’.
Ahmad Riza’s first teacher was one Mirza Ghulam Qadir Beg,
for whom Ahmad Riza is said to have retained a lifelong affection,
sending him fätawa whenever he requested.18 Ahmad Riza later
studied the dars-e nizami under his father’s direction. His father
exerted an important intellectual influence on his thought in these
formative years. From him he imbibed an attitude o f opposition
to Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (d. 1831) and others o f his Tariqa-e
Muhammadiyya movement. Indeed, many o f the major intellectual
issues that later engaged Ahmad R iza are foreshadowed in
Maulana Naqi ‘Ali’s own writings, which included works in op­
position to the ‘Nejdis’ (the Muwahhidun in Arabia) in general and
to Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi’s Taqwiyat al-Iman in particular, defence
o f the practice o f milad (birth anniversary o f the Prophet) and qiyam
(standing up at a designated m om ent during the milad), and works
about the qualities of the Prophet Muhammad. Notably, he
participated in a debate that had begun in the early nineteenth
century in north India (and in which Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi had
taken a prominent part) about Allah’s omnipotence. In the 1870s
some ‘ulama’ saw in the concept o f Allah’s omnipotence the
implication that Allah could create another prophet equal to the
Prophet Muhammad (an issue described as imkan-e nazir, the
‘possibility o f an equal’) should He so wish. Naqi ‘Ali opposed such
a theoretical possibility, arguing that there never could be
a n o th e r person like the Prophet (a view described as imtina’-e
nazir or imtina’-e mumasalat-e rasul, the impossibility of an exact
equivalent to the Prophet). This debate was recorded by Maulana
Hafiz Bakhsh (d. 1921) in his Tanbih al-Juhhal bi-Ilham al-Basit

17 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 298.

18 Hayat-e A la Hazrat, p. 32. Opponents o f the Ahl-e Sunnat have alleged that the Mirza
was a brother o f Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder o f the Ahmadi m ovem ent. See Ehsan
Elahi Zaheer, Bareilavis: History and Beliefs (Lahore: Idara Taijum an al-Sunnah, 1986),
tr. D r. Abdullah, p. 41. How ever, Mirza Q adir Beg was a resident o f Bareilly w ho later
m oved to Calcutta. H e had no connection with the Ahmadis.
56 Dtvotional Islam and Politics in British India

al-M ut(al (Censure o f the Ignorant People . . .) and published in

1875.19
W e know little about Ahmad Riza’s teachers other than his father
and grandfather. He had a few other teachers as well, notably
Maulana Abu‘l Husain ‘Nuri Miyan’ Maraharwi. But unlike many
others in his day, he had no madrasa education. This is surprising,
given the presence of well-known centres o f learning in the
Rohilkhand area such as Ram pur’s Madrasa ‘Aliyya and Badayun’s
Madrasa Qadiriyya, which shared his own inclination for ma‘qulat.
The biographical references to Ahmad Riza’s scholarly abilities
make the point that much of his knowledge was self-taught and was
to be seen as a blessing from Allah.20
The biographies are replete with stories o f Ahmad Riza’s preco­
ciousness as a child: when learning the Arabic alphabet, he instinc­
tively knew, Zafar ud-Din Bihari writes, the significance o f la
(composed o f lam and a lif), the word with which the Muslim
attestation o f the faith or kalima (also shahada, lit. ‘witness’) begins.
Ahmad Riza’s grandfather, in explaining the significance o f the word
to him, is said to have simultaneously communicated to him the
secrets o f gnostic knowledge.21 Tales such as these indicated to
Ahmad Riza’s followers his lifelong and intuitive obedience to the
shari‘a as well as his eminence as a sufi pir.22
Ahmad Riza is also reported to have accomplished extraordinary
intellectual feats. For instance, he had read the entire Q ur'an by the
time he was four, and at the age o f six, addressed a large audience
from the pulpit (minbar) o f a mosque on the occasion of a milad.23
Later, when learning the dars-e nizami from his father, he quickly

19 These biographical details about Maulana Naqi ‘Ali are based on Rahm an ‘Ali,
Tazkira-e ‘Ulama'-e Hind, pp. 530-2. Maulana Hafiz Bakhsh was associated with the
scholarly circle o f the ‘ulama’ o f Badayun.
20 Hayat-eA la Hazrat, p. 35. As Zafar ud-D in writes, ‘By [God’s] grace, it was through
his ow n efforts and his own intelligence that he [Ahmad Riza] mastered so many different
fields o f knowledge that his books cover as many as fifty different fields’.
21 Hayat-e A 4la Hazrat, pp. 3 1 -2 .
22 O n the sufis’ interpretations o f the kalima, see Annemarie Schimmel, ‘T he Sufis an d
the Shahada\ in Richard G. Hovannisian and Speros Vryonis, Jr. (eds.), Islam's
Understanding of Itself (Malibu : U ndena Publications, 1983), pp. 103-25.
23 Hayat-e A ‘la Hazrat, pp. 3 2 -3 .
 Ahmad R iza Khan BareluH 57

demonstrated that he had outstripped the latter in knowledge,

rewriting parts of a complicated text to answer a criticism noted on
the margins by his father.24 O n another occasion, he solved in five
minutes a complex mathematical puzzle brought to his attention by
a mathematics professor at MAO College (later Aligarh Muslim
University), with which the latter had been grappling for months.25
These are but a few of the intellectual achievements credited to
Ahmad Riza. The telling and retelling o f such exemplary stories
assured Ahl-e Sunnat followers of the special favours bestowed by
Allah on their leader Ahmad Riza, and consequently, opposition
from their critics notwithstanding, o f the righteousness o f their
vision o f din.
An important landmark in Ahmad Riza’s early life was his
assumption o f responsibility from his father for writing fatawa in
1869, when he was about fourteen.26 Fatwa-writing was to be his
primary occupation for the rest o f his life, the main medium through
which he personally expressed his vision o f din, engaged in con­
troversy with other ‘ulama’, and defended his views with ‘an
armoury of erudition’ based on quotation from Qur'an, hadis, and
Hanafi authorities o f fiqh.27
W riting in the scholarly solitude of his home in Bareilly, sur­
rounded by books and a few devoted followers, was characteristic
o f Ahmad Riza’s personal style and temperament. Modelling his life
on the prophetic sunna as he interpreted it, he was attentive to the
details of comportment, dress, and etiquette in daily life, and
corrected those about him if they were not likewise attentive. Thus,
when reading or writing he sat with his knees drawn up together,
never stretching his legs out in the direction o f the qibla in Mecca.

24 This clicked the com m ent by Naqi ‘Ali that Alunad Roza was teaching him , rather
than the other way around. Ibid., p. 137.
25 Ibid., p. 151; Sirat-e A 1a Hazrat, pp. 7 2 -4 ; Burhan ul-Haqq Jabalpuri, Ikram-e Imam
Ahmad R iza (Lahore: Markazi Majlis-c Riza, 1981), pp. 58-60. This incident is believed
to have occurred some time between 1914 and 1917. M etcalf also refers to it in Islamic
Revival, p. 299.
26 Hayat-e A 1a Hazrat, p. 11.
27 T he phrase within quotes is from Metcalf, p. 304. Chapters VI through VIII o f this
study examine Ahmad R iza’s fatawa in some detail.
58 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

He always entered the mosque with his right foot first and left it
with his left foot first.28 Both teacher and patron to his followers, he
was also personally generous, indeed lavish, in his periodic gifts to
his students and disciples,29 a characteristic one may attribute perhaps
to his Pathan ancestry.30As Metcalf says, his style was ‘aristocratic’.31
This characteristic was also evident in his relations with fellow
‘ulama’. As later chapters show, he seldom participated in large-scale
organizational endeavours other than those associated with ritual
observances or the annual graduation ceremonies at the Madrasa
Manzar al-Islam founded by him in 1904.
If Ahmad Riza’s scholarship and attentiveness to the details o f
personal conduct were among the sources o f his moral authority,
another important source was the approval o f authoritative figures,
gained in the course of journeys he undertook at various junctures
in his life. Although the biographies, presenting him fully-formed
from childhood (and therefore a ‘bom ’ leader), give us no sense o f
his growth o f stature as a leader o f the Ahl-e Sunnat movement, we
do get some perspective on this by focusing on important journeys
made by him in chronological order. Thus, his second hajj was very
different, we find, from his first.

Im po r ta n t J ourneys

Before going on hajj, Ahmad Riza went, in 1877, to Marahra, in

order to receive discipleship (bai'a) from an elderly pir o f the
Barkatiyya Sayyid family resident there. Marahra is a qasba in Etah
district, about 120 kilometres southwest o f Bareilly. Ahmad Riza,
about twenty-one years old at the time, was accompanied by his

28 Hayat-e A la Hazrat, pp. 2 7 -8 , 68, 177- 9. See Francis Robinson, ‘The ‘Ulama o f
Farangi Mahall and T heir Adab\ in Barbara D. M etcalf (ed.), Moral Conduct and Authority:
The Place of Adah in South Asian Islam (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1984),
pp. 152-83, for an account o f similar attention to the details o f personal conduct am ong
the ‘ulama* o f Firangi Mahal. As he says on p. 178, this was a source o f moral authority.
29 Hayat-e A (la Hazrat, pp. 5 0-4.
30 Thus, Iqbal Husain writes: ‘Hospitality was regarded as a necessary obligation, guests
were held in great honour and all care was taken for their comfort. They [the Rohillas]
were equally open-handed on ceremonial occasions . . / The Rjihela Chieftaincies, p. 206.
31 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 306.
 Ahmad R iza Khan Barellisi 59

father, for both wanted to become murids (disciples) of Shah Al-e

Rasul (d. 1878-79) .32 The sources tell us that this visit was preceded,
for Ahmad Riza, by a period o f painful spiritual longing during
i which his grandfather appeared to him in a dream and assured him
that relief would soon be forthcoming.33 This came to pass as
prophesied when a revered friend and mentor of his father’s,
Maulana ‘Abdul-QadirBadayuni (1837-1901), came to their house
and advised father and son to seek bai‘a from Shah Al-e Rasul of
Marahra.34
According to the biographical accounts, when Ahmad Riza and
his father arrived at Marahra they were welcomed with unusual
honours. Shah Al-e Rasul accepted them both as his disciples right
away, although a forty-day period o f waiting (and training), called
chilla, was customary. Ahmad Riza and his father received permis­
sion to accept disciples in all the sufi orders.35 The sources suggest
that Ahmad Riza and Shah Al-e Rasul shared an intuitive bond:
while Ahmad Riza had experienced an internal longing, Shah Al-e
Rasul had been waiting the last several days to see him. N ow that
he had done so, he said he could die in peace, knowing that when
Allah asked him what he had brought Him from the world, he could
offer Him Ahmad Riza in reply.36
That Ahmad Riza’s biographers should seek to convey the

32 C hapter IV deals w ith the Barkatiyya family o f pirs to which Shah Al-e Rasul
belonged. Also see Chapter V for the significance to Ahmad Riza o f his tie o f discipleship
to Shah Al-e Rasul.
33 Sirat-c A ‘la Hazrat, p. 55.
34 ‘Abd ul-Q adir Badayuni (1837-1901), son o f Maulana Fazl-e Rasul Badayuni,
studied under a num ber o f well-known teachers. Am ong them were Maulana Fazl-e
Haqq Khairabadi (d. 1861), who was imprisoned by the British in the Andaman Islands
for anti-British activities during 1857. ‘Abd ul-Q adir Badayuni was active against the
‘W ahhabis’, and in opposing the Nadwat al-'Ulam a’ in the 1880s. See R ahm an ‘Ali,
Tazkira-c ‘Ulama’-c Hind, pp. 311-13. Ahmad Riza was to involve himself forcefully
in these concerns as well. For details, see Chapters VII and VIII below.
35 Multiple affiliation into a num ber o f sufi orders (tariqas) was the norm in the
subcontinent in the nineteenth century. For discussion, see Metcalf, Islamic Revival, pp.
158-9, and passim. As she notes* usually one order was emphasized over others by
different sufis. In the Ahl-e Sunnat’s case, their primary affiliation was to the Qadiri
order.
36 Sirat-e A ‘la Hazrat, pp. 5 5 - 6.
60 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

impression that he was Shah Al-e Rasul’s most valued disciple should
not surprise us. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that he was
accompanied by his father and by Maulana ‘Abd ul-Qadir Badayuni,
both revered elders, arid that Shah Al-e Rasul had been approached
at ‘Abd ul-Qadir’s behest. It had not been Ahmad Riza’s personal
decision to do so.37
Shortly after this journey, Ahmad Riza accompanied his father
in 1878 on another important voyage, to the Haramain to perform
hajj. At the time, the hajj from British India, in contrast to that
originating in the Dutch East Indies for instance, was relatively
unregulated by the government.38 Recurrent outbreaks o f cholera
at Mecca during the pilgrimage season, however, had begun by the
1860s to cause colonial governments some alarm, particularly as
cholera spread to Europe and America via the Hijaz and Egypt. It
was in this context, as well as concern about the large number of
indigent Indian pilgrims (hajjis) who failed to return after completion
of the pilgrimage and unsanitary conditions on board ship, that the
British Indian government began in the late nineteenth century to
attempt some form o f regulation.39 Initially hesitant to do so, in
succeeding years political considerations (the fear o f subversion)
reinforced the trend toward surveillance and control.40
Ahmad Riza’s first hajj was thus conducted in circumstances quite
different from those surrounding his second in 1905, about twenty-
five years later.41 In personal terms, and in those o f the Ahl-e Sunnat

37 In C hapter V, I further explore the relationship between Shah Al-e Rasul and Ahmad
Riza and suggest reasons for believing that the personal bond betw een them was not as
close as the sources indicate, though the piri-m uridi tic o f discipleship w ith the
Barkatiyya family was for Ahmad Riza a perm anent one.
See William R . Roff, ‘Sanitation and Security: T he Imperial Powers and the
N ineteenth Century Hajj’, Arabian Studies, VI (1982), 146.
39 T he 1878 hajj was accompanied, for the first time, by an Assistant Surgeon, one
Abdur Razzack, charged w ith observing and reporting on the sanitary conditions
surrounding the pilgrimage. Ibid., 147.
40 Government regulations a generation or so later were spelt out in considerable detail.
See, e.g., General Instructions for Pilgrims to the Hedjaz and a Manual for the Guidance of
Officers and Others Concerned in the Red Sea Pilgrim Traffic (Calcutta: Superintendent
G overnm ent Printing, India, 1922).
41 A vivid account o f this second pilgrimage is in Ahmad Riza Khan, Malfuzat-e A *la
 Ahmad R iza Khan Barelwi 61

movement as well, both pilgrimages had important but very dif­

ferent meaning. The first hajj was important because by performing
it Ahmad Riza fulfilled one o f the fundamental duties o f a Muslim.
Additionally, while in the Haramain he obtained certificates (sanads)
in several fields of knowledge— hadis, fiqh, usul-ejiqh (principles of
the law), and tafsir (Qur‘anic exegesis)— from two well-known
muftis (jurisconsults).42 In Mecca, muftis, as expounders o f the
shari'a, were appointed by the Ottoman government. Sayyid Ahmad
Dahlan (d. 1886), the then mufti of the Shafi‘is, and one of the two
who are said to have given Ahmad Riza a sanad on this occasion,
was the Shaikh al-‘Ulama’ o f Mecca. He issued fatawa in his capacity
as mufti, and taught at the Haram mosque.43 The other ‘alim was
one ‘Abd al-Rahman Siraj, the mufti of the Hanafis; the holder of
this position was consulted by the government whenever it wished
to issue new rules or laws in Mecca.
Yet more honours were awarded Ahmad Riza. If the bestowal
o f sanads by the above-mentioned muftis had enhanced his stature
as a scholar, the following incident seems to bear primarily on his
spiritual role. It is said that Husain bin Saleh, the Shafi'i imam o f the
Maqam-e Ibrahim mosque near the Ka‘ba noticed him one day
during the evening (maghrib) prayer. Although they had not been
introduced, the imam gazed at him intendy, seized him by the hand,
and took him home. There he held his forehead for a long time,
saying at length that he saw Allah’s light in it. He then gave him a
new name, Zia ud-Din Ahmad, and a sanad in the six collections o f
hadis,44 as well as one in the Qadiri order, signing it with his own
hand. In this sanad there were only eleven names intervening
between those ofHusain bin Saleh and al-Bukhari.45 Finally, Ahmad

Hazrat, vol. 2, pp. 2-4.

42 Tazkira-e 4Ulama’-e Hind, pp. 9 8 -9 .
43 C. Snouck Hurgronjc, Mekka in the Latter Part of the 19th Century, pp. 173, 175, 187.
44 Known by the names o f their compilers, these are: the Sahih Bukhari by al-Bukhari
(d. 256/870); the Sahih Muslim by Muslim (d. 261 /875); and the Sunan by Abu D a’ud
(d. 275/888), al-Nasa’i (d. 303/915), al-Tirm idhi (d. 278/892), and Ibn Maja (d.
273/886). T he first two are collectively know n as the Sahihmn, and arc the most
authoritative.
45 Tazkira-e 'Ulama*-e Hind, p. 99. T he significance o f this statement is rather confusing,
62 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Riza received another sign o f spiritual favour at Medina: a vision one

night at the H anif mosque that he had been absolved o f all his sins.46
These and other spiritual honours bestowed on Ahmad Riza on
his first hajj point us toward the rite de passage symbolism o f hajj. At
the end o f his journey, Ahmad Riza returned to India imbued with
the moral authority required to become the pre-eminent leader o f
the Ahl-e Sunnat movement. Having earlier been accepted as
disciple by the Qadiri pir Shah Al-e Rasul, he had now also received
the blessings o f the ‘ulama’ o f the Haramain. His new identity was
symbolized by his new name.47 In Ahl-e Sunnat terms, the sig­
nificance of the first hajj was that as he was Allah’s chosen instrument
for the task o f rebuking the ‘ulama’ of the subcontinent in this era
ofbid‘a (reprehensible innovations), Allah had called him to the pure
land of the Haramain before he embarked on his lifelong mission
(as leader of the Ahl-e Sunnat) in India. The ‘ulama’ of the Haramain
loved him, blessed him with the wealth of their knowledge in many
fields, including gnosticism, and sent him back to India.48
Acknowledgement o f Ahmad Riza’s moral leadership o f the
Ahl-e Sunnat movement was publicly made in 1900, when he
undertook another journey. This was to Patna, to attend a meeting
of the Majlis-e Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama‘at, an anti-Nadwa organization

for if it was a sanad in the Qadiri order as m entioned (rather than in hadis), presumably
it ought ultimately to be traceable to Shaikh ‘Abd al-QadirJilani (d. 1166)» the founder
o f the Qadiri order, rather than al-Bukhari, one o f the major authoritative sources for
hadis.
46 Tazkira-e ‘Ulama1-e Hind, p. 99. This last detail is significant in that it assured Ahm ad
Riza o f an afterlife in hfcaven. T he Ahl-e Sunnat (as do many other Muslims) believe
that such assurance had been given to only a few Com panions o f the Prophet during
their lifetimes.
47 See Victor Turner, ‘Pilgrimages as Social Processes’, in his Dramas, Fields# and
Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974);
William R . Roff, ‘Pilgrimage and the History o f Religions: Theoretical Approaches to
the Hajj\ in Richard D. Martin (ed.), Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies (Tucson:
Arizona University Press, 1985). Arnold Van Gennep points out in The Rites of Passage
(Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1960), pp. 62-3, that the act o f naming is an
act o f ‘incorporation’, that is, o f acquisition o f a new identity at the final stage o f the
rite o f passage.
48 A khtar Shahjahanpuri, Introduction, in Rasa'il-e Riziviyya (Lahore: M aktaba
Hamidiyya, 1396/1976), p. 6.
 Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi 63

o f A hl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ founded by Qazi ‘Abd ul-W ahid

Azimabadi. It is reported that in the course o f the week-long
meetings Ahmad Riza was unanimously proclaimed the mujaddid
(renewer) o f the fourteenth Hijri century.49 This proclamation was an
important landmark not only in his career, but in the history o f the
Ahl-e Sunnat movement itself. An unambiguous statement o f the
Ahl-e Sunnat’s self-perception as a— indeed the only— movement o f
renewal among contemporary Muslims, it was simultaneously a
measure o f self-confidence and a challenge to rival Muslim renewal
movements (such as the Deobandi) which advanced similar claims.
While rival ‘ulama’ groups did not accept the Ahl-e Sunnat claim,
the mutual rivalry was itself indicative, as Metcalf points out, o f
common aspirations for Islamic ‘reform’.50
Returning to the growth in Ahmad Riza’s moral standing as
reflected in his travels, we must attend to his second hajj in 1905.
Unlike the first in which his position was that of a seeker and humble
recipient o f honours, the second was akin to a triumphal tour with
important consequences back home. Ahmad Riza had already
corresponded with many o f the ‘ulama’ he met in the Haramain on
this occasion. In the 1890s he had sought and received the confir­
mation o f some Meccan ‘ulama’ o f a controversial judgment made
by him in certain fatawa condemning the Nadwat al-‘Ulama’. But
during this visit (judging by our Ahl-e Sunnat sources) the roles were
to some extent reversed. He had again sought and received confir­
mations by several ‘ulama’ of a fatwa (this time an anti-Ahmadi and
anti-Deobandi one). But more than this, many ‘ulama’ had sought

49 Chapters VI and VII discuss the concept o f the mujaddid and the circumstances in
which Ahmad Riza was so proclaimed. Suffice it to say here that the proclamadon by
a group o f ‘ulama’ o f one o f their num ber in a meeting, in a procedure resembling an
election, was most unusual. The decision was generally made informally over an
extended period o f time (perhaps several years) w hen a consensus (‘ijma *) was felt to
have been reached. I am grateful to Professor Yohanan Friedmann for pointing this out
to me.
50 Metcalf, blamic Revival, p. 13. She also points to the important fact that many o f the
rival movements traced their intellectual heritage to Shah Wali Ullah. Ibid., pp. 276-7.
As C hapter VII o f this study indicates, the Ahl-e Sunnat also did so, though they looked
to Shah ‘Abd ul- ‘Aziz, eldest son o f Shah Wali Ullah, rather than to Wali Ullah himself.
64 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

sanadsfrom him this time, bearing his signature.51 These were in hadis
and tafsir, among other things.
This is only the most dramatic o f many events said to have
occurred on this 1905 visit to the Haramain, in which Ahmad Riza
is portrayed as teacher rather than pupil. For instance, when in the
library o f the Haram mosque in Mecca, he overheard some ‘ulama’
debating whether or not it was lawful to throw stones at the pillars
o f Satan in Mina before dusk. One Meccan ‘alim had apparendy said
that it was lawful to do so. Ahmad Riza, asked his opinion, dissented
with this judgment. A book was consulted, and Ahmad Riza’s
opinion was confirmed as the right one.52 Ahmad Riza also relates
in his Malfuzat that he received a warm and hospitable welcome
from a number o f ‘ulama’ in Mecca— in fact, there were few who
did not personally visit him.53 Another mark o f respect was the fact
that two ‘ulama’ asked him for a fatwa, posing a series o f questions
on the status o f the paper note.54As one ‘alim reportedly said o f him,
‘[Although] he was a Hindi [an Indian], his light was shining in
Mecca’.55 The comment is significant in that it expresses succincdy
the reversal o f relations between centre (the Haramain) and
periphery (the Indian subcontinent) implicit in many o f the events
which occurred during Ahmad Riza’s second hajj.
The immediate result of his approximately three-month stay in

51 M uham m ad M as'ud A hm ed, Fazil Barelwi ‘Ulama’- t H ijaz ki N azar men

(Mubarakpur, Azamgarh: Al-Majma‘ al-Islami, 1981), pp. 70-2, lists the names o f some
o f the ‘ulama’ to w hom Ahmad Riza gave sanads. To many he reportedly promised that
he w ould send them their sanads after he returned to Bareilly.
52 Malfuzat-e A *la Hazrat, vol. 2, p. 8. The question related to part o f the hajj rituals,
in which the pilgrim ‘stones three pillars [at Mina, a few miles outside Mecca) in m em ory
o f the way Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael rejected Satan’s tempdngs to disobey G od’s
com m and’. Francis R obinson, Atlas of the Islamic World since 1500 (N ew York: Facts on
File. 1982). p. 194.
53 T he one ‘alim w ho was too proud to visit him, Ahmad Riza said, was the Hanafi
mufti o f Mecca, Shaikh ‘Abd Allah bin Siddiq bin ‘Abbas. W hen they m et eventually,
in the Haram library, it was in circumstances that put the mufti to shame. Before they
had been introduced, Ahmad Riza had occasion to correct him on a small m atter o f
etiquette relating to a book in the library. Malfuzat, vol. 2, pp. 18-19.
54 T he fatwa was entided Kajl al-Faqih al-Fahimfi Ahkam Qirtas al-Darahim. C hapter VI
below discusses some o f the issues involved in this particular debate.
55 Malfuzat, vol. 2, p. 17.
 Ahmad Riza Khan Bareluñ 65

Mecca and Medina was that Ahmad Riza was able to establish close
relations with a number of leading scholars in the Haramain, and
secure their support in his anti-Deobandi efforts at home. The
Deobandis o f Course responded with fatawa o f their own, rebutting
his. But whatever the merits of the arguments made, he was seen by
Ahl-e Sunnat supporters as having scored a major victory against the
Deobandi side. From their point of view, the events at the Haramain
confirmed their belief that Ahmad Riza was a leader o f ‘Sunnis’
world-wide, not merely in India.
There is one last journey I would like to refer to here, in which
we see how Ahl-e Sunnat followers venerated him toward the end
o f his life. Unlike the hajj pilgrimages described above, Ahmad
Riza’s visit to Jabalpur (central India) in 1919 was a very personal
one. It was undertaken to please a dear and devoted follower,
Burhan ul-Haqq Jabalpuri (d. 1984), and to perform the latter’s
dastar-bandi (tying of the turban, a ceremony marking the end o f a
student’s career).56
This was no simple visit, quiedy undertaken. Ahmad Riza’s
stature within the movement by this time was far too elevated for
such a possibility. Because his health was poor, elaborate arrange­
ments were made all along the way to ensure his comfort. It was a
long (perhaps two-day) journey by train, following an eastern route
to Allahabad and then a southern one to Jabalpur, a distance o f
perhaps 800 kilometres. Arriving at the head o f a large party o f
people, he was received like a royal visitor: great crowds greeted
him not only at the Jabalpur station, but even at earlier halts at smaller
stations. Thronging to touch and kiss his feet, they lined the streets
all along the way.57
The royal metaphor, implicidy invoked by sufis in their own
vocabulary, is an apt one for Ahmad Riza’s relationship with the
people who gathered about him daily during his m onth at Jabalpur.
Like royalty, he bestowed lavish gifts on all around him. Zafar
ud-Din Bihari comments on the amazement o f those who witnessed

56 T he Epilogue at the end o f this study contains some biographical information about
Burhan ul-H aqq, with reference in particular to his stand on the Pakistan issue.
57 For a description o f this journey, see Burhan ul-H aqq Jabalpuri, Btram-e Imam Ahmad
R iza, pp. 83-98.
66 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

his generosity on this occasion. From a box he pulled out money,

gold ornaments, clothes—something for every household servant,
not just for the hosts, as well as for important merchants (seths) and
their families.58 The gifts were reciprocated in the form of nazar (gift
to a sufi pir), as well as frequent feasts.
Most remarkable, however, is the unfortunately brief report o f a
series o f public meetings in which large numbers o f people did tauba
(sought pardon) at Ahmad Riza’s hands. A list o f seventy-nine names
is given in the Maljuzat, though perhaps even this is incomplete.59
The sins confessed were not all colossal ones: shaving the beard and
dyeing the hair black, both disapproved o f by Ahmad Riza, for
instance. Those whose omissions related to deeper spiritual
(‘hidden’) matters, however, spoke to him in private.
This incident, which occurred about two years before Ahmad
Riza’s death in October 1921, shows the moral authority he enjoyed
among those who called themselves the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama'at.
In their eyes, his eminence was a gift from Allah, reflected in his
depth o f learning, piety, and personal rectitude. Above all, the
certainty o f his convictions, and his insistence that unlike those he
accused o f ‘disrespect’ to the Prophet (in ways that he set out in
detail in his writings), his own views were ‘correct’, provided
psychological reassurance in a time of great social change. To his
followers, he was their saviour in a dark world.

A hmad R jz a , P re e m in e n t Scholar and E x em pla r y M odel

The picture presented by the Urdu-speaking biographers o f Ahmad

Riza is of a man who embodied in every act and thought the best
in the scholarly tradition o f Sunni Islam. Because he modelled his
life and work on his vision of the Prophet, he in turn became a
model for emulation and the centre for a movement of revival and
reform. In so doing he attracted followers to Bareilly from other
parts o f the country and put Bareilly on the intellectual map for
Sunni ‘ulama’ from as far away as Mecca and Medina.

58 Hayat-e A 1a Hazrat, pp. 56-7.

59 Maljuzat, vol. 2, pp. 98-101.
 Ahmad R iza Khan Barelwi 67

Interestingly, the sense o f timelessness that is evoked by the

sources in their portrayal of Ahmad Riza as an eminent nineteenth
century Indian Muslim ‘alim appears to echo a tradition o f bio­
graphical writing in other parts of the Muslim world. Lucette Valensi
describes the image o f the ideal scholar embedded in a fifteenth
century biographical dictionary from the Maghreb:
the learned man is one who has evinced since childhood a passion for learning
and a capacity for understanding the sciences; one who is endowed with an
infallible and powerful memory: one whose ability to endure [long hours of]
study exceeds the norm; one who excels in not one but a great number o f
branches o f learning; one who exhibits a subde intelligence. He makes himself
know n particularly by the solving o f an enigma: the paradigmatic anecdote
that one looks for here is the presentation by the master o f a problem that the
other students are unable to solve, indeed that even the master is unable to
solve, and that is impeccably resolved by the talented young man.60

The learned man must also, Valensi goes on to say, have mystic
knowledge o f God, and discharge an important function in his
community. Most important, he must be both ‘cosmopolitan’, in
touch with the sources of high religious tradition, and embedded in
his society. This permits him to mediate, through his voluminous
writings, between the universal and the local, for his corpus is the
product as much of his local milieu as it is o f a universalisdc Islamic
tradition.61 Reading Valensi, I see a remarkable likeness with the
image o f Ahmad Riza conveyed by Zafar ud-Din Bihari and other
biographers. In his life, his followers found a model for their own.

60 Lucette Valensi: ‘est bon lettré celui qui a manifesté dès son enfance son ardeur à
apprendre et sa capacité à absorber la science; celui qui est doué d’une m ém oire infaillible
et inépuisable; celui dont l’endurance à l’étude excède la norme; celui qui excelle non
pas dans une, mais dans un grand nombre de branches du savoir, celui qui fait m ontre
d ’une intelligence subtile. Celle-ci se revèle notam m ent, par la solution d ’une enigme:
l’anecdote paradigmatique que l’on attend ici est la presentation, par le maître, d ’un
problèm e insoluble par les autres élèves, voir par le maître lui-m êm e, çt sa resolution
impeccable par le jeune talent’. ‘Le jardin de l’Académie, ou com m ent se forme une
école de pensée’, pp. 15-16. Paper presented at Colloquium on Modes o f Transmission
o f Religious C ulture in Islam, Princeton University, and joindy sponsored by the
D epartm ent ofN ear Eastern Studies, Princeton University, and Ecole des Hautes Etudes
en Sciences Sociales, Paris, April 28-30, 1989.
61 Ibid., pp. 17-20.
 Chapter III

Institutional Bases of the Ahl-e Sunnat

Movement, 1880s—1920s

Giving concrete shape to Ahmad Riza’s vision of din— a vision set

forth in his fatawa, commentaries, glosses, and malfiizat— were the
‘ulama’, students, and devoted followers who disseminated his
thought by teaching, publishing, and debating with one another.
Individually and in concert, they created institutions which carried
the Ahl-e Sunnat message to a wider audience, and made it possible
by the 1880s for followers to identify themselves as members o f a
‘movement’, which they called the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama'at. These
institutional structures were both ‘ulama’-centred and pir-centred,
both urban and rural. Indeed, the distinction between those who
were primarily ‘ulama’ and those who were primarily pirs is some­
times hard to make, as the scholarly pirs of the Ahl-e Sunnat
movement frequently appeared to be both. In this chapter I focus
on scholarly institutions such as madrasas, journals, and voluntary
associations. The next two chapters continue with an examination
o f important leaders and their institutional bases, paying close
attention to rural shrine-centred activities.

T he C lass C o m p o s it io n o f t h e L e a d e r sh ip

The core leadership of the Ahl-e Sunnat movement in the late

nineteenth century consisted o f ‘ulama’ and Qadiri pirs from Bareil­
ly, Badayun, Ram pur, Pilibhit, and Marahra in the R ohilkhand
 r
*
\
\
s V
/
t

rJ
j (
I '-I
Labors «
#
i ?
f : ;- K
A > ./ A .
<. '••<■■' .-.-•••• .*
/ -•r v j u . /
T— • .Rampur^
-=• n .*
I f t '•.u •

* *"
1 / • V ,* * .i t i **•, • I
r "\ \ «:••-.q.Kachhochhi

v> >*-, a

Calcutta
Adapted frtM Metcalf 1982: 134,2(6 o

Map 2. Centres o f Ahl-e Sunnat Influence in the Late N ineteenth Century. Places encircled twice indicate
areas o f particular im portance to the m ovem ent. (Adapted from M etcalf 1982: 134, 266)
70 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

region, and from Patna, Bihar (map 2). They were drawn from both
urban and qasba (rural) centres, dependent variously on incomes
from land, trade, teaching, the voluntary contributions o f followers,
or combinations thereof. In social terms they were part o f the ashraf,
or Muslim élite. Their status was based on ancestral lineage (whether
Pathan, Sayyid, ‘Usmani, or similar), religious learning, and wealth.
Privileged social standing corresponded to the concepts o f hierarchy
central to the religious style they favoured. Like Ahmad Riza, they
approved of and attended annual ‘urs (death anniversary) celebra­
tions around the country, and engaged in other mediadonal prac­
tices. So close knit were the scholarly and mediadonal aspects in
Ahmad Riza’s life and thought, in fact, that by the end o f his life a
khanqah (sufi hospice) known as the Khanqah-e ‘Aliyya Rizwiyya
had been established in Bareilly, where, among other things, the
annual meeting of the Ahl-e Sunnat’s Madrasa Manzar al-Islam took
place.1 The lifestyle fostered by Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ in the towns
and that centred around rural khanqahs therefore shared a common
tone, even if their emphases were different.
As noted previously, however, Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ and pin
stressed the need to follow the sunna and remain faithful to the
shari'a. Consequendy the pir families associated with the movement
considered themselves to be ‘reformist’, identifying with a sufi
movement that had been active in the countryside simultaneously
with the urban renewal movements o f ‘ulama’. As Chapter IV will
indicate, this concern for reform was evident among other things in
religious ritual during annual ‘urs pilgrimages, in which the atten­
dance o f women, and the holding o f sama'1 musical sessions, for
instance, were frowned upon.
Gilmartin notes that the sufi reformist pirs o f the Panjab were less
closely tied into the local patronage network than ‘older’ pirs, and
were willing on occasion to join reformist ‘ulama’ ‘in defense o f
Islamic symbols and, at times, in religious attacks on the colonial
system’.2Two such pirs in the Panjab, with whom the Ahl-e Sunnat

1 See report o f the eighteenth such meeting o f the Madrasa Manzar al-Islam in Dabdaba-e
Sikandari (Rampur), 58: 36 (8 May, 1922), 4-5.
2 Gilmartin, Empire and Islam, pp. 5 8 -6 0 , 6 3 -4 . As Gilmartin goes on to say, however,
co-operation betw een reformist p in and reformist ‘ulama’ somedmes resulted in tension
 Institutional Bases, 1880s~I920s 71

movement worked closely in the course of the Khilafat movement

and during the anti-irtidad (apostacy) campaign o f the early 1920s to
counter Arya Samaj conversions o f Muslims to Hinduism (known
as the Shuddhi movement), were Pirjama‘at ‘Ali Shah, a Naqshban-
di from Alipur Sayyedan, and Pir Mehr ‘Ali Shah, a Qadiri from
Golra Sharif. The political base of ‘reforming’ pirs such as these,
Gilmartin indicates, consisted o f a combination o f rural and urban
networks.3 Thus the ‘ulama’ and pirs of the Ahl-e Sunnat movement
were at once urban and rural, ‘reformist’ and mediationist.
As townsmen, some o f the Ahl-e Sunnat competed for local
administrative positions and played a part in the British power
structure. Among subscribers to the Tuhfa-e Hanajtyya, an important
Patna-based journal of the movement in the late nineteenth century,
for instance, were qazis (judges of Islamic law), wakik (authorized
public pleaders), tahsildais (revenue collectors), as well as municipal
commissioners, barristers, doctors, and station masters.4 Although
the ‘ulama’ did not usually undertake government service, this was
not unknown: Maulana Fazl-e Haqq Khairabadi (d. 1862), identified
by the Ahl-e Sunnat as one of themselves, had served the East India
Company as a peshkar (agent) early in the nineteenth century;5
likewise, Maulana Fazl-e Rasul Badayuni (d. 1872) was at one time
a legal expert (imufti-e ‘adalat) and record-keeper (sar-rishtadaf) in
Badayun district.6 Paradoxically, both ‘ulama’ also participated in
the Revolt o f 1857.7

betw een them.

3 Ibid., p. 59. Although Jam a'at ‘Ali was a Qadiri, Gilmartin writes that ‘he found his
religious mission in one o f the m ore active, reforming orders in Punjab— in this case,
the Naqshbandi’.
4 Tuhfa-e Hanafiyya (Matba‘-e A hl-e Sunnat w ajam a‘at, 1315/1897-98), vol. 1, no. 9,
p. 2.
5 See A. S. Bazmee Ansari, ‘Fadl-i Hakk’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 2 (E/2), pp.
735-6.
6 Maulawi R ahm an ‘Ali, Tazkira-e Ulama*-e Hind, p. 381.
7 Bazmee Ansari writes that Fazl-e Haqq Khairabadi played ‘a leading part in the military
uprising o f 1857, was charged w ith high treason, arrested, tried and sentenced to
transportation for life. H e died in exile in the Andamans (Kala P ani), where he was
interred, in 1862’. ‘Fadl-i H akk’, in E/2, p. 735. Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama* regard him w ith
great respect, in part because o f his participation in a debate w ith M uhamm ad Isma‘il
72 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

In the agriculturally-based qasbas, great pir (and ‘ulama’) families

such as the Barkatiyya Sayyids o f Marahra, the ‘Usmani pirs o f
Badayun, and the Ashrafiyya Ghausiya pirs ofKachhochha (Faizabad
district, in the Awadh region), constituted the élite in their areas,
being both landowners and purveyors o f baraka (spiritual grace).8
However, they probably never commanded the same influence in
their localities as did the wealthy Panjab pirs described by Gilmartin
as hinges in the political structure o f that province. The Ahl-e Sunnat
wa Jama'at’s relationship to the British power and administrative
structure, and the degree of their integration into networks depend­
ent on British patronage, appear diverse enough to preclude any
single characterization. Considering our limited knowledge o f the
family histories o f some ‘ulama’ and the evidence o f pertinent fatawa
(to be examined below), it seems fair to say that while there was
litde active hostility toward the British during the nineteenth century,
the Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ do not, on the other hand, appear to have
been direcdy co-opted by the British Indian government in the United
Provinces in a manner comparable to the Panjab religious élites.9
The new institutional structures the Ahl-e Sunnat created, the
new madrasas, voluntary organizations, newspapers and publication
houses, bore the imprint of British colonialism in India, in that they
included features borrowed from British Indian organizations. They
were thus by no means replicas o f similar institutions in the past.

M a drasa s

Ahmad Riza had founded a school in 1904, called the Madrasa

Manzar al-Jslam, though known more often as the Madrasa Ahl-e

in the 1820s on the doctrine o f imkan-e nazir. O n this issue, see C hapter VIII below .
His autobiography, translated from Persian into U rdu under the tide Baghi-e Hindustan,
has been through several editions. It tells o f the conditions o f his capture and
imprisonment, and is readily available in bookstores stocking Ahl-e Sunnat literature in
Pakistan.
8 Chapter IV below examines the family history o f the Barkatiyya Sayyids o f Marahra.
9 It is probable that the pir families o f the U nited Provinces did not enjoy either the
vast landed wealth nor the corresponding political influence in their areas that their
Panjab counterparts did, and that British policy in the U.P. was therefore different. O n
relations betw een the Panjab pirs and the British, see Gilmartin, Empire and Islam, p. 51.
 Institutional Bases, I880s-I920s 73

Sunnat wa Jama‘at. The Ahl-e Sunnat were in fact late starters in

the educational field, for all the major late nineteenth century
Muslim movements in north India were organized around madrasas
or colleges. Deoband had its Dar al-‘Ulum, founded in the late
1860s, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan began his educational reforms at the
Anglo-Muhammadan Oriental College in 1875, and the Nadwat
al-‘Ulama’, founded in the 1890s, established their madrasa of this
name at Lucknow in the early twentieth century.
The reason for the Ahl-e Sunnat’s initial neglect o f education was
probably Ahmad Riza’s relative lack o f interest in teaching, as
compared to fatwa-writing. As mentioned earlier, he spent much o f
his time writing fatawa in his own library at home. He presumably
preferred erudite discourse to the routine and less challenging task
o f teaching at relatively elementary levels. Moreover, as he himself
had never attended a madrasa, having learned all he knew either
from books or from a few personal teachers, he may not have seen
any pressing need for one.
At any rate, when Zafar ud-Din Bihari first came to Bareilly in
1904—5 desiring to become Ahmad Riza’s student, the latter advised
him to study at an existing madrasa, the Madrasa Dar al- Isha‘at, and
help out in his spare time in the work of the Dar al-Ifta (office for
the issuance of fatawa).10 W hen the Madrasa Dar al-Isha‘at turned
out, some time later, to be under Deobandi influence, Zafar ud-Din
Bihari took the initiative in establishing the Madrasa Manzar al-
Islam, with help from Ahmad Riza’s brother Hasan Riza (1859—
1908), and elder son Hamid Riza (1875-1943). Ahmad Riza’s
consent to the creation of the madrasa was obtained by asking a
Sayyid to recommend the idea to him.11 A local ra’is donated space
for the new school in his house.12
10 T he Ahl-e Sunnat Dar al-lfta was not attached to a madrasa, as was usually the case,
but operated out o f Ahmad R iza’s home. O n Zafar ud-D in Bihari’s early experiences
regarding the Madrasa Dar al-Isha‘ac, see Muhammad Ahmad Qadiri, ‘Malik al-‘Ulama’
M aulana M uham m ad Zafar u d -D in Bihari aur K hidm at-e H adis’, Ashrafiyya
(M ubarakpur, Azamgarh, April 1977), 29. In Chapter VI I discuss the w ork o f the Dar
al-lfta and the manner in which fatwa-writing was taught.
11 Ashrafiyya (July 1977), 15. For Ahmad Riza’s respect for Sayyids, see Chapter V
below.
12 Ibid.
74 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

In subsequent years, it was Hamid Riza who was most closely

associated with the madrasa in his capacity of muhtamim, or manager
and chief administrator. In fact, the position became hereditary,
being passed on from father to eldest son.13 Ahmad Riza was the
sarparast, rector or patron, helping the madrasa financially to some
extent (no figures are indicated). Once- a year, he addressed the
gathering o f ‘ulama’, pirs, and wealthy residents o f the town at the
madrasa’s annual dastar-bandi ceremonies. Zafar ud-Din, the first
student to graduate, also taught at the madrasa for some time.
Despite the fact that the term ‘Dar al-‘Ulum’, a place o f higher
learning superior to a madrasa, is sometimes fondly used for the
Madrasa Manzar al-Islam, the school was in fact not the great
institution that some maintained.14 A report by N a'im ud-D in
Muradabadi, dated August 1920, is especially revealing:
This [the Madrasa Manzar al-Islam] is a very special madrasa, for it is under the
care o f A‘la Hazrat [Ahmad Riza]. Although it is not very old, it would not
have been unreasonable to expect that at this rime it could have been a great
Dar al-'Ulum, and other madrasas in Hindustan would have considered it their
centre. Although I have not visited this madrasa at length at any rime, what I
have seen superficially has led me to conclude that it has nothing in it which
lives up to its worth. The room is small and space is short. The M uhtamim
Sahib [Hamid Riza Khan] has found it fit to place his bed in the room. If
instruction is given in a normal voice at one level [i.e., to students o f one grade]
the voice would surely reach the other level. Students have to sit with bent
knees, and probably for this reason the muhtamim is obliged to send many
away. In my estimation, there are approximately two hundred students. There
are only nine or ten teachers.15

N a‘im ud-Din went on to name the teachers, praising them for their
learning. He noted, however, that the school needed a good

,3 It was later held by Hamid Riza’s eldest son Ibrahim Riza ‘J ilani M iyan’ (1907-65),
and after him by R ehan Riza, Jilani M iyan’s eldest son. Ibid.
14 For a contrasting picture to the description o f the Madrasa M anzar al-Islam that
follows, see M etcalf s account o f the D ar al-‘Ulum at Deoband, Islamic Revival, pp. 92-8,
100-11, and passim. The Madrasa M anzar al-Islam, it will be apparent, was m uch smaller
and less well-endowed than the Dar al-‘Ulum. Nonetheless, it shared w ith the latter
several organizational features which were new to madrasas.
15 N a'im ud-D in Muradabadi, ‘Present Conditions [of Islamic Madrasas]’, Al-Sawad al-
A 'zam (Muradabad), 1:9 (Hijj Z u T a 1338/August 1920), 27-8.
 Institutional Bases, I8 80s-I920s 75

building, a better library, more teachers, and more space, both for
classrooms and boarding facilities. He attributed the lack o f money
for these needs to Ahmad Riza’s aversion to fund-raising:
A‘la H azrat’s greatness is such that he is unwilling to ask anyone for a
contribution for any purpose. He has an aversion to anything to do with wealth. Alas.
The A hl-e Sunnat and the community (millat) sympathetic to it should. . .
turn this madrasa into a central Dar al-‘Ulum . . . instead of opening new
schools here and there.16

Indeed, there are indications that local financial support for the
madrasa was inadequate, particularly during W orld War I. A
newspaper article appearing in Ram pur’s weekly Dabdaba-e Sikan-
dari in 1916 was unsually blunt when it admitted that that year the
school had suffered financial loss, and had received insufficient
donations on account o f the war.17 Donations (chanda) were sought
particularly at the annual dastar-bandi ceremonies which usually
lasted three days. The size of individual contributions is unfortunate­
ly not recorded: only exceptionally large donations (Rs. 200 on two
occasions)18 find mention.
For the period for which I consulted newspaper reports (1908-
17), the number o f students graduating at any one time was usually
between four and ten. Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’, sufi shaikhs, and local
m ’asa (pi. o f ra’is) were invited to attend, to give sermons (wa (z), to
read na‘ts (poetry in praise of the Prophet) and to participate in the
milad that sometimes followed at the end. Space permitting, local
residents also came to listen and participate. The venue was a mosque
near Ahmad Riza’s house, known as Masjid Bibiji.19
Lists o f the names of participants in some of the early dastar-bandi
ceremonies tell us something of the school’s range o f influence
during these years. In 1908, those attending included ‘ulama’ from
H aidarabad, Pilibhit, M uradabad, Badayun, Allahabad, and

,6 Ibid., p. 30.
17 Dabdaba-e Sikandari (Rampur), 53:8 (December 18, 1916), 5.
18 Ibid., 44: 38 (O ctober 26, 1908), 5; 58:36 (May 8, 1922), 4.
19 T he foregoing paragraph is based on the following entries in Dabdaba-e Sikandari:
44:38 (O ctober 26,1908), 3-5; 45:34 (September 20,1909), 7; 47:34 (August 21,1911),
9; 48:45 (O ctober 28,1912), 3; 50:46 (O ctober 12,1914), 3; 5&8 (December 18,1916),
5; 53:49 (O ctober 1,1917), 5.
76 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Ram pur.20 Many o f the ‘ulama’ and sufis named were personally
close to Ahmad Riza. Among them were Maulana Wasi Ahmad
(1836-1916) o f Pilibhit, known as ‘Muhaddis Surati’, who taught
hadis at the Madrasa al-Hadis founded by him in Pilibhit; Didar ‘Ali
Alwari (1856-1935), founder o f the Madrasa Hizb al-Ahnaf in
Lahore in 1924; Irshad ‘Ali Rampuri (1862-1910), nephew and
son-in-law of Irshad Husain Rampuri (1832-93), a longtime as­
sociate o f the family who was also close to Kalb ‘AH Khan, the late
nineteenth century Nawab of Rampur (r. 1865-87);21 ‘Abd ul-
Muqtadir Badayuni (1866—1915), from the family o f ‘Usmani
‘ulama’ and pirs who had close and longstanding ties to Ahmad
Riza’s family (though ‘Abd ul-Muqtadir later opposed Ahmad Riza
on some important issues); and Sayyid ‘Muhammad Miyan’ Kach-
hochhawi (1893-1963), the caretaker (sajjada-nishin) o f a shrine in
Kachhochha, district Faizabad. These pirs and ‘ulama’ were among
the inner circle of the Ahl-e Sunnat leadership in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries.
Lacking detailed knowledge of the structure or finances o f the
madrasa, we can only guess that it suffered from neglect on the part
o f Ahmad Riza, which in turn led to the shortage o f resources
described by N a‘im ud-Din Muradabadi. Following Ahmad Riza’s
death in 1921, its close association with Hamid Riza may also have
been a source of weakness. Hamid Riza, whom Ahmad Riza had
appointed his sajjada-nishin in 1915,22 appears to have become
immersed in sufi activities after his father’s death; indeed, in 1922
the madrasa’s annual dastar-bandi ceremonies were held in the
Khanqah-e ‘Aliyya Rizwiyya, as Ahmad Riza’s home came to be
known, and not in the Masjid Bibiji as before.23 Several years later,
in 1937, Mustafa Riza Khan (1892-1981), Hamid Riza’s younger

20 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 44:38 (O ctober 26, 1908), 3-5 .

21 Irshad Husain and other members o f his family, unlike others m entioned in this
paragraph, were followers o f the Naqshbandi Mujaddidi order o f sufis. M ost Ahl-e
Sunnat ‘ulama’ were primarily (though not solely) followers o f the Qadiri order. It should
also be noted that Kalb ‘Ali, the Nawab o f Ram pur, was a Sunni, unlike other ruling
nawabs in the family w ho were Shi'is.
22 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 51:51 (Novem ber 8, 1915), 3.
23 Ibid., 58:36 (May 8, 1922), 4.
 Institutional Bases, Í880s-Í920s 77

brother by seventeen years, founded another school, the Madrasa

Mazhar al-Islam, attached to the Masjid Bibiji, which followed the
same syllabus (the dars-e nizami) as Manzar al-Islam.24
Although the Ahl-e Sunnat failed to develop a Dar al-‘Ulum at
Bareilly comparable to either the Deobandi institution or to the one
established by the Nadwat al-‘Ulama’ in Lucknow, a number of
madrasas were started in different parts o f north India in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which identified themsel­
ves with the movement. Their size and longevity were inevitably
uneven. As the preceding description of the Bareilly-based Manzar
al-Islam shows, financial support from wealthy patrons and the
setting up o f an administrative framework independent o f the
founder were crucial to the long-term success o f an institution.
O ne o f the oldest of the Ahl-e Sunnat’s madrasas was Ram pur’s
Madrasa ‘Aliyya. It was an eighteenth century institution, funded by
a waqf (endowment) based on income from two villages, which
enjoyed state patronage under the nawabs.25 In the politically
disturbed conditions 9f the eighteenth century, it attracted scholars
and students from the Panjab (including Delhi) and Lucknow.
Maulanas Fazl-e Haqq Khairabadi (d. 1861) and ‘Abd ul-Haqq
Khairabadi (d. 1899), specialists in ma'qulat, were among its teachers
and office-bearers.26
Organizationally, the Madrasa ‘Aliyya (as originally conceived)
was probably very different from madrasas set up by the Ahl-e
Sunnat a century or so later.27 In Badayun, Maulana ‘Abd ul-

24 Interview in Bareilly with D r Mustafa Husain Nizami Niyazi, April 19, 1987. Dr
Niyazi m aintained that his father, Maulana Niyaz Ahmad, had founded the original
madrasa in the Bibiji mosque which was later revived by Mustafa Riza under a new
name. Ziaud-D in A. Desai, Centres of Islamic Learning in India (Delhi: Publications
Division, Ministry o f Informadon and Broadcasting, 1978), p. 41, gives 1937 as the year
o f its founding. Its student body is said to have been about 200 at the time o f Desai’s
survey.
25 Kalb ‘Ali Khan Fa’iq Ram p un ‘Madrasa ‘Aliyya R am pur’, in 7/m o Agahi (Karachi:
Governm ent Nadonal College, 1974-75), pp. 29-32.
26 Ibid., p. 32. Also see Desai, Centres of Islamic Learning, p. 35.
27 Madrasas o f the older style would have resembled that at Firangi Mahal described as
follows by Metcalf: ‘In . . . the famous Farangi Mahall in Lucknow, family members
taught students in their own homes or in a com er o f a mosque. T here was no central
78 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Qayyum (d. 1900) founded the Madrasa Shams al-‘Ulum in 1899.

His son, ‘Abd ul-Majid (d. 1931), enabled it to grow and prosper
by securing an annual grant from the Nizam o f Haidarabad which
continued until 1948, and other grants from the Nawab o f Ram pur
and wealthy families in Bombay, Aligarh and elsewhere.28 Individual
donations from the people of Badayun were collected for a new
building. Sir James Meston, Lieutenant-Governor o f the United
Provinces, and Mr. Ingram, Collector o f Badayun, also contributed
toward land and buildings for the school. Students were taught the
dars-e nizami syllabus. Many then went on to pass exams at Panjab
and Allahabad Universities, qualifying for the tides ofMaulawi ‘Alim
and Munshi Fazil (Persian) which were held to be equivalent to the
BA degree.29 The madrasa had its own writing and publishing offices
which published the works of different ‘ulama’.
In Pilibhit in 1893 Maulana Wasi Ahmad Muhaddis Surati
founded the Madrasa al-Hadis. This madrasa owed its reputation in
hadis studies largely to the teaching o f Muhaddis Surati himself.
Many of Ahmad Riza’s closest followers were Muhaddis Surati’s
students before they came to Bareilly and joined his circle.30Muhad­
dis Surati’s position was rather special in the Ahl-e Sunnat move­
ment on account of his close relations, established early in his career,
with ‘ulama’ outside the movement, notably Nadwa leaders Lutf
Ullah Aligarhi (d. 1916) and Muhammad ‘Ali Mungeri.31 These

library, no course required o f each student, no series o f examinations. A student w ould

seek out a teacher and receive a certificate, a sanad, listing the books he had read, then
m ove on to another teacher or return hom e'. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 94.
28 M uham m ad Ayub Qadiri, 'Madrasa Shams al-‘Ulum Badayun’, in 7/m o Agahi, pp.
94-5; M ahm ud Ahmad Qadiri, Tazkira-e 'Ulama‘-e Ahl-e Sunnat (Muzaffarpur, Bihar:
K hanqah-e Qadiriyya Ashrafiyya, 1391/1971), pp. 146-9.
*Hm o Agahi, p. 96. T he Panjab University exams which had to be passed to qualify
for these tides were in grammar, literature, rhetoric, logic, the law o f inheritance,
prosody and moral philosophy. See G. M. D. Sufi, Al-Minhaj, pp. 115-19.
30 Among them were Zafar ud-D in Bihari, Amjad ‘Ali A‘zami, and Sayyid M uhammad
Kachhochhawi. See Khwaja Razi Haidar, Tazkira-e Muhaddis Surati, pp. 266, 269,
275-7.
31 M uhaddis Surati was a disciple o f Shah Fazl-e R ahm an Ganj M uradabadi
(1797-1895/96), the spiritual link between many o f the N adw a’s early leaders. For
details, see Chapter VII below.
 Institutional Bases, Î880s-1920s 79

early contacts also included men such as Didar ‘Ali Alwari, Ashraf
‘Ali Thanawi (of Deoband), and Pir Jama‘at ‘Ali Shah Alipuri.32
In Patna, Maulana Qazi ‘Abd ul-Wahid Firdausi Azimabadi (d.
1908), the moving spirit behind the Ahl-e Sunnat’s anti-Nadwa
meetings and conferences in the 1890s, founded the Madrasa
Hanafiyya in 1900. The school building33 was a large house given
in w aqf by ‘Abd ul-Wahid’s father. A staff o f six or seven teachers
served a student body of about a hundred, many of them boarders.34
Financed in part by voluntary contributions and in part from
collections designated as zakat (mandatory alms-tax on accrued
wealth), the school was apparently short o f funds in its early years.
However, Qazi ‘Abd ul-Wahid was a splendid organizer and had
access to well-to-do patrons, being himself a wealthy notable.35 The
school most likely prospered under his management. What became
o f it after his death in 1908, though, is not known.
Tw o other madrasas of importance must be mentioned: the
Jam‘iyya N a‘imiyya in Muradabad founded by N a‘im ud-Din
Muradabadi in the early 1920s, and the Dar al-‘Ulum Hizb al-Ahnaf
started by Didar ‘Ali Alwari in Lahore in 1924. The latter was
particularly important in terms o f providing leadership for the Ahl-e
Sunnat movement in the Panjab.
The Jam'iyya Na'imiyya, apparently first known as the Madrasa
Ahl-e Sunnat wajama'at, Muradabad, was administered in 1919-20
by an association (anjuman) headed by an influential local patron.
After the death o f the patron, the anjuman ceased to exist, and the

32 Didar ‘Ali and Pir Jam a'at ‘Ali Shah later played leading roles in the A hl-e Sunnat
m ovem ent. See Khwaja Razi Haidar, Tazkira-e Muhaddis Stirati, p. 55, and below.
33 This also served as the office o f the Tuhfa-e Hanafiyya journal, discussed below, and
the new printing press, M atba‘ Hanafiyya.
34 Rudad-e Majtis-e Imtihan-e Madrasa Hanafiyya 1320 (Patna: Matba* Hanafiyya, n.d.),
pp. 2—3.
35 Unfortunately I have been unable to learn anything o f Qazi ‘Abd ul-W ahid’s life, as
he is n o t included in the standard tazkiras. A recent book by an Ahl-e Sunnat follower
states that Qazi ‘Abd ul-W ahid spent over fifty thousand rupees in publishing and
distributing anti-Nadwa materials in the late 1890s. Badr ud-D in Ahmad Gorakhpuri,
Sawanth-e A la Hazratf 4th reprint (Ahmadnagar, Bihar: Madrasa Ahl-e Sunnat Gulshan
Riza, 1986), p. 147. W hatever the truth o f this estimate, his wealth was evidendy
considerable.
80 Devotional Liam and Politics in British India

madrasa came to be associated solely with N a‘im ud-Din. Its name

changed to the Madrasa N a‘imiyya. In time, it acquired local fame
and grew larger, until in 1933-34 it became big enough to merit
the tide ofJam ‘iyya (a ‘centre* o f learning). It had a Dar al-Ifta and
several teachers.36 The school, located in the heart o f the city o f
Muradabad amidst narrow lanes and busding commerce, presendy
consists o f a large handsome building surrounding a central court­
yard. A mosque and N a'im ud-D in’s mausoleum occupy a
prominent position there.
N a‘im ud-Din and many ofhis students were associated in various
ways with the Dar al-‘Ulum Hizb al-Ahnaf o f Lahore, several o f the
Jam ‘iyya N a‘imiyya’s students going on to the Hizb al-Ahnaf as
teachers.37 Its founder, Sayyid Didar ‘Ali Alwari (1856-1935),
belonged to the Chishti Nizami order.38 His teachers included
eminent ‘ulama’ and sufi shaikhs such as Irshad Husain Rampuri and
Shah Fazl-e Rahman Ganj Muradabadi. Ahmad Riza also gave him
a sanad in fiqh, hadis, and other disciplines.39 From 1912 to 1916 he
was in Lahore as Shaikh al-Hadis at the Dar al-‘Ulum Nu'maniyya
(founded in 1887). After a period at Agra, he returned to Lahore in
1920, this time as khatib o f the Wazir Khan mosque in that city. In
1924, he instituted the Markazi Anjuman Hizb al-Ahnaf (Central
Association of the Hizb al-Ahnaf), to set policy and administer the
Dar al-‘Ulum Hizb al-Ahnaf, which began initially at the Wazir
Khan mosque. Didar ‘Ali was joined by several fellow ‘ulama’ in
teaching the dars-e nizami syllabus. Although details of the subsequent

36 M u‘in ud-Din Na'imi, ‘Tazkira al-M a‘ru f Hayat-e Sadr al-Afazil’, Sawad-e A 'zam
(Lahore; N a'im i Dawakhana, 1378/1959), pp. 20-1. See Epilogue for a biographical
sketch o f N a‘im ud-D in Muradabadi.
37 In 1948, when N a‘im ud-D in visited Pakistan, he was the guest o f ‘ulama’ associated
w ith the Hizb al-Ahnaf. Ibid., p. 29. A list ofhis students, including those w ho taught
at the Hizb al-Ahnaf, is given on pp. 20-1.
38 Sayyid M ahmud Ahmad Rizwi, Sayyidi Abu 1 Barakat (Lahore: Tabligh Departm ent,
H izb al-Ahnaf, 1979), p. 117. The author is Didar ‘Ali’s grandson.
Didar ‘Ali belonged to a family which had migrated from Mashhad, Iran, probably
in the eighteenth century, and setded down in Awadh. After some dm e in Bilgram and
Farrukhabad, the family moved to the Hindu princely state o f Alwar in Rajputana. Ibid.,
p. 117.
39 Ibid., pp. 121-4.
\
 Institutional Bases, 1880s-1920s 81

history o f the school are not known, the Dar al-‘Ulum later acquired
buildings of its own, and began specialized departments in preaching
(tabligh) and debate (munazara), for example, in addition to the
regular classes. There was ample financial support for the school
from influential Panjab pirs such as Pir Jama'at ‘Ali Shah Alipuri,40
with whom Didar ‘Ali had a close relationship. As one writer says,
‘hundreds o f thousands o f‘ulama’ and teachers were bom here, and
today [1979] there is probably no town in Pakistan which does not
have ‘ulama’ trained at the Hizb al-Ahnaf .41 Another Ahl-e Sunnat
‘alim said o f Didar ‘Ali that had he not taught and preached in
Lahore, the whole Panjab would today be full o f ‘Wahhabis’.42
This last remark draws attention to the competitive atmosphere
in which the Hizb al-Ahnaf and other Ahl-e Sunnat madrasas were
established and operated in the early twentieth century. A new
emphasis on tabligh or preaching at this time is the most obvious
indication o f this. Tabligh was generally directed against fellow
Muslims, but sometimes against Hindus as well, as during the
anti-Shuddhi campaigns o f ‘ulama’ o f all persuasions in the United
Provinces.43 Even the addition of a Dar al-Ifta to madrasas o f the
time was competitive, for it was through the fatawa produced by
the ‘ulama’ o f different movements that they made known their
stand on controversial issues and rebutted those o f their rivals.
Ahmad Riza, for instance, expressed his views for the most part in
a daily stream of fatawa going out to people throughout British
India, and beyond.
To sum up, the early twentieth century saw a proliferation o f
new madrasas of the Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ throughout north India.
Unlike other renewal movements o f the time, the Ahl-e Sunnat had

40 Gilmartin writes ofPirJam a'at "Ali that he donated ‘hundreds o f rupees to the madrasa
Naum aniya and the anjuman Hizb al-A hnaf. (Gilmartin, Empire and Islam, p. 61.)
41 Sayyidi Abu'I Barakat, p. 127.
42 Q uoted in Khwaja Razi Haidar, Tazkira-e Muhaddis Surati, p. 309.
43 This was directed against the Arya Samaj, which in the 1920s began a m ovem ent for
the reconversion o f Hindus w ho had become Muslim back to Hinduism. For details,
see G. R . Thursby, Hindu-Muslim Relations in British India: A Study of Controversy,
Conflict, and Communal Movements in Northern India 1923-1928 (Leiden: E .J. Brill,
1975).
82 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

no central institution to compare, for example, with the Dar al-

‘Ulum at Deoband. Rather, individual ‘ulama’ took the initiative in
founding madrasas in their towns with help from wealthy patrons
where possible. Often small and ephemeral, these madrasas were
nevertheless instrumental in creating a network of personal links
between ‘ulama’ and in producing new leaders. As did rival move­
ments, the Ahl-e Sunnat madrasas too used novel organizational
methods such as a fixed syllabus, annual examinations, the award of
prizes to students with the best records, the publication o f an annual
report, and the institution of specialized departments for preaching,
publication, and debate. The appeal to the local public for financial
support was also an innovation, pioneered by the Dar al-‘Ulum o f
Deoband.44
That debate and rivalry amongst the ‘ulama’ were central to the
formation o f Ahl-e Sunnat ideology, becomes particularly apparent
from publications, oral debates, or voluntary associations (anjumans,
majlises) in support of particular causes. I turn now to a selective
survey o f some of these institutions.

P r in t in g P resses and P u b l ic a t io n s

Although a number of Indian businessmen had owned their own

printing presses as early as the 1820s and 1830s, the 1880s saw a
dram atic increase in these, w ith a consequent spurt in Indian-
language publishing. Till then, printing technology had been con­
trolled, for the most part, by Christian missionaries and other
Europeans who used it for the promulgation of Christian doctrine
or to publish small editions o f scholarly translations in English o f
Indian classical texts.45 W ith the dramatic increase of Indian-owned
presses in the 1880s, however, the north Indian ‘ulama’ (and Hindu
religious leaders as well) began to make full use of printing to spread
their ideas and reach out to wider audiences. As the ‘ulama’ wrote
and published in Urdu, the language of the north Indian élite (both
Hindu and Muslim in the mid-nineteenth century, though identified
44 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 94.
45 Frances W . Pritchett, Marvelous Encounters: Folk Romance in Urdu and Hindi {Delhi:
M anohar, 1985), pp. 20-5.
 Institutional Bases, I880s-1920s 83

increasingly with Muslims alone by the end o f that century), their

writings contributed to the creation of a new corpus o f Urdu
literature.46 In so far as religious debate was concerned, the printed
word became the most important medium through which late
nineteenth century Muslims argued with one another. Because of
the w ide practice of reading aloud, a single copy o f a book or
pamphlet in the hands of a literate member o f a community was
sufficient to ensure that the ideas expressed therein became known
to a widening circle o f people.47
In Bareilly, the Ahl-e Sunnat had two major presses in the late
nineteenth century, Hasani Press, owned by Ahmad Riza’s nephew
Hasnain Riza, and the Matba’ Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama'at managed
(but probably not owned) by Amjad ‘Ali A‘zami (d. 1948), a close
follower o f Ahmad Riza. Between them they appear to have
published all Ahmad Riza’s important fatawa in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. The earliest works date to the late
1870s. Books varied in length from as little as fifteen pages to several
hundred, though fifty or sixty was probably closer to the average.
The front cover, bordered on the comers and sides with a floral
design, generally gave a brief resume o f the contents of the work at
the top and recommended it for spiritual benefit. Then followed the
tide, chosen with great care: not only did the middle and the end
Usually rhyme, but it was also frequently a means of poking fun at
an opponent.48 In addition, the numerical values o f the letters (in

46 See Metcalf, pp. 199-210.

47 See ibid., p. 201. O n the orality o f religious texts in the Hindu and Muslim contexts,
see W illiam A. Graham, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History
of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1987), pp. 68-77, 88-92, and
passim. Also see Dale F. Eickelman, ‘The Art o f M emory: Islamic Education and its
Social R eproduction’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 20 (1978), 485-516,
for a related discussion on the importance o f m emory and o f oral repetition in the
learning process in Muslim societies.
48
For example, in 1314/1896 Hasan R iza (Ahmad R iza’s brother) w rote an
anti-Nadwa w ork entitled Nadweka Tija— RudadSom ka Natija (The Nadwa’s Tija— T he
Result o f its T hird Report). Here, not only do tija and natija in the tide rhym e, but
there is a play on the w ord tija, which is the third day after a person’s death. Hasan Riza
clearly implies that in light o f the Nadwa’s third report it is ‘dead’ as an institution. Most
of Ahmad R iza’s works had tides in this style, with or w ithout the implied irony, and
usually w ith heavy use o f Arabic.
84 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

accordance with the ahjad system whereby each letter of the alphabet
is assigned a number) had to add up to the year of the writing o f the
book.
Print runs at the Hasani Press and Matba‘ Ahl-e Sunnat ranged
from five hundred to a thousand copies. Occasionally a book ran to
three editions: for example, Ahmad Riza’s Al-Kaukab al- Shahabiyya,
printed in 1894, in which he argued that although Shah Isma‘il
Dehlawi (d. 1831), leader o f the Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya move­
ment, was a ‘Wahhabi’ and a kafir, it was best to refrain from calling
him a kafir.49 The popularity of writings against the Deobandis
(prominent among those styled ‘Wahhabi’ in the Ahl-e Sunnat
literature) is indicated by the printing history of another fatwa by
Ahmad Riza entided Ilhaq al-Wahhabiyyin 'ala Tauhin Qubur al-
Muslimin (The Wahhabis Join in Slandering Muslim Graves).
Originally written in 1904, it went through a fourth printing, o f a
thousand copies, in 1928. The topic, the alleged disrespect of
Deobandis toward graves, was obviously of interest to Ahl-e Sunnat
followers; at a price of less than a rupee the reading public must have
found the book affordable.50
In the late 1890s both presses published a large number o f fatawa
by Ahmad Riza against the Nadwat al-‘Ulama’— it is estimated that
he wrote about two hundred on this theme alone. In 1920 Hasnain
Riza began a monthly journal called Al-Riza, containing articles by
Ahmad Riza and other ‘ulama’ on a variety of topics. Some of
Ahmad Riza’s writings were serialized in the journal. It also con­
tained na'ts, controversial articles in defence o f milad and ‘urs, as
well as others decrying the shortage of madrasas. The annual cost of
the journal was two rupees. Unfortunately we have no readership
lists or other indication o f the circulation of the journal.
Such information is available, however, for another Ahl-e Sunnat
journal, the Tuhfa-e Hanajxyya (also called Makhzan-e Tahqiq). This

49 T he Ahl-e Sunnat position on the Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya m ovem ent, and on

‘W ahhabis’ generally, is the subject o f Chapter VIII o f this study.
50 Ahmad R iza Khan, Ilhaq al-Wahhabiyyin 'ala Tauhin Qubur al-MusIimin (Bareilly:
Hasani Press, 1928). In those cases where the price o f a book or pamphlet is stated on
the bottom left-hand com er o f the tide page it is generally in the range o f one to ten
annas. (Sixteen annas made up a rupee.)
 Institutional Bases, I880s-1920s 85

was started in 1897-98 by Qazi ‘Abd ul-Wahid Azimabadi o f Patna

(founder as noted earlier of the Madrasa Hanafiyya) in the context
o f the Ahl-e Sunnat’s campaign against the Nadwat al-‘U lam a\ A
monthly consisting usually of forty-four pages, its stated purposes
were to strengthen Islam and the mazhab (lit., school o f law, here
religious orientation within the Hanafi school) o f the Ahl-e Sunnat,
and to rebut their enemies. It contained articles on ‘aqa’id (tenets o f
Muslim belief), fiqh and hadis, stories from the lives o f the prophets
and the first caliphs, and o f course those in rebuttal o f rival ‘ulama’
groups, particularly the Nadwa. ‘Abd ul-Wahid wrote most of the
articles, though others contributed as well, among them well known
‘ulama’ such as Maulana ‘Abd ul-Qayyum Badayuni (founder o f the
Madrasa Shams al-‘Ulum).51
Regular lists o f buyers and donors published by the Tuhfa-e
Hanajiyya reveal that the journal had a subscription list of about two
hundred people in its early years, growing slowly but steadily to
approximately two hundred and fifty. Both the geographic spread
and the social composition of the subscribers are indicated in these
lists. Geographically, the Tuhfa reached out to people in an impres­
sive diversity o f places throughout India. An early published list
includes large cities such as Ahmadabad, Bombay, and Haidarabad,
as well as district towns in the United Provinces (mainly the western
districts o f Bareilly, Badayun, Etah, andBulandshahr), and o f course
Bihar (districts Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Munger, Patna, Shahabad,
and Gaya in north Bihar).52 Seventy-two names (out o f 119) in this
list are from Bihar; thé U.P. comes next (23); then Bombay (12),
Ahmadabad (5), and Haidarabad (3). In social terms, we find a heavy
representation o f the educated and well-to-do, not surprising for
subscribers to a journal emanating from a section o f the ‘ulama’.
Nevertheless, the number o f those holding positions o f authority in
the British administration, or possessors of landed tide, is notewor­
thy. Forty-tw o persons were identified as ‘ra’is’ or ‘ra’is-e
a‘zam ’, persons of social standing in their towns; seven were legal

51 T h e foregoing paragraph is based on a perusal o f early volumes o f the journal. See,

e.g., Tuhfa-e Hanafiyya (Patna: Matba* Hanafiyya), 1:4-5 (Sha'ban and Ram azan
1315/Dec. 1897-Jan. 1898).
52 Ibid., appendix at end o f volume, after p. 44.
86 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

representatives o f various descriptions (a barrister, a subjudge, a wakil

or authorized public pleader, and four mukhtars or legal agents).
There were also a station master, a doctor, two students in W estem -
style colleges in Patna, and a couple o f tahsildars or revenue
collectors. In addition, several munshis (writers, secretaries), qazis
(judges), muhtamims of madrasas and imams o f mosques were
among the subscribers.53
It would probably be mistaken to assume on the basis o f this and
similar lists o f subscribers and donors to the Tuhfa that all these
people self-consciously identified themselves with the Ahl-e Sunnat
movement. Keeping in mind the strong anti-Nadwa platform o f the
Tuhfa, some o f its subscribers were, conceivably, interested in the
journal as a validation o f their own views. Nevertheless, we can
identify a certain core group o f ‘ulama’.and others whose involve­
m ent in Ahl-e Sunnat affairs was prolonged and multifaceted. These
included the ‘ulama’ o f Badayun, Bareilly, Pilibhit (listed as buyers
in subsequent issues of the Tuhfa),54 and Patna. The Tuhfa appears
to have ceased publication soon after the death o f ‘Abd ul-W ahid
in 1908.55
A publication o f a different kind, and one that is an important
source for the late nineteenth and early twentieth century history
o f the Ahl-e Sunnat movement, was a newspaper briefly mentioned
above, the Dabdaba-e Sikandari (an untranslatable tide, meaning
something like ‘Alexander’s awesome majesty*).56 It began weekly
publication around 1864 in R am pur.57 Its editor and sub­
editor in the early twentieth century, Maulanas M uham mad

53 Ibid.
54 Tuhfa-c Hanafiyya, 1:6 (Shawwal PJ 1315/1898), 2 (of appendix at end o f journal).
55 T he last issue I was able to trace is 13 (Safar 1327/February 1910).
56 T he significance to be attached to this royal-sounding tide is not clear. It suggests
that the paper enjoyed the nawabs’ patronage, though we have no information on this
either way. Perhaps too m uch should not be read into the tide: in Badayun, a British
Indian district tow n (not a ‘princely state* as R am pur was), a newspaper called
Z u ’l-Qamaitt (‘The T w o -H o m ed ’, an epithet for Alexander the Great) was started some
tim e in the nineteenth century.
57 T he year 1864 is indicated by a remark in one o f the issues dated 1910, showing that
the paper had been in continuous operation for forty-six years. Dabdaba-e Sikandari,
46:18 (May 16,1910), 1.
 Institutional Bases, 1880s-I920s 87

Faruq Hasan58 and Muhammad Fazl-e Hasan respectively, were

followers o f the Chishti Sabiri line of sufis, though also o f the Qadiri
order. They appear to have had a Dar al-Isha‘at, or distribution
centre, in a khanqah at Rampur, the Khanqah-e Sabiriyya.59
That the paper was pro-British is indicated by an editorial
statement that by means o f interesting news articles, the Dabdaba-e
Sikandari had been ‘creating unity (ittihad) between the people (ra 'ya)
and the government’ ever since it began publication.60 Its range of
reporting was broad, covering events both primarily ‘political’ (such
as the process o f constitutional devolution o f power to Indians in
the early 1920s) and ‘religious’ (descriptions of periodic ‘urs celebra­
tions, for example), though of course much that was newsworthy
fell between these two categories. O n the political front, it covered
news events in Rampur, in British India, in the Muslim world
generally, and in Europe as well. In the early 1900s, for instance, it
reported constitutional changes in the Ottoman empire and the
building of the Hijaz Railway.61 In the second decade o f the new
century it carried articles about the fate o f Ottoman possessions in
the Balkans, and efforts by Indian Muslim groups such as the
Anjuman-e Khuddam-e Ka‘ba (Society o f the Servants of the Ka‘ba)
to protect the Hijaz from non-Muslim aggression.62 In short, it kept
its readers well-informed on local and world events, particularly
those o f concern to Muslims.
The editors’ interest in issues relating to din was evident in numerous

58 Described also as its owner (malik). See Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 52:13 (February 7,1916), 3.
59 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 49:31 (July 14, 1913), 3. Unfortunately 1 have no further
information on the connection betw een the khanqah and the Dabdaba-e Sikandari or its
editors.
60 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 46:18 (May 16, 1910), 1. The nawabs o f Ram pur, as noted in
C hapter I, were also pro-British, as were, indeed, most princely states during the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century.
61 See, e.g., Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 44:26 (August 1 -3 , 1908), 9-10, 12-13; 44:35
(O ctober 5,1908), 6; 45:22 (June 12,1909), 3-5 , on Sultan ‘Abd al-Hamid.
62 See, e.g., Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 49:36 (August 18, 1913), 12-13, on the Balkan wars;
50:44 (Septem ber 28, 1914), 3, for a fatawa by the Ahl-e Sunnat on the A njum an-e
K huddam -e Ka'ba. T he Anjuman was founded by Maulana ‘Abd ul-Bari Firangi Mahali
in 1913, bu t was opposed by Ahmad Riza on specific grounds. See Chapter IX below
for details.
88 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

ways, ranging from periodic ‘urs announcements (Chishti, Qadiri,

or other) to more substantive coverage o f dispute and debate among
the ‘ulama’. During World War I, for instance, the paper gave wide
coverage to a divisive debate among the Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ on a
matter concerning the second azan (call to prayer).63 Its respect for
Ahmad Riza and other Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ was considerable. This
was most dramatically reflected in November 1910 in the decision
by Munshi Muhammad Fazl-e Hasan, the sub-editor, to start a
column called Chashma-e Dar al-IJia-e Bareilly (Fount o f Bareilly’s
Dar al-Ifta) in which questions (istifta) from the public to the Ahl-e
Sunnat ‘ulama’ at Bareilly were reproduced with their correspond­
ing answers (fatawa).64 The Chashma was generally accorded two
full pages out of the paper’s total o f sixteen. From November 1910
to February 1912, two hundred questions had been answered in this
section o f the Dabdaba-e Sikandari. The answers were given for the
most part by one ‘Ubaid un-Nabi’ Nawab Mirza ‘Ali, not by Ahmad
Riza.
The Dabdaba-e Sikandari regularly reported, in addition, Ahl-e
Sunnat events, whether convocations at the Madrasa Manzar al-
Islam at Bareilly, an ‘urs at Marahra, or a newly formed anjuman o f
the Ahl-e Sunnat elsewhere. Ahmad Riza himself sometimes con­
tributed a na‘t to its columns. The paper also published annually
before Ramazan a detailed chart'worked out by Ahmad Riza and
Zafar ud-Din Bihari, of the exact times o f sunrise, sunset, and the
daily evening prayers on each day o f the fasting month, for people
in different U.P. towns.65

V o l u n t a r y A s s o c ia t io n s

Given its sympathetic interest in Ahl-e Sunnat argument and debate,

th e Dabdaba-e Sikandari is a helpful guide to m apping the
movement’s range and diversity o f organizational activity in fields

63 See Chapter VI for details.

64 See Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 46:43 (Novem ber 7, 1910), 3, for the first occurrence o f
this column.
65 See, e.g., Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 44:35 (O ctober 5, 1908), 14; 46:35 (September 12,
1910), 8.
 Institutional Bases, i880s-1920s 89

other than education during the early twentieth century. O ne o f

these, common to reform and renewal movements across the
religious spectrum in British India at this time, was the creation o f
voluntary associations or societies seeking to promote various group
interests. All were organized along ‘modem’ lines, with presidents,
secretaries, annual reports, and so on. AsJones says of the Arya Samaj
in the Panjab,
Sabhas, samajes, clubs, anjumans, and societies proliferated with amazing speed.
These associations in turn established schools, colleges, libraries, reading rooms,
orphanages, publication departments, and presses— a universe o f social or­
ganization. Battles were fought, victories won, and defeats suffered according
to the proper forms o f parliamentary procedure.66

The proliferation o f such societies among early twentieth century

Muslims is clear from the array o f names appearing in the Dabdaba-e
Sikandari. Thus, in 1906 Hakim Ajmal Khan of Delhi created the
Tibbi Conference, and in 1910 followed up with the All-India
Ayurvedic and Unani Tibbia Conference.67 Around 1908 a group
o f Shi‘is began an All-India Shi‘a Conference;68 in 1910 Muslims
from Panjab, the U.P., and Bengal gathered at Badayun for their
first Urdu Conference;69 in 1913 Maulana ‘Abd ul-Bari and as­
sociated ‘ulama’ started the Anjuman-e Khuddam-e Ka'ba noted
above.
The Ahl-e Sunnat too had their anjumans and conferences. In
1909, a pir o f the Barkatiyya family issued an invitation to ‘sufi pirs
(masha’ikh) o f the Ahl-e Sunnat’ to attend a two-day planning
committee (intizami committee) meeting to be held during the

66 K enneth W . Jones, Arya Dharm: Hindu Consciousness in 19th-Century Punjab

(Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1976), pp. 318-19.
67 For the background to these medical organizations and on the madrasa also founded
by H akim Ajmal Khan, see Metcalf, ‘H akim Ajmal Khan’, in Frykenberg (ed.), Delhi
Through the Ages: pp. 299-315. Reports o f annual meetings and other events related to
these organizations appeared in the Dabdaba-e Sikandari. See, e.g., 46:41 (O ctober 24,
1910), 6; 46:42 (O ctober 31,1910), 6, dealing with a Tibbi Conference meeting; 54:19
(February 25,1918), 6-7 , reporting on an All-India Vedic and Tibbi Conference annual
m eeting at Bombay.
68 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 46:13 (April 11, 1910), 10.
69 Ibid., 46:12 (April 4,1910), 6.
90 Devotional hlam and Politics in British India

forthcoming ‘urs for M u‘in ud-Din Chishd (popularly known as

Khwaja Gharib Nawaz) at Ajmer.70 As he pointed out, this ‘urs was
always well-attended, and holding the meeting there would there­
fore result in the new organization o f pirs quickly becoming well
known. Its purpose was very broadly formulated as the need to instill
a ‘new spirituality’ (taza ruhaniyyat) in Islam, which the writer
described as currendy ‘oppressed’ (mazlum ).71 The brief announce­
ment in the Dabdaba-e Sikandari tells us that the annual ‘urs had
acquired an important new function as a forum for sufis to meet for
purposes entirely distinct from devotion to the pir whose death
anniversary was being commemorated.72
In the second decade of the twentieth century, the Dabdaba-e
Sikandari reported annual meetings of organizationally distinct as­
sociations called the ‘Anjuman-e Ahl-e Sunnat’ in Karachi,73 Bareil­
ly and Muradabad.74 In each case the anjumans seem to have been
related to the Ahl-e Sunnat madrasas in their respective towns. The
report o f the Bareilly anjuman tells us that the meetings consisted of

70 Ibid., 45:23 (June 28, 1909), 3 - 4 . O n the Ajmer shrine and ‘urs, see Currie, The
Shrine and Cult of Mu 'in al-din Chishti of Ajmer. Also see Syed LiyaqaC Hussain M oini,
‘Rituals and Customary Practices at the Dargah o f A jm er\ in Troll (cd.), Muslim Shrines
in India, pp. 60-75.
71 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 45:23 (June 28, 1909), 3. T he announcem ent was made by one
Sayyid Irtiza Husain Qadiri Barkad, o f Marahra and Sitapur.
72 This development is not too well documented, though we have some passing
references to the ‘urs as an occasion for public statements or meetings on matters o f
current concern. Gilmartin, e.g., cites an instance w hen ‘a radical ‘alim o f strong reformist
leanings • . * issue[d] a public challenge at the Sial 'urs for a debate with the Pir o f Golra,
w ho opposed the radical phase o f the Khilafat agitation’ (Empire and Islam, p. 64)« In
Marahra, we see the ‘urs being an occasion for an association m eeting in 1946, when
M uham m ad Miyan created an organization called the 4Jama‘at-e Ahl-e Sunnat, opposing
the Pakistan idea. T he Jama‘at m et during the annual ‘urs for M uhamm ad M iyan’s father.
See the Epilogue below for details.
73 T he founder o f this anjuman, and o f the associated madrasa, was one Ghulam -e Rasul,
an imam in the Jam e‘ Masjid at Karachi. In a letter to the Dabdaba-e Sikandari, he referred
to Ahmad Riza as the Mujaddid o f the fourteenth century, thereby indicating that he
considered himself a follower. A visit to the madrasa by a disciple o f the Barkatiyya pirs
in May-June 1912 signalled the approval o f the leaders o f the Ahl-e Sunnat. See
Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 48:20 (May 6,1912), 7-8; 48:24 (J u n e 3,1912), 7; 59:22 (May 12,
1913), 5-6.
74 Ibid., 49:31 (July 14, 1913), 6; 50:32 (July 6, 1914), 3; 52:32 (J u n e 9, 1916), 4.
 Institutional Bases, I880s-I920s 91

na‘ts, sermons, and speeches, proceedings which also marked such

occasions as ‘urs and annual dastar-bandi ceremonies at the Manzar
al-Islam.75 In Muradabad, on the other hand, the anjuman meeting
included a debate with some Arya Samajis, a field in which N a‘im
ud-D in’s skills were highly regarded among the Ahl-e Sunnat.76
In 1916, the Dabdaba-e Sikandari announced the formation o f a
‘Halqa-e Ahl-e Sunnat’ in Sikandra Rao, a town in Aligarh district
about 40 kilometres southwest ofMarahra.77 The term halqa (circle)
suggests a group o f sufis engaged in dhikr (repetition o f religious
formulae).78 However, this halqa, while expressly stating its respect
for sufis and sufi institutions,79 also sought to defend the Ahl-e
Sunnat vision o f din against its critics, both Muslim and Hindu. The
nazim-e a'la (chief administrator) o f the halqa was one Sayyid
Muhammad Ghulam Qutub ud-Din, a preacher from Sahaswan,
Badayun district.80 N ot surprisingly, therefore, the halqa displayed
a particular interest in preaching: thirty-five preachers (wa (ezin) were
said to have undertaken to do tabligh on the ‘duties (ahkam) o f
Islam’.81 Their preaching tours were reported periodically in the
Dabdaba during 1917, but seem to have fallen off thereafter.
Much more ambitious in scope, and more far-reaching in influence

75 Ibid., 49:31 duly 14, 1913), 6.

76 See the biographical sketch o f N a‘im ud-D in in the Epilogue for m ore details.
77 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 53:2 (November 6, 1916), 3.
78 See Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University o f
N orth Carolina Press, 1975), p. 176.
79 For instance, one o f its purposes was ‘to follow the tariqa (way) o f the sufi masters’.
A m ong its principles were the following: ‘It is incum bent on every m em ber [of the
Halqa] that he be a follower of the tariqa o f the sufis’, and ‘N o one will have the right
to criticize the old tariqa o f the derwishes and the customs o f the khanqah’. Dabdaba-e
Sikandari, 53:2 (N ovem ber 6, 1916), 6.
80 H e was com m only known by the unlikely name o f ‘Pardesiji Brahmachari’, ‘a
Brahmin ascetic from foreign parts’. W hile not o f Ahmad R iza’s inner circle offollowers,
Ghulam Q utub ud-D in Brahmachari played a leadership role in various Ahl-e Sunnat
activities. For instance, in 1920 he presided over the fourth annual m eeting o f the
Madrasa A hl-e Sunnat wa Jama'at, Muradabad (precursor, presumably, to the Jam'iyya
N a'im iyya). Al-Sawad al-A'zam (M uradabad), 1:4 (R ajab 1 3 3 8 /A p ril 1920),
unnum bered page facing p. 32; in 1924, he was involved in the w ork o f the Jama'at
R iza-e Mustafa, on which see below.
8' Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 53:2 (November 6, 1916), 6.
92 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

than any of the activities mentioned so far, were two organizations

created in the early 1920s by ‘ulama’ at the centre o f the Ahl-e
Sunnat movement. In 1921 they created the ‘Ansar al-Islam’, or
‘Helpers o f Islam’ (invoking, no doubt deliberately, the ‘Ansar’ of
Muhammad’s day, who helped him set up the first Muslim state in
Medina), an organization dedicated to helping the Ottomans after
their defeat in World W ar I.82 In 1924, or perhaps earlier, the
Jama‘at-e Riza-e Mustafa (Society Pleasing to the Prophet M uham­
mad) was formed with the immediate purpose o f reconverting to
Islam large groups of people who had recendy embraced Hinduism
under the influence of the Arya Samaj.83 Unlike all the preceding
organizations, including the Ansar al-Islam, the Jama‘at-e Riza-e
Mustafa was quite long-lived, records o f its meetings being available
for as late as 1957.84
It would serve little purpose to describe the Jama‘at-e Riza-e
Mustafa in any detail here. Suffice it to say that in it we see, as in
the other Ahl-e Sunnat endeavours, organized compartmentaliza-
tion of different activities (preaching, publications, debate, finance,
and so on), as well as competition with rival groups o f ‘ulama’ for
influence. This spirit of competition is evident in the following
sentences in an annual report, for instance, where the role o f the
Tablighi Jama'at, affiliated to Deoband, is deprecated:
It is entirely fitting to say that the boldness and courage o f thejam a‘at-e Riza-e
Mustafa and its unhesitating entry into the field were an inspiration to many
[branches of die] Tablighi Jama‘at to enter the field as well. They did so when the
Jama‘at-e Riza-e Mustafa had cleared the field, and had prepared a course of action.85

82 The collapse o f the O ttom an empire after W orld W ar I and its impact on Indian
Muslims o f various persuasions is dealt with in some detail in Chapter IX o f this study.
T h e Ansar al-Islam is discussed in that context, in reladon as well to other Indian Muslim
organizations o f relief such as the Anjum an-e Khuddam -e Ka‘ba, m entioned earlier in
this chapter.
83 The date of thejam a‘at-e Riza-e Mustafa’s founding is in some doubt because a letter
dated April/M ay 1920 by Ahmad Riza Khan suggests that he had blessed the new
organization at that time; however, it does not appear to have been acdve until 1924 or
thereabouts. T he letter is reproduced in Rudad-ejama'at-e Riza-e Mustafa (1342/1924),
‘K hutba’, pp. 21-2. N o publication details are indicated.
84 T he Jam a'at may o f course have condnued to exist even beyond this date.
85 Riidad-eJama'at-e Riza-e Mustafa, p. 19.
 Institutional Bases, 18 8 0 s-1920s 93

Y et the Jama‘at-e Riza-e Mustafa, for all its organization and efforts
in the field, was in fact gready overshadowed by the Tablighi
Jam a‘at. T hejam a‘at-e Riza-e Mustafa’s apparent need to set off its
achievements against those of the Tablighi Jama*at would seem to
confirm this.86

O ral D ebates

Competition between rival Muslim movements was also expressed

in oral debate or munazara, a phenomenon well documented in the
scholarly literature.87 As Metcalf has indicated, most oral debates in
the mid-nineteenth century had taken place between Muslims and
Christian missionaries (whose methods o f preaching were a model
for the tabligh efforts of later Muslims).88 As early as the 1830s,
however, the ‘ulama’ were debating one another. The debate
between Shah Isma‘il and Fazl-e Haqq Khairabadi (1797-1861) on
the subject of imkan-e nazir (‘the possibility o f an equal’), that is to
say, whether Allah had the power to create another prophet like
Muhammad, was famous in ‘ulama’ circles.89 It foreshadowed later
debates along the same lines between the Ahl-e Sunnat and the
Deobandis in the late nineteenth century and thereafter.
By the 1880s and 1890s the issues debated by the Ahl-e Sunnat

86 O n the Tablighi Jama'at’s efforts in the and-Shuddhi campaign, see Anwarul Haq,
The Faith Movement o f Mawlana Muhammad Ilyas: and S. Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, Life and
Mission of Maulana Mohammad Ilyas, tr. M ohammad Asif Kidwai (Lucknow: Acadcmy
o f Islamic Research and Publications, 1979). T he Shuddhi m ovem ent itself is described
by Thursby, Hindu-Muslim Relations in British India, pp. 136-58, and passim.
87 See Rafiuddin Ahmed, The Bengal Muslims 1871- 1906: A Quest for Identity (Delhi:
O xford University Press, 1981), pp. 74-6, and passim, for discussion o f the institution
o f bahas or debate among Bengal Muslims; Metcalf, Islamic Revival, pp. 215-34, has an
illuminating discussion o f debate in all its aspects, with reference to the north Indian
‘ulama*; Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous, pp. 4-10, discusses Ahmadi debates with
Christians, Arya Samajis, and Muslims in the Panjab.
88 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, pp. 215-8.
89 See Ibid., pp. 6 5 -6 , for an account o f the two positions taken. T he issues involved
were Allah’s transcendence and power on the one hand and the Prophet’s uniqueness
on the other. Ahmad Poza’s father, Naqi ‘Ali Khan, participated in debate on the same
issue in the 1870s against an ‘alim o f the Ahl-e Hadis. See Rahm an ‘Ali, Tazkira-e
'Ulama’-e Hind, p. 531.
94 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

had become quite standard. Against the Deobandis, they frequendy

argued that the Prophet had knowledge o f the unseen f 'ilm-eghaib),
or ‘proved’ the kujr (unbelief) contained in one o f several books
by Deobandi ‘ulama’.90 W ith the Ahl-e Hadis, they argued on the
absolute necessity o f taqlid (following one o f the four major Sunni
law schools), and with the Nadwa, on the impermissibility o f
associating with ‘bad’ Muslims.91 They also debated with the Arya
Samaj on subjects such as the createdness o f the Q u r'an ,
Muhammad’s personal excellence, or the ‘falsity’ o f the Hindu
doctrine of transmigration (taqasukh).92
While Ahmad Riza never engaged in oral debates (preferring to
do so in writing instead), some ofhis followers were known for their
skill as debaters. Among them, notably, were N a‘im ud-D in Mura­
dabadi and Hashmat ‘Ali (d. 1960). It was said that whenever a
well-known opponent challenged the Ahl-e Sunnat to debate
Ahmad Riza would send N a‘im ud-Din a telegram, asking him to
be^the Ahl-e Sunnat representative (wakil) on the occasion.93 His
debating skills were said to be so good that even Swami Shrad-
dhanand, leader of the Arya Samaj’s Shuddhi movement, shied away
from testing his skills against those o f N a‘im ud-Din:
W hen Shraddhanand began his fitn a -e irtidad (mischief o f apostacy, i.e., the
Shuddhi m ovem ent). . . Hazrat [Na'im ud-Din] invited him to a debate. He
accepted the invitation. Hazrat went to Delhi [to debate with Shraddhanand].
H e ran from there and came to Bareilly. Hazrat w ent to Bareilly and challenged
him to debate. He ran from there to Lucknow. W hen Hazrat went to
Lucknow, he went to Patna. Hazrat followed him to Patna, but he w ent to
Calcutta. Hazrat went there too, and caught him. He then clearly refused to
debate.94

As for Hashmat ‘Ali, known in Ahl-e Sunnat circles as an eminent

90 Sec Chapter VIII below.

91 O n this, see Chapter VII.
92 O n debate with the Aryas, see, e.g., Ghulam M u'in ud-D in N a‘imi, ‘Tazkira
al-M a‘ru f Hayat-e Sadr al-Afazil’, Sawad-e A ‘zam, 2 (Lahore: N a'im i Dawakhana,
1378/19-26 June 1959), 7-9; Zafar ud-D in Bihari, Hayat-e A l a Hazrat, pp. 218-19
(in which Ahmad Riza reportedly converted an Arya Samaji).
93 ‘Tazkira al-M a‘ru f Hayat-e Sadr al-Afazil’, pp. 10-11.
94 Ibid., p. 9.
 Institutional Bases, 1880s—1920s 95

munazir or debater, his biography gives the following account o f his

first debate:
In 1919-20, [Ahmad Riza] sent this young man to debate with [a Deobandi
‘alim], khalifa o f [Maulana Ashraf ‘Ali] Thanawi, at Haldwani Mandi, all by
himself. He was only nineteen years old. H e harassed his opponent (naak chane
diabwa diye) [lit., ‘made him chew gram with his nose’] and silenced his argument
in favour o f Thanawi’s kufr-laden H ifz cd-Iman. And on the question o f ‘ilm-e
ghaib, [the opponent] was left astounded. This was his first debate . . . . After
successfully defeating his opponent, he returned to [Ahmad Riza, who] was
very pleased with his report, embraced him, and prayed for him. He gave him
the name (kunyai) ‘Abu‘1 Fath’ [‘the father o f success’], as well as a turban and
tunic (atxgarkha), and five rupees. H e also said that henceforward [Hashmat ‘Ali]
w ould get five rupees every month. In this way he honoured him. And, by
the grace o f Allah, [Ahmad Riza’s] favour was always with him, and he won
a debate on every occasion.95

As Metcalf notes, there was no serious intellectual exchange on

such occasions. As each competitor left the debate convinced that
his side had ‘won’, that his view was morally ‘right’ and the rival
opinion correspondingly ‘wrong’, all participants derived psycho­
logical satisfaction from the exchange96— the chief purpose o f the
debate, Metcalf suggests. The result was that a person’s identification
with his chosen group was intensified.
These debates, being social events often attended by large public
audiences, were characterized by an element o f competitive show­
manship and theatre. Ahmed describes the atmosphere surrounding
a late nineteenth century bahas in a Bengali Muslim village as that
o f a ‘fair . . . as if suddenly a city had sprung up in the middle o f a
jungle’.97 Several factors lent drama to the event. These included
the imposition of extravagant conditions on the loser (for instance,
that he would embrace the views of his opponent if he lost98), and
the occasional invocation by the competitors o f the curse o f God

95 M uham m ad M ahbub ‘Ali Khan, Buland Paya Hayat-e Hashmat 'Ali (Kanpur: Arakin-e
Bazm -e Qadiri Rizwi, 1380/1960-61), pp. 7-8.
96 Metcalf, blamic Revival, pp. 215-16, 219.
97 Ahm ed, Bengal Muslims, p. 79.
98 Ahm ad Riza said that it was haram (forbidden) for anyone to either impose o r agree
to such a condition. See Malfuzat, vol. 4, p. 19.
96 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

on the loser." The length o f the debate (three days, sometimes as

much as fifteen100), the competitors’ apparent licence to insult one
another, and their insistence on having the last word (which fre­
quently led one party or the other to ask for a second debate) point
in fact to an element of ‘social inversion’ in some debates.101 As
Ahmed indicates in the context of the bahas in Bengal, debates
sometimes ended in violence.102
While written and oral argumentation did not always have such
dramatic consequences, there is no doubt that the combined effect
o f extensive publication, the creation o f voluntary organizations,
preaching tours in small towns and villages, sermons delivered at
mosques and elsewhere, and the oral debates together created a
self-consciousness about religion that was new in late nineteenth
century British India.

99 Known as a mubahala, this was sometimes an element in Ahmadi debates w ith

opponents. See Friedmann, pp. 6 -7 . The Ahl-e Sunnat are also know n to have
challenged a leader o f the Nadwa on one occasion to a mubahala, a challenge that
(according to Ahl-e Sunnat sources) was not taken up. See Sayyid Ikhlas Husain
Sahaswani Chishti Nizami, Hadis-e Jankah Mufti L u tf Ullah (Bareilly: Matba* Ahl-e
Sunnat wa Jama'at, 1313/1895-96), pp. 13-14.
100 See Friedmann, p. 7.
101 I owe this concept to Katheryn Hansen, ‘T he Birth o f Hindi Drama in Benaras,
1868-1885*, in Sandria B. Freitag (ed.), Culture and Power in Banaras: Community,
Performance, and Environment, 1800-1980 (Berkeley: University o f California Press,
1989), p. 73. Hansen's description o f certain features o f the Svang theatre seems to have
m uch in com m on with the social setting in which munazaras (one imagines) must have
taken place. These include ‘the use o f unbounded public space,. . . the open-ended
tim e frame, . . . the competitive situation, . . . the absence o f a controlling figure o f
au th o rity ,. . . the gathering together o f spectators from all castes and classes’. M ost if
n o t all these characteristics seem to be shared by the munazara.
102 Ahmed, Bengal Muslims, pp. 79-80.
 Chapter IV

The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra,

Late Nineteenth Century

Ahmad Riza’s discipleship to Shah Al-e Rasul (d. 1878), a Sayyid

and pir of the Barkatiyya family based in the small town o f Marahra
near Aligarh, was o f great significance to his life. In what way the
sufi tie was important to the Ahl-e Sunnat in the larger context of
‘being’ Muslim, and what connection they saw between their claim
to being the Ahl-e Sunnat or ‘people o f the [Prophet’s] way’ and
sufi belief and practice, are some of the questions I try to address in
this chapter and the next. Furthermore, in indicating wherein the
Ahl- e Sunnat perceived the sources o f the sufi master’s authority to
lie, I hope to say something about their perceptions o f the nature o f
religious authority generally: how it is conferred, manifested, and
passed on.
Here I turn to the Barkatiyya family. My account, based on a
family history, indicates some o f the ways in which the Barkatiyya
pirs, regarding themselves as ‘reformist’, differed from— or believed
themselves to be different from— other sufi pirs in the subcontinent
in the late nineteenth century. By focusing specifically on the
Barkatiyya pirs, I also hope to highlight the importance o f the
institution of the family in nineteenth century British India as a
source o f authority.
98 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

T he B arjcatiyya S a y y id s o f M arahra

The Barkatiyya family o f Marahra traces its descent to certain Zaidi1

Sayyids who were descended from the Prophet through his daughter
Fatima and her husband ‘Ali. In the course o f time they setded in
Iraq. In the eleventh century AD, a branch o f the family went to
Ghazni, joining the army o f Sultan Mahmud o f Ghazni (r. 998-
1030) on one o f the Sultan’s incursions to India. However, it was
in a later reign, that o f Sultan Shams ud-Din Altamash (r. 1211-36),
or Iltutmish, as he is often called, that a member of the family first
acquired a land grant in Bilgram, a small rural town in western
Awadh, as reward for a successful military campaign against a Hindu
king.2
This ancestor of the Barkatiyya Sayyids was one o f many Muslims
to setde in the north Indian plains during the reign o f the Delhi
Sultans, and later that of the Mughals, as landowners. Encouraged
by the Mughal policy o f granting land in return for state service, the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the Muslim gentry (ashraf)
putting down roots in the countryside, and creating small agricul­
turally-based towns (qasbas) around them. During Aurangzeb’s
time, land grants were made heritable, thus further encouraging
setdement on the land; under earlier Mughal rulers, they had been
for the lifetime o f the grantee only.3
Bayly describes the qasba town as ‘a place with a distinct urban
status which possessed a mosque, a public bath and a judicial officer
(kazt). It was, however, an inward sense o f cohesion which was

1 T he Zaidis (Ar., Zaydi) trace their origins to Zayd, son o f Zayn al-‘Abidin, the fourth
Shi‘i Imam (d. 712). Zayd claimed ‘the Imamate on the basis that it belonged to any
descendant o f ‘Ali and Fadma w ho is learned, pious and comes forward openly to claim
th e Imamate (i.e. raises a revolt)’. H e raised a revolt in 740, but was killed at Kufa on
the orders o f the Caliph Hisham. His followers succeeded in establishing a state in north
Iran betw een the ninth and eleventh centuries, and in converting the population to
Zaidi Shi'ism. Zaidi Shi*is ruled Yem en from the tenth century dow n to m odem times.
See M oojan M om en, A n Introduction to Shi'i hlam: The History and Doctrines o f Twelver
Shi'ism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 49-50.
2 This family history is based, unless otherwise indicated, on Maulana Aulad-e Rasul
‘M uham m ad M iyan’ Q adiri’s Khandan-e Barakat (c. 1927).
3 T he foregoing is based on Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, pp. 189-93, and
C hapter 9.
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 99

important’.4 As he points out, a ‘sense o f pride in home (watan) and

urban tradition’ was characteristic o f the way the gentry felt about
their qasba from the mid eighteenth century. They stood at the
centre o f a literate, Perso-Islamic culture economically dependent
on agriculture and landholdings. Frequently, Bayly adds, the
presence of a Muslim saint’s tomb, or hospice, further enhanced the
sense o f corporate unity and pride. All o f these features appear to
have been present in the case o f the Barkatiyya Sayyids o f Bilgram.
The name ‘Barkatiyya’ adopted by the family probably refers to
Shah Barkat Ullah (1660-1729), who founded the hospice (khan-
qah) around which later generations o f the family have lived and
grown up. Although Shah Barkat Ullah was not the first in the family
to move to Marahra (his paternal grandfather had made that move
sometime in the seventeenth century),5 he was in many senses the
‘founder’ of the Marahra branch o f the family; their present settle­
ment, known as ‘Basti Pirzadagan’, was founded by him. The reasons
for Shah Barkat Ullah’s grandfather’s initial move from Bilgram are
not clear; the sources mention his resdess piety and search for
spiritual truth. Whatever the reason, it was probably beneficial to
later generations to be close to the centre o f power at Delhi.
Marahra, in Etah district, is located beyond Aligarh, about 170
kilometres due south-east of Delhi.
Shah Barkat Ullah is reputed to have been especially drawn to
the Qadiri order o f sufis, although he was also initiated into other
orders, such as the Chishti, Suhrawardi, and Naqshbandi.6 He was
a learned man, with many books on mysticism and poetry to his
credit, and enjoyed a reputation for piety which attracted a large
number o f disciples, many o f them from the ruling classes (umara).
His reputation also attracted the patronage o f the Mughal rulers at
Delhi, including Emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707); during the
eighteenth century, revenue-free grants o f whole villages were made

4 Ibid., pp. 191-2.

5 Shah ‘Abd ul-Jalil, Shah Barkat Ullah’s paternal grandfather, lived there during the
last years o f his life. H e built a hospice, mosque, and a well, and lived there with his
family until his death in 1647. Khaftdan-t Baraka t, pp. 4-5.
6 Ibid., pp. 8-9.
100 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

to the khanqah and dargah (shrine) by rulers attracted to the pirs of

Marahra.7
Aurangzeb’s death ushered in a period of weakness in the Mughal
empire, encouraging a move toward greater regional autonomy in
Rohilkhand as elsewhere. Patronage o f the Barkatiyya family was
assumed by the nawabs of Farrukhabad. In 1730, Nawab Muham­
mad Khan Bangash (d. 1743) ordered a tomb built for Shah Barkat
Ullah and granted lands in mu'afi (or madad-e ma ‘ash) for its upkeep.8
Some years later, Ahmad Khan Bangash (d. 1771), Muhammad
Khan’s second son who succeeded him as Nawab in 1750, made an
annual grant o f Rs. 450 available to Shah Barkat Ullah’s grandson
for the upkeep of the tomb. This sum was still being disbursed in
the early twentieth century by the state government o f the United
Provinces.9
However, in the mid-eighteenth century, the Barkatiyya Sayyids’
fortunes could not have been entirely secure. Along with the
political vicissitudes of the times, in which now the Mughals and
now the nawabs o f Farrukhabad exercised control over the Marahra
region,10 there were also rural zamindari revolts and resentment of
the Sayyids’ privileged tax-free status. W ith the political system in
flux, the local revenue system was unravelling as well: hitherto
jagirdars (land grantees) had collected the revenue from the zamin-
dars (local chieftains) and passed it on to the centre, but now, with
the weakening of the Mughal empire, jagirdars had difficulty collecting

7 Ibid., See, e.g., pp. 9 ,1 5 ,1 8 .

8 Ibid., p. 12. Irvine indicates m ore precisely that the tomb o f Shah Barkat Ullah was
built by Shuj'at Khan Ghilzai (probably an officer in the service o f M uham m ad Khan
Bangash) in 1730. William Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs of Farrukhabad— A Chronicle
(1713-1857), Part II (1879), no. 2, 71 fn.
9 Khandan-e Barakat, p. 16.
10 In 1750, the tow n o f Marahra was sacked by Safdar Jang’s army in the course o f a
batde between Safdar Jang’s forces (led by the Hindu Naval Rae, and then by Safdar
Jang himself) and Ahmad Khan Bangash. Ahmad Khan returned to Farrukhabad
victorious for the time being. A year later, however, the situation was reversed when
Safdar Jang returned to the attack w ith Maratha help. Although the Rohillas put up a
com bined front, Ahmad Khan Bangash was defeated. Accepting an unfavourable treaty
w ith the Mughal emperor, he managed to hold on to half his territories. Irvine, The
Bangash Nawabs of Farrukhabad, 71-122.
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 101

the revenue. The zamindars also resented the fact that the lands
granted in mu'afi to learned religious families such as the Barkatiyya
Sayyids had been removed from their authority and revenue pool.11
However, the patronage of the nawabs o f Farrukhabad appears
to have allowed the Barkatiyya family to survive these troubles. The
nawabs, for their part, needed the Sayyids to legitimize their rule.
As Bayly says, ‘A ruler needed to be legitimate in the eyes o f the
powerful Islamic elites of writers, jurists and service communities.
He had to offer them patronage and also sustain the life o f the
community of the faithful’.12 Likewise, Eaton describes the inter­
dependence between political rulers and sufis in medieval India as
follows:
The court realized that hundreds, even thousands, of common folk— Hindu as
well as Muslim—thronged to these dargahs . . . . by securing the loyalty of an
elite group considered by the court to wield such influence among the lower
population, the government hoped to deepen the roots o f its own authority
throughout the kingdom.13

M arahra’s geographic location was also favourable, given its

proximity to the Grand Trunk Road and to important trade routes
and market towns such as Kasganj. Bayly notes that there were ‘no
less than eleven major markets in Farrukhabad and Etah Districts
before 1750’.14

N otable S u fis in t h e B a rk a tiy y a F amily

In the course o f the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the family

traditions of learning and sufi piety continued to be handed down
from father to son, and the reputation o f the family spread. After
Shah Barkat Ullah’s death, the Barkatiyya Sayyids divided into two
sarkats (‘houses’ or ‘branches’):15 the descendants o f Shah Barkat
11 These comments are based on Muzaffar Alam, Crisis of Empire, Chapter III.
12 Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, p. 115.
13 Richard M. Eaton, Sufis ofBijapur 1300-1700: Social Roles of Sujis in Medieval India
(Princeton: Princcton University Press, 1978), p. 218.
14 Bayly, p. 119.
15 Literally ‘governm ent’ or ‘master’, the term has obvious connotations o f worldly
pow er and authority. For discussion o f such terminology in the sufi context, see Simon
102 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Ullah’s elder son constituted the ‘Sarkar Kalan’, or ‘Great House’,

while tho$e o f his younger son constituted the ‘Sarkar Khurd’ or
‘Small House’. The Sarkar Khurd had its own khanqah and mosque
and its own lands provided the revenue for their upkeep. The Sarkar
Kalan, which was the better endowed o f the two, also financed the
running of its hospice, mosque and other buildings, through revenue
derived from landed property. The branches maintained their separate
identities in terms o f marriage alliances, each tending to have its own
networks, though marriage across the two sarkars was not ruled
out.16The author of the Khandan-e Barakat ignores the Sarkar Khurd
for the most part, or relegates it to relative unimportance.
In the Sarkar Kalan, on the other hand, the mid-eighteenth to
mid-nineteenth centuries shone with illustrious personalities (see
family tree below): notably, in the eighteenth century, the three
brothers Shah Al-e Ahmad ‘Achhe Miyan’, Shah Al-e Barakat
‘Suthre Miyan’, and Shah Al-e Husain ‘Sache Miyan’.17 The first
two distinguished themselves in very different ways: Achhe Miyan
is said to have been so wise and popular that he had close to two
lakh (200,000) disciples (murids)! In 1783, the Mughal king Shah
‘Alam granted him several villages for the upkeep of the khanqah.18
As to Suthre Miyan, he was a great builder, also a great sufi devotee
and ascetic, and a poet. The youngest brother, Sache Miyan, was
adopted by his mother’s brother at the age o f six, and grew up in
Bihar, never again to return to Marahra. As his uncle was a nawab,
he inherited the nawabi after the latter’s death.

Digby, 'T he Sufi Shaikh as a Source ofA uthority in Mediaeval India*, in M arc Gaborieau
(cd*)# blam and Society in South Asia (Paris: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales,
1986).
16 These comments are culled from the family history as a whole. See, e.g., ibid., pp.
10, 69-70, 82; on p. 82, the author, w ho belonged to the Sarkar Kalan, specifically
distanced himself from certain trends ofbelief which he associated with the Sarkar K hurd.
17 Miyan is/a n address expressive o f kindness, or respect*, and its range o f meanings
includes ‘Sir*, ‘good man*, ‘master', ‘husband*, ‘lord and master*. John T. Platts, A Dictionary
o f Urdu, Classical Hindi and English (Oxford: O xford University Press, 1982), p. 1103. It
is frequendy appended to a male child’s nickname, w hlth latter may be based (as is
presumably the case here) on some trait ofhis personality. ‘Achhe Miyan* may thus be
rendered ‘G ood sir*, ‘Suthre Miyan* ‘Handsome . . and ‘Sache M iyan' ‘H o n e s t. . . \
18 Khandan-e Barakat, pp. 18-19.
 Shah Barkat Ullah
(1660-1729)
I
Al-e Muhammad
(1700-51)

Shah Hamza
(1719-83)

¿hah Al-e Ahmad Shah Al-e Barakat Shah Al-c Husain

(Achhc Miyan) (Suthre Miyan) (Sache Miyan)
(1747-1819) (1750-1835) (1763-1819)

Shah Al-e Imam Shah Al-e Rasul Shah Aulad-e Rasul Shah Ghulam Muhi ud-Din
(Jama Miyan)*
(1780-1833) (1794-1879) (1798-1851) (1808-69)
I
Aulad-e Husain
I
Shah Zuhur Hasan
I
Shah Muhammad Sadiq
(1816-59) (1813-50) (1833-1908)
I
Shah Abu‘l Husain Sayyid Muhammad Isma'il
(Nuri Miyan) Hasan (Shah Ji)
(1839-1906) (1855-1911)
l
Shah Aulad-e Rasul
(Muhammad Miyan)
(1883-1952)

Jama Miyan is described in the Khandan-e Barakat as a Tafeili ShiV.

Figure 2 Family Tree of the Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra

104 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Several o f Suthre Miyan’s sons were also famous. Al-e Imam

‘Jama Miyan’, the eldest, was something of a bête noire in the Sarkar
Kalan, for he was a Tafzili, whose beliefs verged on Shi‘ism;19 the
author o f the family history puts this down to his having lived in
Lucknow and ‘the East’. He was excluded from his father’s inheritance,
apparendy because his father survived him. He died in Bihar and
was buried there; his descendants appear also to be buried separately
from the rest of the family, not at the main dargah in Marahra.20
Shah Al-e Rasul (1794—1879), Suthre Miyan’s second son (and
Ahmad Riza’s pir), received his education from his father and his
uncle, Achhe Miyan; he was taught, as well, by Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz
Dehlawi (son o f the famous Shah Wali Ullah), and Maulana N ur
ul- Haqq Firangi Mahali of Lucknow. Achhe Miyan gave him bai‘a,
and khilafat and ijazat (permission to enrol disciples in a silsila, or
line o f spiritual masters ending in one’s own preceptor). His father
also gave him khilafat. After his father’s death, he and his two
younger brothers joindy became Suthre Miyan’s sajjada-nishins
(successors as pir). All three brothers inherited equal portions from
the khanqah, the dargah, the income o f the two sarkars, and the
landed properties (ja‘e-dad). They were also jo in t caretakers
(mutawallis) of these properties.21
Finally, in this list o f eighteenth and nineteenth century
luminaries in the Barkatiyya family must be mentioned Shah Abu‘l
Husain Ahmad ‘Nuri Miyan' (1839-1906), a grandson o f Shah Al-e
Rasul. Orphaned as a young boy, he was brought up by his
grandparents, and Shah Al-e Rasul was extremely fond o f him. N uri
Miyan received bai‘a and khilafat from his grandfather. In addition,
he was taught by a vast array of teachers from within the family and
outside; among the latter were Maulanas ‘Abd ul-Qadir Badayuni

19 Tafzili: a Sunni who assigns special importance to ‘Ali. As noted in the Barkatiyya
genealogical table, however, Jama Miyan is described as a Tafzili Shi'i in the Khandan-e
Barakat. Apparendy, being on the borderline o f Sunni and Shi'i belief, the Tafzilis w ere
regarded sometimes as Sunnis, at other times as Shi'is.
20 Unlike the other sons, Jama M iyan was bom o f Suthre Miyan’s first marriage; perhaps
this also set him apart from them. His descendants are buried in a place called ‘Bagh
Pukhta’, built by Jama Miyan. Khandan-e Barakat, pp. 25-9.
21 Ibid., pp. 29-36.
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 105

and Fazl-e Rasul Badayuni, confidants and close associates o f the

family. Nuri Miyan wrote a large number o f books on sufi-related
themes (unrd, zikr, shaghl, 'amal) as well as fiqh, and poetry. After
Shah Al-e Rasul’s death, he became his sajjada-nishin, joindy with
Shah Al-e Rasul’s son (brother o f Nuri Miyan’s deceased father;
hence Nuri Miyan’s uncle). He had many khulafa’ (spiritual succes­
sors), and thousands o f murids.22
The author o f the Khandan-e Barakat, Aulad-e Rasul ‘Muhammad
Miyan’ (1892-1952), was Nuri Miyan’s (maternal) grandson. He
was a learned scholar with a large number o f books to his name,
who regarded Ahmad Riza Khan with the greatest respect. Al­
though he was quite young during Ahmad Riza’s last years o f life,
he played a leadership role in the activities o f the Ansar al-Islam,
created in 1921 in order to find some means ofhelping the Ottomans
in the aftermath o f World War I.23

R e l ig io u s L ife at B asti P ir z a d a q a n

The heart of the setdement of the Barkatiyya Sayyids was the dargah
or cluster of tomb-shrines in which the ancestors were buried Muham­
mad Miyan carefully documents the place of burial o f each member
o f the family, including women, who were interred in a separate
part of the dargah. Shah Barkat Ullah’s tomb was the most important
of them all. All Shah Barkat Ullah’s male descendants o f the Sarkar
Kalan and Sarkar Khurd are buried close to his tomb-complex. A
separate complex, that of Shah Al-e Muhammad, his son, is located
close by, and around it, again, are the graves o f several descendants.
The importance o f these tomb-shrines to the family and to their
followers may be understood in terms o f the concept ofbaraka (or,
more popularly, barkat). All sufi pirs, and particularly Sayyids, are
held by believing Muslims, and indeed by some Hindus as well, to
possess spiritual efficacy or grace caused by their closeness to God
and the Prophet. Some believe that when a saint dies

22 Ibid., pp. 30-1.

23 O n the Ansar al-Islam, sec Chapter III above; also see the Epilogue below which
includes a biographical account of M uhammad Miyan and discusses the reasons for his
objections, in the 1940s, to the creation o f Pakistan as a separate Muslim state.
106 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

his spirit is so powerful and so dominant over the body that the body itself
does not die or decay but is merely hidden from the living. The baraka o f the
saint is not dissipated at the saint’s death. It is both transmitted to his successors
and remains at his tomb, which becomes a place o f pilgrimage for later
followers. The pir does not actually die in the ordinary sense o f the term. He
is ‘hidden’, and over time he continues to develop spiritually, so that his baraka
increases, as does the importance ofhis shrine.24

The concept of baraka, thus, is central to the popular sufi practices

associated with pilgrimage to shrines, and to the institutions o f
sajjada-nishini, overseeing the shrine o f one’s pir, as well as ‘urs, the
three- or four-day annual ceremony commemorating the death-
anniversary o f a pir. Religious life atBasti Pirzadagan was dominated
by these concerns and the annual cycle o f ritual observances.
The khanqah was where the family lived, amidst mosques, and
other buildings built over the centuries by various ancestors; for
instance, a Diwan Khana (Hall o f Audience, in which important
visitors would be received)25 and a Haweli Sajjada-nishini (residence
for sajjada-nishins) were built by Shah Haqqani in the eighteenth
century, and subsequently rebuilt, while Suthre Miyan built
numerous houses and rebuilt another haweli (the Haweli Mahal
Sara'e). Thus one gets the picture o f male descendants o f the family
living separately, each o f them heir to his father’s personal property
and frequendy to his sajjada-nishini. At the same time, together they
constituted a core o f closely related males living in proximity to one
another, within Basti Pirzadagan. The Basti is located away from the
main township of Marahra and enclosed by a boundary wall.
The strong sense of family unity that pervades Muhammad
M iyan’s history, the Khandan-e Barakat, is reflected in Basti
Pirzadagan’s obvious physical unity. As the Barkatiyya sufis were
Sayyids with a genealogical memory that reached right back to the

24 Katherine Pratt Ewing, ‘The Pir or Sufi Saint in Pakistani Islam’, Ph.D. dissertation,
University o f Chicago, 1980, p. 29. This view is consonant w ith Ahl-e Sunnat views
on the subject, as will be clear further.
25 Ewing, pp. 179-80, writes that among the Malangs near Lahore w hom she studied,
the Diwan Khana was used by the sajjada-nishin to receive other sajjada-nishins during
an ‘urs. T he term is associated with a royal court. Adjoining the royal apartments in the
Delhi R ed Fort (built by Shah Jahan in the seventeenth century), for instance, was a
D iw an-e ‘Amm (public hall of audience) and a D iwan-e Khass (private hall o f audience).
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 107

Prophet himself, marriages were carefully regulated, and almost

invariably contracted either with other family members, or in the
absence o f a suitable mate, with Sayyids from other khandans. The
occasional marriage to a non-Sayyid was strongly disapproved of,
though the children of such unions seem to have been recognized
as part o f the family.26 Family consciousness of Sayyid ancestry is
most vividly reflected in the choice o f personal names: ‘Al-e
Muhammad’, ‘Aulad-e Rasul’, or ‘Al-e Husain’,27 for sons, while
daughters’ names would invariably consist o f some compound of
the name ‘Fatima’, such as ‘Khairiyat Fatima’, or ‘Ihtiram Fatima’.
W hile such names were by no means limited to Sayyid families, their
ubiquity in the Barkatiyya khandan is remarkable.
M ore importandy, however, family unity was expressed in the
religious realm. The family owned, either collectively or individual­
ly, a large number oftabarrukat or sacred relics (literally, ‘objects filled
with baraka’). These were an important part o f the inheritance that
a father passed down to his sons. Tabarrukat contain baraka by virtue
o f their previous association with a saint; they are imbued with the
spiritual qualities of the saint himself, ‘as if [they were] an extension
o f his body or contained some o f his essence’.28 Consequendy they
are accorded great reverence. The Barkatiyya khandan was fortunate
in having some especially prized relics. Chief among these were
some hairs of the Prophet. One of them came into the family’s
possession during Shah Barkat Ullah’s lifetime; it is kept in a pewter
or silver needle-case, and viewed by pilgrims during ‘urs ceremonies.
O ther valuable tabarrukat, also dating from Shah Barkat Ullah’s
time, are a robe belonging to ‘Ali (khirqa-e Murtazwi), and hairs of
Hasan and Husain.29 Some of these relics claim fascinating histories,

26 See, e.g., Khandan-e Barakat, pp. 40, 59, 65, 72, and 76. Maulana Tahsin R iza Khan,
a great-grandson o f Ahmad Riza, told me that a non-Sayyid family can give a girl in
marriage to a Sayyid family, but cannot take one (i.e., marriage between a non-Sayyid
male and a Sayyid female is not permissible). Interview, April 18, 1987, Bareilly. In
anthropological terms, this would be said to be a case o f hypergamy w ithin an
endogamous marriage system.
27 In translation, ‘M uham m ad’s family1, ‘son o f the Prophet*, and ‘Husain's family’.
28 Ewing, p. 30.
29 Khandan-e Barakat, pp. 10-11.
108 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

which are themselves statements o f a hierarchy o f spiritual authority:

‘Ali’s robe, thus, is said to have been worn after him by Shaikh ‘Abd
al-Qadir Jilani, founder of the Qadiri order. Thereafter it passed
through the hands of a succession of famous sufi mystics: Sultan
al-Hind (Mu‘in ud-Din Chishti of Ajmer, d. 1236), the Qutb
(Shaikh Bakhtiyar Kaki of Delhi, d. 1236), Baba Farid (Shaikh Farid
ud-D in Ganj-e Shakar o f Pakpattan, Panjab, d. 1265), Hazrat
Mahbub Ilahi (Nizam ud-Din Auliya o f Delhi, d. 1325), Chiragh-e
Dehli (Shaikh Nasir ud-Din Chiragh o f Delhi, d. 1356), and so on,
ultimately reaching Shah Barkat Ullah.30
Shah Barkat Ullah acquired, and passed on to his descendants, a
turban (dastar) which had originally belonged to ‘Abd al-Qadir
Jilani.31 It is said to have come to Shah Barkat Ullah through Bu ‘Ali
Qalandar (Shaikh Sharf ud-Din o f Kamal and Panipat, d. 1324).
Shah Barkat Ullah believed it was ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani’s gift to him
for his devotion and love for the shaikh and the Qadiri order.32 In
succeeding generations, the number o f tabarrukat in the family’s
possession grew quite large and in the eighteenth century Shah
Hamza, a son o f Shah Barkat Ullah, received another hair o f the
Prophet, and a pair of the Prophet’s shoes.33 These and other relics
are viewed by pilgrims during the annual ‘urs.
Apart from tabarrukat, the family also had certain special prayers
(du ‘a) which were passed down from father to son, or sufi preceptor
to disciple, and were part of the family’s secret lore o f mystic prayers
and practices. Nuri Miyan, for instance, received special permission

30 Ibid., p. 11. All the saints m entioned here were o f the Chishti order, founded by
M u 'in ud-D in Chishti, o f Ajmer.
31 Richard M. Eaton, ‘C ourt o f M an, C ourt o f God: Local Perceptions o f the Shrine
o f Baba Farid, Pakpattan, Punjab’, Contributions to Asian Studies, 17 (1982), 57, describes
the symbolism o f the turban as follows: ‘O ne symbol in particular, the turban, perhaps
transcended all others in point o f its repertoire and importance. Associated w ith
traditional Sufi lore but also having ambiguous associations with the crow n and thereby
w ith royalty, the turban served as a vehicle both for religious legitimacy and for the
distribution o f [the pir’s] grace’.
32 Khandan-e Barakat, p. 11.
33 For a rather negative view o f such relics, and their veneration in India especially, see
Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, vol. 2, tr. and ed. S. M. Stem (Chicago: Aldine, 1971),
pp. 327-32.
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 109

(ijazat) from one of his teachers to recite (and to pass on to his

disciples) the Hirz-e Yamani, a name given to certain verses from the
Q ur'an, ‘written cabbalisticaUy and sewn up in leather for carrying
on the body for protection’.34 There were several such special
prayers which were closely guarded secrets within the family,
considered so important that the dates on which a disciple acquired
his teacher’s permission to recite or use them, were recorded, and
considered part ofhis progress on the sufi path.35Undoubtedly, these
constituted part o f the Barkatiyya sufis’ baraka. The possession of
such baraka, in turn, attracted disciples to the holy man. Thus Nuri
Miyan, because ofhis reputation for piety and wisdom, had attracted
‘several thousand’ helpers (khuddam) to the dargah, and was respon­
sible for their material and spiritual welfare.36
In terms o f practice and tradition, there were certain shared
institutions which also bound the family together. These included
the institution o f sajjada-nishini. The sajjada-nishin, or caretaker o f
a tomb-shrine, was appointed or designated by his pir to succeed
him at his death. As his spiritual successor, he inherited his pir’s
baraka. Usually a son succeeded his father as his sajjada-nishin (thus
creating a double link of spiritual as well as biological succession).
In exceptional cases, a person chose to nominate a brother or
nephew, or other relative, as in Shah Al-e Rasul’s case, where he
nominated his grandson joindy with his son. Muhammad Miyan’s
family history also records cases in which several brothers became
their father’s sajjada-nishinsjoindy; these are instances, undoubtedly,
of uncom m on family unity and amity, for the position was a highly
coveted one, and is known to have frequendy led to family discord.37

34 Constance E. Padwick, Muslim Devotions: A Study of Prayer-Manuals in Common Use

(London: S. P. C. K., 1961), p. 25. Khandan-e Barakat, p. 30.
35 Thus, the dates on which N uri Miyan was given permission by Shah Al-e Rasul to
recite particular prayers are separately recorded (together with the names o f the prayers)
in a biography o f N uri Miyan. See Maulawi Ghulam Shabbir Qadiri N uri Badayuni,
Tazkira-e Nuri (La’ilpur, 1968), p. 59.
36 Ibid., p. 60.
There were frequent court cases in British India resulting from disputes over who
the rightful successor was to a sajjada-nishini (also called gaddi, or ‘seat*, a term which
emphasizes the aspect o f ‘rulership’ in the role). See, e.g., Eaton, ‘C ourt o f M an, C ourt
of G od’, for an example from the shrine o f Baba Farid o f Pakpattan.
110 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

The installation ceremony for a new sajjada-nishin at Marahra

took place on the fortieth day o f his pir’s death, a day known as the
chehlum. Family members and important guests, the élite o f the town
and neighbouring areas, and ‘ulama’ close to the family, would be
invited. At the appointed time the new incumbent-to-be, and a
small group o f elders would together go to the dargah, taking with
them some tabarrukat such as a khirqa, turban, or tasbih (rosary).
They would halt at the recendy deceased pir’s grave, and lay the
tabarrukat on it. Then they would pray to the elders o f the silsila for
union (tawassul) and guidance (iste'anat), and read the Fatiha. This
done, the new sajjada-nishin would be bedecked with the tabar­
rukat, and they would leave the dargah.38 This would be followed
by speeches on the sanad (certificate of authority) o f the sajjada-
nishini in question, at the sajjada-nishin’s house, and followers
would offer gifts or nazar. It was also an occasion when believers
sought bai‘a from the new incumbent, and became his disciples.
Muhammad Miyan laments the fact that in his day (the mid-1920s)
people were sajjada-nishins in name only: they lacked the true
devotion, piety and selfless service o f their pirs and forefathers.

D eba te a n d D is p u t a t io n A b o u t S ufi D e v o t io n a l P r a c t ic e

As the Marahra pirs well knew, many o f the practices in which they
engaged were the subject ofheated controversy in north India. Ever
since the Dar al-‘Ulum had been founded by Maulanas Muhammad
Qasim Nanautawi (d. 1877), Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (d. 1905), and
other ‘ulama’ at the town o f Deoband in the North-W estern
Provinces in 1867, a renewal movement had been growing in British
north India.39 The Deobandi ‘ulama’ frowned upon customs such
as ‘urs, trying to discourage them on the grounds that asking a saint
to intercede with God was tantamount to shirk or polytheism;
moreover, the custom was economically wasteful and extravagant.

38 This account is based on Khandan-e Barakat, pp. 8 4 -5 .

39 T he roots o f this movement, however, w ent much further back in time than this, to
Shah W ali Ullah. See Metcalf, Islamic Revival, C hapter III, for details about the Dar
al-‘U lum , and C hapter VIII below for Ahl-e Sunnat perspectives on the D eoband
'm ovem ent.
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 111

Some o f the Deobandi ‘ulama’, however, were themselves some­

what ambivalent about the issue. Moreover, Haji Imdad Ullah
‘Muhajir’ Makki (1817-99), a pir to whom many of them owed
allegiance, had written a pamphlet (risala) in its favour.40 Haji Imdad
Ullah, who was the pir of Muhammad Qasim and Rashid Ahmad
as also o f some seven or eight hundred other ‘ulama’, many o f them
educated at the Deoband madrasa, in 1894 wrote a pamphlet entided
Faisla-e Haß Mas’ala (Decision on Seven Problems).41
In it he took a conciliatory line toward the seven issues he
addressed, urging the ‘ulama’ and all Muslims generally not to allow
questions such as ‘urs,42 which were ancillary to their faith, to divide
them* Haji Imdad Ullah noted that after death the dead are tested
on matters o f belief by two angels who visit the grave, and enjoy
the peace and happiness of union with the beloved, Allah, only upon
passing the test. The origin o f the word ‘urs is a hadis about the two
angels Munkar and Nakir (together known as ‘Nakirain’), who
approach the dead person in the grave and ask three questions: who
is your Lord? W hat is your din? W hat do you say about this man
(pointing to the Prophet)? If the person answers all three questions
correcdy— if he says, that is: My Lord is Allah, my din is Islam, and
this is Muhammad, the Prophet o f Allah— the angels tell him to ‘sleep
as the bride (‘urns) sleeps’. The reward for true belief, thus, is peace
after death and the joy of union with God, as o f a new bride with
her husband. In dying, it is as if one returns to one’s beloved
(husband), Allah. For the living, therefore, it is fitting (especially if
the dead person had done them some tangible or intangible service
during his lifetime) that they should pray for him and transfer the

40 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, pp. 1 61-2, 181-2.

41 This has since been republished, in 1986, by the Ahl-e Sunnat w ajam a'at in Pakistan,
with extended glosses and comments. T he original twelve-page pamphlet is now a thick
367-page book!
42 T he other issues were milad (celebration o f the Prophet’s birthday), fatiha (reading
the Fatiha on certain fixed days after a person’s death, seeking intercession for him or
her w ith God), nida-e ghair Allah (calling upon one other than Allah for help), jam a‘at-e
sani (the holding o f a second namaz on Fridays), during zuhr, imkan-e nazir (can God
create another being equal to the Prophet Muhammad?) and imkan-e kizb (can G od lie?).
The first five problems related to practice (’amal), the last tw o to knowledge (‘Jim).
112 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

merit (sawab) o f their prayer to him,43 so that he may answer the

angels’ questions correctly.44
Haji Imdad Ullah argued, furthermore, that the ‘urs brings
together a large number of pirs linked to different saintly lines (salasil,
pi. o f silsila), thus enabling those in search o f a pir to find one and
to become initiated to him in discipleship. The pirs too were able
to meet each other. All this was a source o f grace (baraka) to the
participants. These were the advantages o f honouring the dead on
a specific day, rather than individually and randomly.45
The controversy about the permissibility o f holding an ‘urs was
tied in with the question o f sama‘, or singing, with or without
instrumental accompaniment, which among sufis was a means o f
inducing spiritual ecstasy.46 Haji Imdad Ullah quoted a hadis in
which the Prophet said, ‘D o not make my grave a place o f rejoicing’.
He interpreted this to mean that there should be no noisy dancing,
or revelry, at the grave-site; but sama‘ itself was not prohibited as
long as it is within the limits o f the shari‘a.47 Haji Imdad Ullah’s
rather middle-of-the-road position on this issue was similar, it
appears, to tl^at o f Nuri Miyan. While Nuri Miyan himself did not
listen by choice to music, he did not prevent his guests from doing
so, and, in fact, joined them at such gatherings (majalis). But he did
this in very select (khass) company and under all the necessary
conditions o f sobriety.48 The Marahra sufis, according to Maulawi

43 Isal-e sawab is the conccpt that one can transfer the merit that one’s good deeds call
up, to someone else. This is done by specifically naming that person in private prayer,
and asking G od to ‘transfer the m erit’ to the designated person. In this way an ‘account’
o f good deeds may be built up even by a dead person, which may ultimately change his
or her fate from Hell to Heaven on the Day ofjudgm ent.
44 Shah Imdad Ullah ‘M uhajir’ Makki, Faisla-e Haft Mas'ala, with commentary by Mufti
M uham m ad Khalil Khan Barkati (Lahore: Farid Book Stall, 1406/1986), p. 170.
45 Ibid., p. 174. T he context for this remark was the Deobandi objection to the practice
o f earmarking a specific day for the remembrance o f the dead. See Metcalf, pp. 149,
151, 157, and passim.
46 Sama‘ literally means ‘to hear’ in Arabic, and is thus related by extension to an
im portant m atter o f faith, namely w hether the dead can hear the living. O n Ahm ad
R iza’s views on this question, see below.
47 Faisla-e Haft Mas’ala, pp. 184, 192, 194.
48 Tazkira-e Nuri, pp. 102-3. Haji Imdad Ullah himself approved o f ‘urs, milad, and
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 113

Ghulam Shabbir Qadiri, Nuri Miyan’s biographer, looked upon

sama‘ and musical accompaniments to singing as aids in the sufi’s
path, helping him to reach a higher state (hal ). Since Shah Al-e
Rasul’s time, however, sama‘ had been stopped at the ‘urs at
Marahra, and Nuri Miyan did not restore it.

T he ‘U r s -e N uri

The largest and most important ceremony in the Barkatiyya khan­

dan, which affirmed the family’s corporate unity most forcefully,
was the annual ‘urs for one of the ancestors. Surprisingly, there is
no account o f this event in Muhammad Miyan’s family history or
in the Tazkira-e Nuri. Possibly Muhammad Miyan wished to glorify
his line o f the family tree against the claims o f other branches, and
therefore neglected some facts while emphasizing others.49 At any
rate, a picture o f what took place at an ‘urs at Marahra and how
many people were involved can only be formed piecemeal, using
varied sources and drawing on materials from other ‘urs ceremonies.
Early twentieth century accounts o f one o f the annual ‘urs
ceremonies at Marahra in the Dabdaba-e Sikandari50 published in
Ram pur reveal that it was held in honour of Nuri Miyan, who had
died in 1906. The ‘urs lasted between four and six days.51 As Nuri
Miyan had had no male heirs, he had appointed his young first
cousin, Sayyid ‘Ali Husain, known as ‘Iqbal Hasan’ (1875-97), as

similar ritual observances being limited to the élite or khass. Metcalf, p. 151, writes, for
instance, ‘Haji Imdadu‘llah actually joined in the elaborate celebration o f the maulud
[milad] in Mecca, although he approved o f Rashid Ahmad’s refusal to participate either
at hom e or in the Hijaz . . . all felt they shared an understanding o f the correct attitude
to the practice, and tended to conform publicly to opposition to the custom*.
49 N uri Miyan was descended from Shah Al-e Rasul, while M uhammad Miyan was a
descendant o f Shah Aulad-e Rasul, Shah Al-e Rasul’s younger brother.
50 See C hapter III above for background on this newspaper. I consulted issues between
the years 1909 and 1921 o f the Dabdaba.
51 ‘Urs ceremonies for other Barkatiyya ancestors, particularly Shah Barkat Ullah,
presumably also took place on their death anniversaries, though they were n oi reported
in the Dabdaba-e Sikandari. Thus, Maulana Zafàr ud-D in Bihari records various anecdotes
in his Hayat-e A "laHazratwhich occurred w hen Ahmad R iza Khan had gone to Marahra
to attend an ‘urs for Shah Barkat Ullah. Hayat-e A *la Hazrat, pp. 39, 40, 131.
114 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

his sajjada-nishin. W hen the latter died he chose Iqbal Hasan’s son,
Hafiz Sayyid Aulad Husain, ‘Safi Miyan’ (1893-1910), for this
position o f honour. Unfortunately, Safi Miyan, who would have
been a youth of thirteen at Nuri Miyan’s death, also died young, at
the age o f seventeen or so.52 In the circumstances, Nuri Miyan’s ‘urs
was organized and managed by another first cousin, Sayyid Mahdi
Hasan (b. 1870). He appears to have been an able organizer, and to
have commanded great respect among the ‘ulama’.
Each year Mahdi Hasan put a notification in the papers some
weeks prior to the ‘urs, extending a public invitation to all to attend,
informing people o f the location o f Marahra on the railway route,
and assuring them that their food and lodging needs would be looked
after for the duration o f the event. If they informed him in advance,
he said, they would be met at the railway station. As to the ‘urs itself,
he emphasized that it was always conducted with full regard for, and
within the limits of, the shari‘a. Attendance at the ‘urs-e N uri would
consequendy be a source of merit (sawab).53
Although no detailed report exists o f any single ‘urs at Marahra,
m uch less o f the subjective experience of participating in one, the
major events must have approximated those set out for the ‘urs-e
Nuri in the Dabdaba-e Sikandari in June 1912. In the course o f five
days, the first two were devoted to khatma o f the Q ur’an, or recital
of the entire Q ur’an in a single night,54 recital o fna't verses in praise
of the Prophet, and sermons (bayan and wa‘z) by well-known
‘ulama’. The highlights o f the third day, which was Nuri Miyan’s
actual death anniversary, were a khirqa-poshi ritual in which the
sajjada-nishin (Mahdi Hasan, in this case) ceremonially wore ‘Ali’s
robe (khirqa) and performed the Fatiha ceremony at Nuri Miyan’s
grave, and a qul, a ceremony apparendy marking the exact time of

52 Khandan-e Barakat, p. 31.

53 Sec, e.g., Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 45:27 (July 26, 1909), 6-7; 48:24 (June 3, 1912), 7;
48:25 ( J u n e 10, 1912), 3.
54 A n achievement which brought m erit to the reciters. See Fr. Buhl, ‘Khatma’, E12,
1112-13. Ewing, ‘T he Pir or Sufi Saint’, p. 142, describes a m uch m ore emotional
khatma in honour o f ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani ‘w ho is regarded as the patron o f all the sufi
orders in South Asia’, among the Malangs o f Lahore. Unlike the ‘urs-e N uri, wom en
were present at this khatma.
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 115

his death.55 The fourth day included, apart from Q ur’an reading,
na‘ts, and sermons— all a daily occurrence during this five-day
period— a pilgrimage to the Prophet’s holy relics, as also to those o f
Hasan, Husain, and Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani. Finally, on the fifth
and last day, there was a ghusl, or ceremonial washing o f the tomb.56
It is noteworthy that the ‘urs-e Nuri was characterized by the
restrained piety of night-long Q ur’an readings, and by sermons by
the ‘ulama’, rather than by sama‘. As Frederick M. Denny comments
Reciting the Q u r’an is akin to a sacramental act in that divine power and
presence are brought near . . . . There is even a kind o f ‘divine M agic’ to
the Q u r’an; [because its verses and formulae] come from G o d ,. . . they are
rather like a talisman which protects and guides man.57

It was this emphasis on Q ur’an reading, together with the sermons

o f the ‘ulama’, that formed the basis for the claims o f the Marahra
pirs— as also of the pirs and ‘ulama’ o f Badayun and Bareilly— that
they followed the shari‘a at all times. Na 't-khwani (the recitation o f
poetry in praise o f the Prophet), and qasida-khwani (recital o f praise
verse of religious figures generally) were also an integral part o f these
shari‘a-inclined ‘urs celebrations.58
W e get some inkling of the popularity o f the annual ‘urs at
Marahra, and the size of the crowds that were attracted to it, by
incidental comments in the Dabdaba-e Sikandari: in 1921 it reported
that that year the turnout had been much smaller than usual, on
account o f a recent death in the Barkatiyya family: Mahdi Hasan’s

55 Unfortunately, I have no information on the nature o f the qul ceremony. A recent

article by Syed Liyaqat Hussain M oini describing ‘un-related rituals at M u'in ud-D in’s
shrine at Ajm er indicates that qul was not a specific ritual but the totality o f final-day
ceremonial at the ‘urs. See his ‘Rituals and Customary Practices at the Dargah o f Ajm er’,
in Troll (ed.), Muslim Shrines in India, pp. 73-5.
56 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 48:25 (func 10, 1912), 3.
57 Frederick M . Denny, ‘Islamic Ritual: Perspectives and Theories’, p. 76, in M artin
(ed.), Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies. See also William A. Graham, ‘Q u r’an as
Spoken W ord: An Islamic Contribution to the Understanding o f Scripture’, in the same
volum e, for a discussion o f Q u r’an recitation, or qira’a. A fuller discussion o f the orality
o f scripture may be found in Graham, Beyond the Written Word.
58 It must be added, however, that qawwali and sama‘ were reported to have taken
place one year, as a separate part o f the ‘urs. See Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 51:29 (June 7,
1915), 7.
 116 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

only surviving child, a young girl, had died in childbirth along with
her baby a week earlier at Lucknow, and her body had been brought
to the dargah for burial. This had prompted Mahdi Hasan to put out
notices announcing a postponement o f the ‘urs, a decision which
had later been reversed. W ith time running short, the final decision
not to postpone the ‘urs had not reached the public, leading to
confusion and the low turnout. The report says that that year there
were only four or five thousand people, instead o f the usual
,
20 000.59
The scale of the organization on the part o f the sajjada-nishin and
his helpers appears to have been impressive. At arrival, each guest
was met at the railway station. The road from the station to the
khanqah was especially lit for the occasion with gas lights. Police
were deputed to keep law and order, and ensure that nothing went
wrong. The khanqah was brilliandy lit with lights and mirrors.60
Each person who attended the ‘urs, regardless o f social standing, was
given a straw mat (chattai) to sleep on, earthenware water-containers
(ghara, lota) for bathing or drinking, and food, drink, betel (pan,
challi), and tobacco, twice a day— all delivered to the lodgings from
. the start of the ‘urs until the very last day.61
As might have been expected, given the above and given, as well,
that the Barkatiyya pirs were Sayyids o f standing, the ‘urs-e Nuri
was attended by many people of distinction, apart from ordinary folk
from the surrounding countryside. Amongst the nobility were, at
least occasionally, a nawab or ra’is62 and ‘ulama’ and sufi pirs from
places as distant as Bombay, Calcutta, Bhopal, Gwalior, Ajmer,
Pakpattan, and Bankipur, as also from districts in the North-W estern
Provinces themselves.63The core group, however, consisted o f men
whose principal allegiance was to the Qadiri order. Apart from the

59 Ibid., 57:29 (December 1,1921), 4.

60 Ibid., 51:29 Qune 7, 1915), 6.
61 Ibid., 57:29 (April 4, 1921), 4. As may well be imagined, the costs o f the ‘urs must
have been o f a very high order. Unfortunately, I have no figures as to the expenses
incurred for any single year, nor o f the nazar (voluntary gifts o f m oney or in kind)
collected from the pilgrims.
62 See, e.g., ibid., 50:29 (June 15, 1914), 18.
63 Ibid., 51:29 (Ju n e 7, 1915), 6-7.
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 117

‘ulama’ o f Marahra, these were from Bareilly, Badayun, Pilibhit,

and Ram pur, with a sprinkling from other towns in the N o rth -
W estern Provinces (such as Kachhochha) and the Panjab. In
several reports of the ‘urs-e N uri, Ahmad Riza Khan’s presence
and his delivery of a sermon are singled out for mention.
The lack o f detailed information on the rituals involved, and more
importandy, o f first-hand participants’ accounts, makes it difficult to
amplify this discussion o f the ‘urs-e Nuri. Nevertheless, some
tentative comments, based in particular on Victor Turner’s essay
‘Pilgrimages as Social Processes’,64 are in order even if his discussion
is based largely on non-Islamic examples, and, when he does turn
to the Islamic world, on hajj rituals alone.
T he ‘urs is a pilgrimage. The Arabic term ziyara (from the root
zara), which means ‘to pay a visit’, is commonly used in the Urdu
in the specific sense of visiting a saint’s tomb. The Urdu word mazar,
meaning tomb or shrine, is likewise derived from the same Arabic
root. W hether one visits a tomb during an ‘urs or at any other time
of the year, such a visit is respectfully termed ziyarat.
Unlike the hajj, the ‘urs at Marahra was (apparendy) attended
only by men.65 W omen were strongly discouraged from visiting
graves, and various ill-efFects were believed to occur to them if they
did so.66 W hen Ahmad Riza Khan was asked whether women could
attend the ‘urs at Ajmer, his reply was unequivocal: a woman would
be cursed by Allah and by the person whose grave it was from the
moment she resolved upon making such a visit, until she returned
home. The only grave which women may visit, and indeed must

64 Victor T urner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (Ithaca
and London: Cornell University Press, 1974).
65 While I have no way o f verifying this,vw hen attending Ahmad R jra ’s annual ‘urs at
Bareilly in O ctober 1987 I found that w om en attended only tangentially as observers
from enclosed quarters— I myself was unable to witness the ceremonies, and this was
unrelated to being a non-M uslim. W om en were not allowed to approach the tom b
itself. (However, it is conceivable that these restrictions might be relaxed at other times.)
66 See, for example, Mrs. M eer Hassan Ali, Observations on the Mussulmauns of India:
Descriptive of their Manners, Customs, Habits, and Religious Opinions. Made during a Twelve
Years’ Residence in their Immediate Society (London, 1832), reprinted by Idarah-i Adabiyat-i
Delli, 1973, vol. 2, p. 321.
118 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

visit (such an act being sunna, and almost wajib) was the Prophet’s
grave at Medina, should they go on hajj.67
Beließ about the dead are clearly central to what takes place at an
‘urs. Ahmad Riza wrote at some length on the subject, citing hadis to
support his arguments. W hen asked whether it was permissible to dig
up an old graveyard o f Sunnis and build residential houses on the
land, Ahmad Riza responded in a fatwa in 1904—5 that this would
be an act of disrespect toward the dead buried there, and was not
permitted in the Hanafi school.68 Citing proofs from hadis, riwayats
from the sahaba (companions o f the Prophet) and tabe ‘in (those who
followed the Prophet’s Companions), in addition to proofs from
fiqh, he argued first that the bodies o f the highest categories o f beings
(prophets, sufi saints, and martyrs) do not disintegrate after death.69
Further, after death the spirits o f the auliya become even more
powerful than before. W hen someone reads the Fatiha at the grave
o f a wali (‘a friend o f Allah’), the spirit (ruh) o f the latter recognizes
him. Similarly, if someone acts disrespectfully toward his grave, he
is troubled by it. Nuri Miyan related the following incident:
Close to our home in Marahra, in a jungle, there is a graveyard o f martyrs
(ganj-e shahidin). Someone used to take his buffalo there. In one place the
ground was soft. Suddenly, the foot o f the buffalo went in. It was discovered
that there was a grave at that spot. A voice came from the grave, ‘O you! you have
caused me great discomfort. The foot of your bufialo hit me on the chest1.70

As for ordinary Muslims, although their bodies decay over time,

their spirits continue to inhabit their graves, and must be respected.
The fätwa continues:
Dear God! when the Prophet has told us not to sit on graves, or lean against
them, or put our feet on them, and when the ‘ulama’ have warned us against
walking on new paths in a graveyard, or sleeping near a grave, it is incumbent
on us, when we go to pay our respects and do pilgrimage (ziyarat) at a grave,

67 Malfuzat, vol. 2, p. 107.

68 Ahmad Riza Khan, Ihlak al-Wahhabiyyin *ala Tauhitt Qubur il-Muslimin (Bareilly:
Hasani Press, 1322/1904-5).
69 O n the bodies o f prophets being preserved from decay after death, see the hadis
reported in the Sunan o f Abu D a’ud: Ahmad Hasan, Sunan Abu Dawud: English
Translation with Explanatory Notes (Lahore: Sh. M uhammad Ashraf, 1988), vol. 1, p. 249.
70 Ahmad Riza Khan, Ihlak al-Wahhabiyyin, p. 18.
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 119

to do so from a [respectful] distance . . . . W e have been told that dead Muslims

and live ones both derive honour from the same things.

In his Malfuzat, Ahmad Riza also said that the dead can hear better
than the living, and can communicate with the living, just as the
living, in turn, can intercede for the dead and be instrumental in
changing their fate in the hereafter.71
This interactive relationship between the living and the dead
helps us understand the concept o f isal-e sawab, or transfer o f merit,
in which the prayers of the living act as a kind o f intercessionary
factor in changing the fate o f the dead person. This was what Haji
Imdad Ullah was referring to in his defence o f the ‘urs, when he said
that the prayers o f the living could help the dead man answer the
questions of the two angels correctly, and thereby ensure his ultimate
entry into heaven. Equally, however, ordinary folk approach a
shrine in the hope that the dead man will intercede for them. The
chain of intercession starts at the grave o f the local pir, and goes right
up to the Prophet, who is closest to Allah, and whose intercession
on one’s behalf will never be denied.72
To return now to the ‘urs-e Nuri, we can imagine, following
Victor Turner, that there was a sense in which ‘communitas’ was
created in the course of the pilgrimage. As the sources indicate that
women were not participants in the ‘urs, we may be justified in
supposing that for a week, perhaps more, a large number o f men
had left their homes and families, and their ordinary occupations, to
attend the ‘urs. Although there was no communal eating at the
Marahra ‘urs, each person being served at his own lodging-place,
fellow-feeling was (we assume) created in the course o f the all-night
sessions o f khatma, na‘t-khwani, and sermons. Starting at about 8
p.m., the prayers and other events continued until the early morn­
ing, and the day wound up after the zuhr (midday) prayer.
The sources convey a sense that the pilgrims approached the
occasion with joyousness and eager anticipation, rather than a mood
o f penitence. There was splendour (raunaq) in the large crowds, the
71 Malfuzat, vol. 2, pp. 7 3 -4 . Also see vol. 3, pp. 29-30.
72 T he question o f intercession, and o f the Prophet’s intercession with Allah in
particular, will be more fully discussed in the next chapter in the context o f Ahmad
R iza’s life.
120 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

ornamentation of the shrine, and the decoration o f the route leading

to the dargah from the railway station. W e could say, with Turner,
that when setting out for Marahra the pilgrim began a long sacred
journey, voluntarily undertaken, in order to arrive at
a threshold, a place and moment ‘in and out o f tim e’, [where he hoped] to
have . . . direct experience o f the sacred, invisible, or supernatural o rd e r,. . .
and [where he] participate^] in symbolic activities which he believe[d] [were]
efficacious in changing his inner and, sometimes, hopefully, outer condition
from sin to grace, or sickness to health.73

R e l a t io n s w it h t h e O u tsid e W orld

The Sayyids of the Barkatiyya khandan lived, as noted, just outside

the qasba o f Marahra. Their landholdings were acquired as madad-e
ma‘ash from Mughal rulers and the nawabs o f Farrukhabad, in what
was agriculturally the best pargana (subdistrict)74 o f Etah district. In
theory, such grants could be resumed at the death o f the grantee; in
practice, the grants to the Barkatiyya family had tended to become
permanent and hereditary. Irrigation had become available through
a branch o f the Ganges Canal by the 1870s and sugar and indigo
were widely grown.75 That the Barkatiyya khandan had been
affluent by the standards of its time in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries is therefore a reasonable assumption. In the early twentieth
century, however, one senses that economic decline had set in, for
Muhammad Miyan suggests that the family had lost much o f its
landed property in sales or mismanagement by the mutawallis.76
Bayly’s analysis of economic change in the qasbas during colonial
rule also points to a decline in the fortunes of the agriculturally—
dependent Muslim gentry.77
Nevertheless, the family continued to own considerable land, and

73 Turner, ‘Pilgrimages as Social Processes’, p. 197.

74 Several parganas made up in administrative district.
75 Elizabeth W hitcom be, Agrarian Conditions in Northern India: The United Provinces under
British Rule, 1860-1900 (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1982), p. 72.
76 See, e.g. Khandan-e Barakat, pp. 9 ,1 5 , 18.
77 Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, pp. 3 5 4 - 8.
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 121

to be fairly well-to-do.78 As landowners, the Barkatiyya Sayyids

would have had relations with tenants and agricultural labour, many
o f whom were probably Hindus. Indeed, according to one scholar,
the tow n’s chamars (‘untouchables’ whose traditional occupation was
leather-tanning) were a source of cheap labour for the Sayyids of
Marahra.79 Despite the suggestion in this o f economic exploitation
and conflict, the fact that the Barkatiyya Sayyids were sufi pin
probably played a considerable role in ameliorating relations with
their Hindu tenants and labour:
Though there always remained lines o f social difference between the landhold­
ing Muslim gentry and their Hindu cultivators, and though compulsion played
a considerable part in agrarian relations, gentry patronage and Hindu veneration
o f the shrines o f Muslim holy men significantly diminished the scope for
conflict and enhanced the solidarity o f the qasbah as a society until well into
the colonial period. Gentry families, both Hindu and Muslim, communed in
Indo-Persian literary culture, while peasants and craftsmen participated in the
same festivals and feast days.80

Apart from being landowners, the Barkatiyya Sayyids as pirs came

into daily contact with a large number of people. Maulawi Ghulam
Shabbir Qadiri describes a typical day in Nuri Miyan’s daily life as
follows:
W hen not reading the namaz, praying [waza 'ij\ or meditating, Nuri Miyan]
would enquire into the affairs o f [his] khuddam (helpers) and those who came
to him with petitions [sa‘itin], reply to letters received, visit the sick, write
amulets [nuqush, ta'wiz], take a break and get some rest, then spend some time
with his books, reading or writing . . . . He also paid his respects to Shah Al-e
Rasul, presenting himself at his darbar, learning of various affairs and receiving
advice. [In addition,] he was responsible for the well-being o f hundreds o f
thousands o f khuddam. Every day a variety a problems presented themselves

78 It must be rem embered that they also had an income (the size o f which is unknown)
from their sufi activities, for pilgrims, pedtioners, and well-wishers always brought gifts
in accordance w ith individual means.
79 S. Ja m a lu d d in , ‘R e lig io p o litic a l Ideas ot a T w e n tie th C e n tu ry M uslim
Theologian— An Introduction’, in Marxist Miscellany, 7 (March 1977), p. 17.
80 Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, pp. 1 9 2 -3 . I recognize, o f couree, that Bayly
is here talking o f the eighteenth, and perhaps most o f the nineteenth centuries, certainly
not o f the early tw entieth century when H indu-M uslim relations had deteriorated
markedly.
122 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

before him, and he would deal with them. Never did he put off dealing with
something dll the next day on the plea that he was too busy, or fail to do
something at its proper time. In everything he did, the spirit o f the shan'a ^nd
the rules o f tariqa reigned.81

As Ewing points out, ‘pirs interact with their followers in a wide

variety of ways’.82 Most people came with everyday problems to be
solved, problems such as illness, barrenness, marriage, and business,
which required a minimum amount o f the pir’s time, and were dealt
with by writing amulets, giving some advice, and admonishing the
person to perform his or her prayers regularly. In addition to this
‘outer circle’ of followers, a pir might have a smaller number o f
serious disciples who constituted his ‘inner circle’, and in whose
training he took a great interest. A large part o f this training, Ewing
says, had to do with the interpretation o f dreams.83
The relationship between a pir and his murid has frequendy been
described in the literature. Its main feature is its authoritarianism,
modelled on the father-son relationship, in which the pir’s authority
over his murid, though absolute, is mediated by affection and
concern for the disciple.84 As for the disciple, his pir is his model in
everything he does. Ghulam Shabbir Qadiri describes how Nuri
Miyan’s life-style reflected Shah Al-e Rasul’s:
[Nuri Miyan] loved and respected his shaikh; indeed he loved everyone who
was associated with him, and all the members o f his family. H e followed his
shaikh [’s commands]; he presented himself before him at his darbar; he sought
his company; he was completely absorbed in him. His face had the same
radiance [as his shaikh]; his personality had the same stamp (hal); he walked
with the same gait; when he spoke, it was in the same tone. His clothes had
the same appearance; he dealt with others in the same way. In his devotions
and striving?, he followed the same path (maslak). The times set apart for rest in
the afternoon and sleep at night were times when he went to his shaikh particularly,
receiving from him guidance in every matter and warning of every danger.85

“Among the ‘ulama’,” the Marahra pirs had close relations with

81 Tazkira-e Nuri, pp. 59-60.

82 Ewing, p. 108.
83 Ibid., pp. 109-10.
84 Ibid., pp. 8 7 -8 ; MetcalC Islamic Revival, p. 165.
85 Tazkira-e Nuri, p. 91 .
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 123

other families o f the Qadiri silsila in particular. Their relations with

the ‘Usmani khandan of Badayun went back to the time when
someone in the ‘Usmani family became a disciple o f Achhe Miyan’s
in the eighteenth century.86 Both the Barkati and ‘Usmani families
had produced several generations o f gifted, learned and eminent
scholars or sufis, and the relationship between them had thus been
one o f mutual learning and respect. To cite a few examples, Shah
Al-e Rasul had attended classes given by Shah ‘Abd ul-Mujid
Badayuni at the Madrasa Qadiriyya at Badayun, and Muhammad
Miyan’s paternal grandfather, Shah Muhammad Sadiq (1833-1908),
had studied dbb (Yunani medicine) from the famous ‘alim Shah
Fazl-e Rasul Badayuni (1798-1873). Nuri Miyan used to consult
Maulana ‘Abd ul-Qadir Badayuni on matters o f fiqh.87
One matter which concerned both Nuri Miyan and the ‘ulama’
ofBadayun was the influence o f Shi‘i and Tafzili ideas in their midst.
As noted, the Barkatiyya Sayyids had originally lived in Bilgram
(Hardoi district o f Awadh), and some branches o f the family had
been influenced by Shi'ism. Indeed, despite the long-term residence
o f the Barkatiyya Sayyids at Marahra, marriage networks with the
eastern branch o f the family remained quite active well into the early
tw entieth century, w hen M uham m ad M iyan was w riting.
Daughters who married into ‘eastern’ families in Kawat (Arrah
district, Bihar) or Bilgram generally adopted Shi‘i or Tafzili beliefs
and brought up their children to do likewise.88 Two branches o f the
Sarkar Kalan at Marahra—descendants ofjama Miyan (1780-1833),
Suthre Miyan’s eldest son, and descendants o f Muhammad Taqi
Khan (1803-63), Sache Miyan’s second son— were reputed to be
Tafzilis or Shi‘is, in addition to some members o f the Sarkar Khurd,
who had marriage ties to Jama Miyan’s descendants.
The situation in Badayun was o f concern to the ‘Usmani ‘ulama’
for a different reason: the spread o f Tafzili khanqahs in Badayun and
Bareilly. These khanqahs attracted students and disciples, who
published books defending their views and popularizing the
86 Ibid., Introduction, pp. 4-5.
87 Ibid., p. 72. Ahmad Riza Khan also respected Shah ‘Abd ul-Qadir’s opinion a great
deal, and the two men co-operated closely on the and-Nadwa issue.
88 Khandan-e Barakat, pp. 25, 28-9, 81-3. Tazkira-e Nuri, pp. 24-5.
124 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

celebration ofMuharram, complete with ta'ziya processions, rituals

o f mourning, and the recital o f marsiyas,89 Shah ‘Abd ul-Qadir
Badayuni, Ahmad Riza Khan, and Nuri Miyan all rebutted the
Tafzilis vigorously in numerous books; indeed, their books con­
stituted one side o f a learned debate conducted in print rather than
verbally, each book or pamphlet being a response or challenge to
something the Tafzilis had written.90 In the opinion of Muhammad
Ayub Qadiri, who wrote the introduction to Nuri Miyan’s biog­
raphy, however, the influence of the Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ was
consequendy limited to the learned, and did not reach the public.
People continued to flock to Badayun from distant towns in order
to see the Muharram processions, which were famous.91

T he B a r k a t iy y a P ir s ’ R ise t o P r o m in e n c e

As Peter Brown points out in his essay ‘Relics and Social Status in
the Age of Gregory of Tours’,92 it needs ‘a large measure o f hard
work on the part of the human community’ to ensure that the tombs
o f saints receive the reverence that they are due. N ot every tomb is
revered, and many are forgotten. What, then, ensures that they enjoy
social status? More specifically, how did a pir family from Bilgram
come to establish such a large khanqah in Marahra?
First, the family’s association with the Farrukhabad nawabs in the
eighteenth century was favourable to the process o f building an
economic and religious base in the Marahra qasba and beyond. Like
other religious families in north India, whether Hindu or Muslim,
the Barkatiyya Sayyids profited from the political uncertainties of
the eighteenth century by virtue of their legitimizing role vis-ii-vis
the local population. Furthermore, by the early nineteenth century,
when British control was established over the region, the family
must have been sufficiently prominent to be regarded by the
administration as ‘natural leaders’ of the community. While we do
not have evidence for contacts between the Barkatiyya Sayyids and
89 Tazkira-c Nun, pp. 25-9.
90 Ibid., pp. 30-46.
91 Ibid., p. 49.
92 Delivered as T he Stenton Lecture 1976, University o f Reading, 1977, p. 12.
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 125

the British Indian government, the British policy o f respect and

cordiality towards those regarded as ‘natural leaders’ is well at­
tested.93 These conditions allowed the religious élites to prosper.
In addition, the institution of the sajjada-nishini, together with
all the movable and immovable properties that went with it, played
an important role in preserving intact, the resources o f a line o f pirs
and ensuring that they were not diffused among a large number o f
heirs. Although the family properties were legally o f a number of
distinct categories,94 each with its own laws o f inheritance, some
properties were specifically set apart for the upkeep of the dargah,
and were not stricdy divisible— although, as was illustrated in the
case o f the Barkatiyya family, mutawallis were not always above
selling or pawning such property. O n the whole, however, the
existence of resources specifically earmarked for the upkeep o f the
dargah and khanqah must have been effective in ensuring the
continuity through time o f a line of pirs. To the extent that such
resources were not divided, sold, or pawned, the system may be
regarded as a special form of primogeniture (or, in exceptional cases,
o f undivided inheritance by a younger son), which was effective in
building an expandable base o f land and wealth controlled by
successive generations of sajjada-nishins.
Beyond such political and socio-economic factors, the personality
o f the pirs also accounts in part for the popularity or prominence of
the Barkatiyya pirs. The Barkatiyya family appears to have been
fortunate (or blessed, they might say) irt having had a series of
brilliant and devout sajjada-nishins from the eighteenth century right
down to the early twentieth, when Nuri Miyan died. Their names
and accomplishments have been noted in this chapter: Achhe Miyan
the popular eighteenth century pir, Suthre Miyan the great builder,

93 See, e.g., Freitag, Collective Action and Community, pp. 5 7 -8 : ‘the British . . . looked
for those exercising pow er through personal, patron-client relationships, w hether
operating through residential, occupational, caste, ritual, or extended kinship networks
. . . the men identified as ‘natural leaders' were raises or magnates o f high status: in U.P.
the term ‘rais’ was applied equally to prom inent traditional ‘headm en’, commercial men
o f the urban areas, and to rural large landowners’.
94 See G regory C. Kozlowski, Muslim Endowments and Sodety in British India
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 132, for a discussion o f the
differences betw een inam, madad-maash, and waqf.
126 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

and Shah Al-e Rasul the ‘alim and revered sufi were some o f them.
The personal qualities that are mentioned in the sources may perhaps
more usefully be seen as a reflection o f the attributes that were valued
in a pir than as attempts to realistically portray the individuals
themselves. The ideal pir was learned, pious, generous with his time
and personal wealth, and fond of solitude. He was also a guide to
his disciples, and disbursed amulets and other cures to the sick and
needy.
Additionally, the pirs’ Sayyid ancestry was an important source
o f authority, being the inalienable heritage o f everyone in the family
and a constituent part o f the baraka or grace of each member. Most
o f all, however, Peter Brown reminds us of the importance— as
Muhammad Miyan, in his family history, did very clearly as well— of
holv relics in the lives of the faithful, and the manner in which new
ones were constandy being discovered and ‘ratified’ in festivals.
Sixth-century Gaul, Brown says, was ‘a world of movement [in
which] new things [were] always happening’.95 Nineteenth century
Marahra, at Basti Pirzadagan, appears not to have been very different
in this respect, for, as Muhammad Miyan tells us, the family added
to its treasure of relics over several generations.96As these relics (hairs
o f the Prophet and o f ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani, ‘Ah’s robe, and others)
were on view at times of pilgrimage (the ‘urs), the addition o f relics
over time undoubtedly enhanced the family’s baraka in the eyes o f
followers, and increased the attractiveness of the ‘urs pilgrimage
itself.
Finally, we must note as important the reformist nature o f the
‘urs-e Nuri. As mentioned above, sama‘ and other so-called be-shar
practices (practices in disregard of shar‘i injunctions) were notably
absent at the annual ‘urs celebrations. Q ur’an readings and na‘t
recitals in praise of the Prophet substituted for controversial practices
like sama‘.
It is instructive to compare the rituals o f the ‘urs-e N uri with
those at other ‘urs as reported in the Dabdaba-e Sikandari in the early

95 Brown, ‘Relics and Social Status’ p. 12.

96 Thus, according to M uhammad M iyan, relics came into the family’s possession during
the lifetimes ofShah Barkat Ullah (1660-1729), his grandson Shah Hamza (1719-83),
and Achhe Miyan (1747-1819), Shah Hamza’s eldest son.
 The Barkatiyya Sayyids of Marahra 127

twentieth century, in order to grasp the full import o f the reformist

character of the former. At Gangoh (Saharanpur district), the annual
‘urs for Shah ‘Abd ul-Quddus Gangohi was a very different affair:
the sajjada-nishin made his ceremonial way from his house to his
pir’s tomb on the back of an elephant, accompanied by qawwali
(devotional singing) and watched by thousands o f men and women
who lined the route.97W omen apparendy performed the pilgrimage
to the tomb as well.
An even greater contrast to the ‘urs-e Nuri was the ‘urs in Ajmer
for Khwaja M u‘in ud-Din Chishti in June 1915. Reporting on that
event Muhammad Fazl-e Hasan Sabiri, editor o f the Dabdaba-e
Sikandari, was distressed to find that shops had been set up over a
grave, and worse, that in one section o f the dargah a group of
self-styled faqirs spent their time consuming charas (marijuana) and
drinking alcohol. Fazl-e Hasan was so outraged by this that he
demanded a public explanation for such behaviour from the or­
ganizers of the ‘urs.98
While this is undoubtedly an extreme example o f be-shar be­
haviour, the fact that such practices were current at an important
all-India shrine, reinforces the point that the participants and or­
ganizers o f the ‘urs-e Nuri were acutely aware o f the difference
between this ‘urs and others. The annual notices put in the
newspapers by the sajjada-nishin indicated that the Barkatiyya family
prided itself on its faithfulness to the shari‘a during the ‘urs. It was a
sign o f their self-consciously ‘Sunni’ identity, which, in their view
and that o f their folio wen, elevated them above, and distinguished
them from, other Muslims in the subcontinent.

97 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 51:26 (May 17, 1915), 5 -6 .

98 Ibid., 51:29 (|une 7, 1915), 3 -4 .
 Chapter V

Personalization of Religious Authority

Having examined the social and cultural milieu o f the Barkatiyya

Sayyids we may now return to the world in which Ahmad Riza
moved, with increased understanding. His relations with the pirs
and ‘ulama’ of Marahra, Badayun, and other qasba or commercial
towns of north India drew him into a network o f social, economic,
and ritual relations with other learned and pious Muslims, and
through them, as in his own capacity as ‘alim, into relations with
the non-Muslim world of nineteenth century British India as well.
In this chapter, I approach the discussion of religious authority in
his life from three perspectives: Ahmad Riza’s devotion to his pir,
and his views on the nature of a pir’s relationship with, and authority
over, his disciples generally; his devotion to Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir
Jilani, the founder of the Qadiri order o f sufis, with which he
identified more closely than with other orders, though he was also
affiliated with the Chishti, Naqshbandi, and Suhrawardi orders; and
finally, the place of the Prophet as a pivotal figure in his life.
Devotion to the three figures o f pir, shaikh,1 and Prophet was
central to Ahmad Riza as believer and to his perception o f what it
meant to be a ‘good Muslim’. N or were they unrelated to each other
in his life: his writings make clear that each is a pathway, and a guide,

1 I deliberately use the term ‘shaikh’ to denote the founder o f one o f the major sufi
orders, as distinct from a personal pir, although the two terms are generally used
interchangeably. This appears to be the only way o f making the distinction betw een
tw o entirely different levels of belief and ritual practice.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 129

to the next. The culmination o f religious authority, in the world o f

men, is the Prophet.
One o f the chief sources I will be drawing upon in this chapter
are Ahmad Riza’s Malfuzat, the collection of orally delivered
homilies and responses to questions posed by followers, that was
compiled by his son, Mustafa Riza Khan. Important, too, in this
context, is Ahmad Riza’s diwan, or anthology o f poetry, entitled
Hada’iq-e Bakhshish. The poems, which deal for the most part with
the qualities o f the Prophet, often have a simplicity and directness
that give us additional insight into Ahmad Riza as believer. There
is also an extensive collection of fatawa by him on these themes.
Indeed, this genre constituted Ahmad Riza’s hallmark. I will draw
upon some of the fatawa here, though detailed examination o f the
fatawa literature will not begin until the next chapter.

T he P ir in A hmad R iz a s L ife

As noted in Chapter II, Ahmad Riza received bai'a, or initiation

into discipleship, from Shah Al-e Rasul o f Marahra, in 1877, two
years before the latter’s death. Ahmad Riza’s own personal recol­
lections and record o f his pir are rather limited in content, which
is understandable in the circumstances. Ahmad Riza was about
twenty-one at the time; Shah Al-e Rasul, in his eighties. N or does
Ahmad Riza appear to have spent any length o f time studying under
his direction; indeed, it is related in the Sirat-e A ‘la Hazrat that he
was ready for discipleship immediately he met Shah Al-e Rasul, and
did not need the forty-day period o f instruction which was cus­
tomary prior to an initiation.2 The absence o f a close personal
relationship is also indicated, I believe, by the fact that there is no
mention, in Ahmad Riza’s Malfuzat or in the biographies o f him, of

2 Hasnain Riza Khan, Sirat-e A'la Hazrat p. 55. W hile the hagiographical literature sees
this lack o f a period o f instruction as a sign o f Ahmad R iza’s high attainments, and gives
him centre stage as it were in this event, the decision to seek bai‘a from Shah Al-e Rasul
was probably made by Naqi ‘Ali, Ahmad R iza’s father, on Maulana ‘Abd ul-Q adir
Badayuni’s advice. Naqi ‘Ali and Ahmad Riza did not know Shah Al-e Rasul personally.
W hy did ‘Abd ul-Qadir, w ho was also a pir, not make father and son his ow n disciples?
I think it probable that they had expressed a wish to becom e disciples o f a Sayyid, which
he, as a descendant o f an ‘Usmani family, was not.
130 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

dreams in which his pir appeared to him, although he reported

having seen in his dreams his father, his grandfather, and the
Prophet.3 As an adult, Ahmad Riza was to receive instruction from,
and seek the advice of, Nuri Miyan, Shah Al-e Rasul’s sajjada-nishin
and grandson, who was about fifteen years his senior. Ahmad Riza
respected Nuri Miyan as his pir’s sajjada-nishin and reportedly had
a close personal relationship with him.
Despite the fact that Ahmad Riza did not have such a relationship
with Shah Al-e Rasul, the latter held a special place o f honour and
regard in his life. This is clear from the fact that from about 1905 or
1906, until his death in 1921, Ahmad Riza held an annual ‘urs for
Shah Al-e Rasul on the latter’s death anniversary, at his own home
in Bareilly. For three days each year, from the 16th to the 18th Z u ’l
Hijja, the occasion was commemorated with milad, khatma o f the
Q ur’an, recitation of na‘t poetry, and sermons by the ‘ulama’. The
highlight of the proceedings was the sermon (wa‘z, bayan) delivered
by Ahmad Riza,4 in which he spoke feelingly and eloquendy (so the
reports tell us) on a particular ayat (verse) o f the Q ur’an, Shaikh ‘Abd
al-Qadir Jilani, and the Prophet. Evidently, he was an effective and
powerful speaker, for the reports never fail to mention the religious
transport and ecstasy of his listeners. One. writer reported:
Everyone was completely captivated [by his wa‘z]. Sometimes he makes you
laugh, sometimes he makes you cry, sometimes he makes you feel agitated.

He continued:
If you want to hear the true praises o f the Prophet, you must hear them from
the lips o f A‘la Hazrat [Ahmad Riza]. The qualities with which he has been blessed
by God make it clear that he is the Mujaddid of the present century. . . . And
at a time when such turbid fissures are opening up [among Sunnis], A‘la Hazrat
is a shield and a chisel.5

3 Ahmad Riza Khan, Malfuzat-e A la Hazrat, vol. 1, p. 83; vol. 3, pp. 6 8 -9 .

4 See, e.g., Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 45:50 (January 10,1910), 9; 46:50 (D ecem ber26,1910),
12-13; 47:51 P e c e m b e r 18, 1911), 3.
5 Ibid., 46:29 (August 1, 1910), 6. The occasion for this wa‘z was an ‘urs-e N uri at
Marahra. A mujaddid is a renewer o f the religious law, w ho seeks to ensure that the
shari‘a is implem ented and followed in peoples’ lives. T he effort o f renewal is called
tajdid.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 131

Others have reported, as well, on the eloquence o f Ahmad Riza’s

sermons, and the huge crowds he drew.6
Even though Shah Al-e Rasul died soon after Ahmad Riza
became his disciple, Ahmad Riza did not consider his relationship
with his pir, or with the Barkatiyya family, to have ended. His
relationship o f discipleship appeared instead to embrace the
Barkatiyya ancestors of Shah Al-e Rasul, and Nuri Miyan his
sajjada-nishin, and to continue in time beyond his death. In a sense
Ahmad Riza’s relation with Shah Al-e Rasul transcended Shah Al-e
Rasul himself, reaching beyond him to the chain o f spiritual (and
actual) ancestors who were the source o f his spiritual authority. The
source o f their authority, in turn, was in the final analysis their
descent from the Prophet. The shajara or family tree, in which one’s
ancestors were listed by name down to oneself, was an important
testimonial o f authority linking its bearer to the Prophet. Ahmad
Riza has a poem in his diwan in which he traces his spiritual descent
from the Prophet, through such eminent figures as ‘Ali, Husain,
‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani, and his pir Shah Al-e Rasul.7
In his Malfuzat, Ahmad Riza illustrated the point that a person’s
relationship with his (or her) pir reaches back to the pir’s own pir,
and so on, with a story about a poor man (faqir) who asked a
shopkeeper for alms. W hen the shopkeeper refused, the faqir began
to shout at him, and threatened to turn his shop upside down. This
caused a crowd to gather around them. In the crowd was a man o f
vision who pleaded with the shopkeeper to accede to the faqir’s
demands. He told the crowd that he had looked into the faqir’s heart
to fin d o u t w h e th e r th e re was a n y th in g th e re . I fo u n d it e m p ty . T h e n I lo o k e d
in to his p ir ’s h e a rt, a n d fo u n d th a t e m p ty as w ell. I lo o k e d at his p ir’s pir. I
f o u n d h im to b e a m a n o f Allah. A n d I saw th a t h e w as sta n d in g b y a n d w aitin g ,
w o n d e r in g w h e n th e faqir w o u ld finally carry o u t his th re a t. W h a t h ad
h a p p e n e d w as th a t th e faqir was h o ld in g o n tig h d y to his p ir ’s g a rm e n t (daman).8

6 See Zafar ud-D in Bihari, Hayat-e A la Hazrat, pp. 9 7 -8 , 114, for example.
7 Ahmad Riza Khan, Hada’iq-e Bakhshish (Karachi: M edina Publishing Company, n.d.).
Part I, pp. 66-8.1 am grateful to Mr. Nigar Erfaney o f Karachi for his translation o f this
shajara.
8 Malfuzat, vol. 3, pp. 29-30. The U rdu original reads ‘shaikh’ rather than ‘pir’ as in my
translation.
132 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

The story conjures up an eloquent picture o f a continuous chain o f

sufi pin watching over the affairs o f their disciples’ disciples, many
generations removed from them. Clearly, Ahmad Riza did not
believe that the relationship o f a murid to his pir ended at the latter’s
death.9
O n one occasion Ahmad Riza was asked for a fatawa in answer
to the question why a Muslim who had grown up in a Sunni home,
and had the Q ur’an and the hadis to guide him in his daily affairs,
should seek a pir.10 This was an important question, for it raised
doubts about the human need for discipleship. Ahmad Riza
responded by saying that the Q ur’an and hadis contain everything:
shari‘a, tariqa, and haqiqa (truth), the greatest o f these being the
shari‘a. However, knowledge of the shari‘a has been handed down
from one generation of scholars (mujtahids, those qualified to
interpret the shari'a, and ‘ulama’) to another; had this not been so,
ordinary people would have had no way o f knowing right from
wrong. This being the case with matters related to the shari'a, it was
even more vital that there be a similar chain (silsila) for the trans­
mission o f gnostic knowledge (ma'rifa), which cannot be extracted
from the Q ur’an and hadis without a teacher (murshid). To try to
do so is to embark on a dark road, and be misled along the way by
Satan.11
But even if one were not seeking gnostic knowledge for its own
sake, Ahmad Riza continued, one needed a pir for a different, and
more fundamental, reason: without a pir one could not reach Allah.
The Q ur’an commands one to seek a means (wasila) to reach Him.
This means is the Prophet. And the means to reach the Prophet are
the masha’ikh (pi. of shaikh). It is absurd to imagine that one could
have access to Allah without an intermediary; as for the Prophet,
9 Indeed, it appears that the impending death o f a pir causes large numbers o f people
to seek bai'a from him before it is too late. See below.
10 Naqa' al-Sa\afa f i Ahkam al-Bai'a wa'l Khilafa (Absorption o f the [Teachings o f OurJ
Forebears on the Duties o f Discipleship), reprint (Sialkot, Pakistan: Maktaba Mihiriyya
Rizwiyya, n.d.), p. 9. The date o f the question is 25Jam adi ul-Awwal 1318/August
1900. Originally published in 1319/1901.
11 Ibid., pp. 9-11. This is based on a hadis that says, ‘He w ho does not have a shaikh,
Satan is his shaikh’. Cf. Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill:
University o f N orth Carolina Press, 1975), p. 103.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 133

access to him was difficult (dushwar, though presumably not impos­

sible) without one. Ahmad Riza added that hadis proved that there
was a chain of intercession to God beginning with the Prophet
interceding with Allah himself. At the next level, the masha'ikh
would intercede with the Prophet on behalf o f their followers in all
situations and circumstances, including the grave (qabr). It would be
foolish in the extreme, therefore, for one not to bind oneself to a
pir and thus ensure help in times of need.12
Finally, Ahmad Riza argued that union with the Prophet
(through the succession of pirs to whom one was related by means
o f one’s own pir) is a matter of grace (baraka), in itself no small thing.
If a chain o f transmission was through pirs and masha‘ikh o f
eminence, that was all to the good in terms o f the baraka that
accrued. In this regard allegiance to Shaikh ‘Abd al-QadirJilani was
better than allegiance to other sufi founders, for he protected the
welfare of his murids in no matter what situation.
Ahmad Riza’s Malfuzat also contain references to the relationship
that should obtain between a pir and his murid, and the conditions
which should guide a person in choosing a pir. He emphasized the
importance of having the right intention or inner desire (irada),
without which the relationship would be sterile, and ‘nothing would
happen’. The pir’s ability to guide his disciple was thus in part
dependent on the disciple’s purity of intention and his faith in him.
The tie between them was indissoluble and irreplaceable. Ahmad
Riza illustrated his point with the following story:
Bai'a is as Hazrat Yahya M uneri’s disciple understood it to be: he was drowning
in a river, when Hazrat Khizr (upon him be peace) appeared and asked him
for his hand, so that he could pull him out. The disciple replied, I have already
given my hand [in discipleship] to Hazrat Yahya Muneri. I can no longer give
it to anyone else. Hazrat Khizr (upon him be peace) disappeared, and Hazrat
Yahya M uneri appeared and pulled his disciple ashore to safety.'5

As Ahmad Riza put it memorably on one occasion, ‘the fact is that

12 Naqa' al-SalafaJi Ahkam al-Bai'a wa’l Khilafa, p. 12.

13 Malfuzat, vol. 2, p. 41. O n the indissolubility o f the bond o f bai'a, also see Malfuzat,
vol. 3, pp. 59-60.
134 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

the Ka'ba is the qibla of the body, and the pir is the qibla o f the
soul’.14
A disciple attained supreme closeness to his pir in the condition
o f Jana Ji’l-shaikh, or total absorption in the latter. Thereafter,
Ahmad Riza explained, the disciple would never be separated from
his pir, regardless of the circumstances. The pir was there to guide
and admonish him at all times. Ahmad Riza related the story o f one
such case to his followers:
Hafiz ul-Hadis Sayyid Ahmad Sujalmasi was going somewhere. Suddenly his
eyes lifted from the ground, and he saw a beautiful woman. The glance had
been inadvertent [and so no blame attached to him]. But then he looked up
again. This time we saw his pir and murshid, Sayyid Ghaus ul-W aqt ‘Abd
al-‘Aziz Dabagh.15

Thus Ahmad Riza advised his followers to choose carefully. A pir

should fulfil four exacting standards. He must be a Sunni o f good
faith (sahih ‘aqida). Further, he must be an ‘alim or scholar, one who
has sufficient knowledge of the Law to solve his own problems and
answer his own questions without having to ask someone else to
interpret the shari‘a for him. Third, the chain o f transmission (silsila)
should reach back from him, without a single break, to the Prophet.
And finally, he should lead an exemplary life, and not be disobedient
or wicked in his personal habits.16
One sees here, as in other writings by Ahmad Riza, the emphasis
on following the shari‘a which I argued was also characteristic o f the
pirs of Marahra. In his Maljuzat, he related several stories about
ignorant sufis, who have no knowledge o f fiqh, mistaking Satan for
God:
There was a wali who made large claims for himself. An ascetic heard about
him. H e called the wali and asked him what he could do. The wali said he saw
Khuda [God] every single day. Every day Khuda’s canopy [‘arsh] spread itself
on the ocean and Khuda appeared on it. Now, if he had knowledge, he would
have known that it is impossible [muhal\ in this world to see Khuda, that this
was something given only to the Prophet. At any rate, the ascetic called

14 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 65.

15 Ibid., p. 45.
16 Ibid., p. 41.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 135

someone and asked him to read the hadis in which the Prophet said that Iblis
spreads his throne [takht] over the ocean. [When this had been done, the
so-called wali] understood that all this time he had mistaken Satan for God,
had been prostrating himself before Satan, had been worshipping him. H e rent
his clothes and vanished into a forest.17

A hmad R iza as P ir

Ahmad Riza himself, while primarily an ‘alim, specifically a mufti

(jurisconsult) whose opinion was frequendy sought on a wide range
o f issues, was pir to a small number of disciples.18 He founded the
silsila Rizwiyya,19 and in November 1915 ensured its continuity by
appointing his elder son, Hamid Riza Khan, as his sajjada-nishin.
The ceremony took place on the last day o f the annual ‘urs
celebration that year for Shah Al-e Rasul.20 Ahmad Riza placed his
robe (khirqa), received from Shah Al-e Rasul, on Hamid Riza’s
shoulders, and his own turban (‘imama) on his head, before reading
the authority (sanad) of the sajjada-nishini in Arabic and Urdu. After
his death in 1921, his disciples and followers affirmed their allegiance
to Hamid Riza as his sajjada-nishin.21
In addition to his small circle o f murids, Ahmad Riza had a much
larger circle o f khalifas. Some of them, such as N a‘im ud-Din

17 Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 2 2 -3 .

18 It is virtually impossible to estimate w ho these were, and how many. In addition to
his two sons, Ham id Riza Khan and Mustafa Riza Khan, the names o f a few others are
know n, such as Haji Kifayat Ullah, and Hafiz Yaqin ud-D in Qadiri. T he difficulty with
identifying Ahmad R iza’s disciples is that the individuals named in the literature are
often khalifas rather than murids. The difference between them will be discussed below.
See Sirat-eA'la Hazrat, pp. 124, 132; Hayat-e A la Hazrat, pp. 139-40.
19 By ‘silsila’ is here m eant a chain o f discipleship that culminates in a particular pir, not
a sufi order. The name Rizwi or Rizwiyya is derived from the ‘R iza’ in Ahmad R iza’s
name. A person w ho wrote ‘R izw i’ after his name (probably as part o fa string o f epithets,
written in descending order ofim portance, such as ‘Sunni Hanafi Qadiri R izw i Barelwi’)
would be signalling the pir to whom he bore allegiance.
20 Dabdaba-t Sikandari, 51:51 (November 8, 1915), 3.
21 This occurred in the course o f ceremonies marking the fortieth day o f Ahmad R iza’s
death, on Decem ber 8, 1921. W hile I have not seen an account o f the event, an
announcem ent that this was intended was made by Ham id Riza and Mustafa Riza in
Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 58:13 (November 28, 1922), 5.
136 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Muradabadi and Didar ‘Ali Alwari, were prominent leaders o f the

Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama‘at in the 1920s.22 Many came to him from
different parts o f north India (and central India, in the case ofBurhan
ul-Haqq Jabalpuri, a murid) toward the end of their course of
studies, attracted to him by his growing reputation for scholarship
and for the particular point o f view he espoused. The term ‘khilafat’
as it applied to these and other men, did not necessarily denote a
relationship of discipleship to Ahmad Riza. It was a loosely applied
term, it would appear, usually an honorific bestowed by Ahmad
Riza. Granting khilafat was an individual and public act, undertaken
from time to time. Thus the Dabdaba-e Sikandari reported injanuary
1910 that on the third and last day of the ‘urs for Shah Al-e Rasul
at Ahmad Riza’s house that year, Ahmad Riza bestowed the title of
khatyfa on Maulana Zafar ud-Din Bihari by tying a turban (the
dastar-e khilafat) on his head. Zafar ud-Din fell at his feet, and
Ahmad Riza responded by giving him ‘necessary counsel* (nasihat).23
Ahmad Riza explained the difference between a khalifa and a
murid by saying that there are two kinds of khilafat, the ordinary
famm) and the special (khass).24 The first kind obtains when a
murshid (teacher) chooses to make someone he considers worthy
(la’iq), whether a student o f his or a follower, his khalifa and deputy
(na’ib). The teacher guides his khalifa in matters related to sufism
(azkar, ashghal, aurad, a‘mal). The ‘position’ (masnad) is o f religious
(dini) significance alone, and there is no limit to the number of
khalifas that he may choose to have. This relationship ceases upon
the death of the teacher. By contrast, in the second kind of khilafat,
the khalifa continues in this role even after his murshid’s death. The
relationship is special because the khalifa in this case is his murshid’s
sajjada-nishin, a position to which only one person may be ap­
pointed. And here the role carries worldly responsibilities for the
maintenance of properties. Ahmad Riza went on to say that this

See M uhamm ad Mas‘ud Ahm ed, Neglected Genius of the East: A n Introduction to the
L ife and the W orks o f M aw lana A h m a d R id a K han o f B areilly (India)
1272/1856-1340/1921 (Lahore: R ida Academy, 1987), p. 11, for an incom plete list
o f Ahmad Riza’s khalifas.
23 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 45:50 (January 10, 1910), 9.
24 Naqa* al-Salafa f t Ahkam al-Bai'a wa'l Khilafa, p. 14.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 137

position usually devolves upon the murshid’s eldest son, though

various shar‘i conditions may obtain to alter the situation.25
However, this two-fold distinction between the sajjada-nishin on
the one hand, and a large number of khalifas on the other, does not
convey the diversity o f possible relationships between a murshid and
his murids or khalifas. O n examination it appears that the relation­
ship between a murshid and his murid was not always as close or as
intense as has been described above. In Ahmad Riza’s own case,
shortly before his death a large number o f men and women came
forward to take bai'a at his hands; so many that he had to deputize
his two sons, Hamid Riza and Mustafa Riza, to officiate on his
behalf.26 Obviously not all who became his murids at this time could
enjoy a close relationship with him; nor, probably, had they made
the careful and thoughtful choice that he had advised. These murids
do not fit the picture of one who was giving o f him or herself to the
pir in the total sense that is described in the literature, including
Ahmad Riza’s Malfuzat. What had probably attracted them to him
was the baraka that he, as a learned, upright, and renowned pir (and
‘alim), was believed to possess. Nevertheless, the term used in this
case is also ‘bai‘a.
Conversely, Ahmad Riza’s relations with his khalifas were not as
distant as may appear from his categorization. His relations with
them appear to have been rather loosely structured, individual, and
diverse. He was their murshid in the informal sense that they
respected him gready, and sought to promote the same ends as he
in their own lives; but they did not necessarily live in Bareilly or
take instruction from him. Na'im ud-Din Muradabadi (1882-
1948), one of Ahmad Riza’s khalifas, was a forceful personality. He
had already built up a reputation for disputation against ‘Wahhabis’27
and Arya Samajis in Muradabad before he came to Ahmad Riza’s
attention on account of an article he had written in a local

25 Ibid., pp. 15-21.

26 Sirat-e A ‘la Hazrat, p. 124.
27 A term used by the Ahl-e Sunnat in a loosely-defined sense to include the ‘ulama’
o f the Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya, Deoband, and Ahl-e Hadis, as well as modernist
M uslim intellectuals such as Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan. For detailed treatm ent o f the issue,
see C hapter VIII below.
138 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

newspaper.28 He neither studied under Ahmad Riza’s direction, nor

took bai‘a from him, though Ahmad Riza’s writings and point o f
view had influenced his thinking before they met. Once the two
men got to know each other, Na‘im ud-Din was a frequent visitor
at Bareilly, and Ahmad Riza would summon him from time to time
to represent the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama‘at at debates in different parts
o f the country. For the rest, he was bysy writing and debating, and
in 1919-20 he set up a madrasa in Muradabad.29 The relationship
between Ahmad Riza and Na‘im ud-Din, then, was to a large degree
that o f intellectual companions, N a‘im ud-Din respecting Ahmad
Riza as the older and more widely-read ‘alim.
Ahinad Riza interacted on a day-to-day basis with a diffuse set o f
people who sought his advice on all kinds o f matters, great and small.
Some hours in the late afternoon were set aside for this purpose. W e
have already seen that Nuri Miyan too allotted some time each day
to meeting people and advising them on their problems. As with
Nuri Miyan, an important function Ahmad Riza performed for this
wide circle of followers was that of curing or healing. A man who
came to him asking for a prayer (du‘a) because he was beset with
problems, was told:
A Com panion [sahabi] went to the Prophet and said, the world has turned its
back on me. He said, D on’t you remember that tasbih [prayer of praise] praising
the angels, by the baraka o f which we receive our daily food? Good fortune
will come to you after your distress. At the time of the fajr prayer o f sunrise,
repeat this prayer (‘Subhan Allah bi-hamdihi subhan allah al-azim wa bi-ham -
dihi astaghfir Allah’). Seven days after the Prophet had given the sahabi this
advice, the sahabi returned. His fortune had changed so much, he said, that he
didn’t know how to describe it. You too [Ahmad Riza addressed the man]
should repeat this prayer. If you miss the time of sunrise, say it in the m orning
after joining the congregation at the fajr prayer.. And if some day you miss
saying it even then, say it before sunrise [of the following day].30

The solution to a problem was not always that simple, however.

W hen a man came to him saying that after many years o f childless-

28 M u‘in ud-D in N a'im i, ‘Tazkira al-Ma‘ru f Hayat-e Sadar al-Afazil\ Sawad-e A 'za m ,
vol. 2 (Lahore: N a'im i Dawakhana, 1378/1959), pp. 6-7.
29 Ibid., pp. 7 -1 0 ,2 0 .
30 Malfuzat, vol. 1, p. 62.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 139

ness, he had six children only to lose five o f them, and that he now
had only a three-year old daughter left, Ahmad Riza said:
N ext time you are expecting a baby, come here and tell me within two months
o f conception. Also tell me your wife’s and her mother’s names. Thereafter,
insha’llah, arrangements will be made. Make sure everyone in your household
is punctilious in offering namaz, and after every namaz the Ayat al-Kursi should
be repeated . . . . And apart from the namaz, the Ayat al-Kursi should be
repeated thrice a day— before sunrise, before sundown, and at bedtime. Even
w om en who don’t have permission to say the namaz [i.e., are menstruating]
should repeat this ayat. But on such days they should say it with the intention
not o f repeating an ayat o f the Q u r’an but of praising Allah. And on the days
that they are permitted to read the namaz, they should also read the qul three
times thrice a day (before sunrise, before sunset, and before sleeping). [Detailed
instructions on the position o f the hands follow.] There is an elderly man here
w ho makes large lamps (chiragh). Get him to make you one, and light it from
the time conception takes place right until the time ofbirth. As for the daughter
you already have, if she gets ill, light a lamp for her as well. That lamp will
guard against sorcery (sihr), misfortune (aseb) and disease. And as soon as a new
child is bom the azan should be repeated in its ear seven times, four times in
the right ear and three times in the left. There should be absolutely no delay
in doing this. If you delay, Satan enters [the child’s body]. For forty days after
birth, the child should be weighed against grain, and [the equivalent weight
o f grain] given in alms. After that, this should be done once a m onth until it’s
a year old; once every two months until it is two years old, and once every
three months until it is three. In its fourth year, this should be done once every
four months, and so too in its fifth year. In its sixth year, it should be done
every six months. And from its seventh year on, once a year. D o this for your
daughter as well. Since she is in her fourth year, weigh her every four months.
R epeat the azan out loud in her ear for seven days at maghrib, seven times on
each occasion. And for three evenings, the Surat al-Baqara should be read by
a qualified reader (khwan) in a loud voice that will reach every com er o f the
house. At night the door o f the house should be shut while saying ‘Bism’illah’,
and the same when opening the door in the morning. W hen going to the
bathroom (pa-khana), one should say the Bism’illah outside the door and enter
with o n e’s left foot first. And when leaving, one should extend one’s right foot
first. W hen taking off one’s clothes or bathing, one should say the Bism’illah
first. And when approaching one another, both husband and wife should
remember to say this first. If you observe all this advice, insha’llah, no harm
will befall you.31

31 Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 9-11.

140 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Ahmad Riza’s lengthy response shows the seriousness with which

he viewed the man’s problem. The ingredients o f the cure were,
essentially, simple: punctiliousness in observing the namaz, repeti­
tion o f certain verses of the Q ur’an (repetition o f the Ayat al-Kursi
being widespread as a cure), awareness o f the details o f every personal
deed and of the correct way o f performing it, and finally, the giving
of alms on a large scale. A distinctive feature o f his response, which
recalls Denny’s comment that reciting the Q ur’an is in a sense a
magical act,32 was that reciting a verse o f the Q ur’an repeatedly
would ward off the problem at hand.
This was very clear when, on another occasion, Ahmad Riza was
asked whether one could receive grace (baraka) only after death or
also during one’s lifetime. In the course o f his reply that grace may
accrue both before and after death, Ahmad Riza alluded to the Surat
al-Mulk (67) ,33 which, he explained, intercedes for the person who
prayed to it. The sura was portrayed anthropomorphically in the
female gender:
N othing exceeds this sura’s ability to save [the dead] from the punishment o f
the grave and to convey peace and tranquillity. If the punishing angels wish to
come to the reader o f this sura, she [the sura] stops them from doing so. If they
try to come from another direction, she hinders them from there. ‘He is reading
m e’, she says. The angels say, ‘W e have come at His command, whose kalam
[speech] you are’. Then the sura says, ‘Wait then, don’t come near him until
I return’. And the sura puts up such a fight on behalf o f the reader at Allah’s
court, pleading for his pardon . . . . If there is a delay in the pardon being
granted, she argues, ‘He used to read me, and You haven’t forgiven him. If I
am not Y our kalam, tear me out o f Your Book*. The Lord replies, ‘Go. I have
forgiven him ’. The sura immediately goes to heaven. She collects silk cloths,
pillows, flowers and perfumes from there, and brings them to the grave. ‘I got
held up coming here’, she explains. ‘You didn’t get worried, I hope?’ And she
spreads out the cloths and the pillows, while the angels, commanded by God,
go away.34

While he attached considerable importance to the ‘magical’ as a

32 Denny, ‘Islamic R itual’, in M artin (ed.), Approaches to ¡slam in Religious Studies, p. 76.
33 Referred to in the text as ‘Sura Tabaraka’, after the first word in the sura. I am grateful
to Professor Christian W . Troll for identifying the sura for me.
34 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 70-1.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 141

c u re to problems, Ahmad Riza also emphasized on numerous

occasions the role of individual effort, and of internal ‘purity o f heart’
a n d purpose in achieving the desired result.35Just as a pir could not
by him self ensure the progress o f the disciple unless the latter had
th e right ‘intention’, so also with the removal of obstacles. If the
seek er was pure of heart, Allah never failed him. Ahmad Riza cited
a hadis qudsi (Divine Saying) in which Allah is reported to have said,
. And if he draws nearer to Me by a handsbreadth, I draw nearer
to h im by an armslength; and if he draws nearer to Me by an
armslength, I draw nearer to him by a fathom; and if he comes to
M e walking, I come to him running’.36 Clearly, though, the onus
was on the individual to make the first move toward Allah before
h e could be helped.
In the same vein, Ahmad Riza cautioned his listeners not to
undertake the fast or the hajj, or go into seclusion toward the end
o f Ramazan (e ‘tika f ), for the wrong reasons: they must perform
these deeds for Allah, not for themselves, although good would
com e to them as a result of having done them.37 And when judging
the actions o f others, they must be careful not to entertain doubts
about others’ sincerity as long as a possibility existed that they were
well-intentioned.38 They had constandy to be watchful over the
heart, ever given to disobedience (ma (asi) and reprehensible innova­
tion (bid‘a). A time could come when a person became completely
blind to the truth.39
The Maljuzat reveal the wide range o f questions that Ahmad Riza
dealt with in these daily conversations. Some related to personal
appearance, such as the permissibility or otherwise o f dyeing one’s

35 T he individual, he explained on another occasion, is composed o f nafs (the base

instincts), qalb (‘heart’ in a metaphoric sense), and ruh (spirit). Ibid., vol. 3, p. 63. For a
discussion o f the background o f this tripartite division in sufi thought, see Schimmel,
Mystical Dimensions of Islam, pp. 191-2. For the importance o f ‘intention’ in sufism, see
Constance E. Padwick, Muslim Devotions, pp. 52—4.
36 Malfuzat, vol. 4, p. 33. T he translation is by William A. Graham, Divine Word and
Prophetic Word in Early Islam: A Reconsideration of the Sources, with Special Reference to the
Divine Saying or Hadith Qudsi (The Hague, Paris: M outon, 1977), pp. 127-30.
37 Malfuzat, vol. l,p p . 29-30.
38 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 91, 93.
39 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 63.
142 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

hair black, wearing one’s hair long if one were a man, or wearing
rings of various metals.40 Others related to ritual practice, such as
the correct manner of performing ablution (umzu ’) before prayer,
the performance of the prayer itself, or the etiquette (adab) to be
observed in a mosque.41 Sometimes conversation turned to marital
relations, or to relations with non-Muslims.42 Beliefs about the dead,
their intercession with the Prophet on behalf o f the living, the
Prophet’s knowledge of the unseen, all these and other matters were
discussed repeatedly. These daily conversations with people in the
neighbourhood, town, and region in and around Bareilly must have
been an important factor in Ahmad Riza’s growth o f influence and
stature over the years. Although we have no way o f knowing, his
audience probably included people who were illiterate, on whom
Ahmad Riza’s advice and display of learning may have had a
particularly powerful impact.43
In this examination of the nature o f religious authority in Ahmad
Riza’s life, particularly in reference to the role o f the pir that we
have looked at so far, it is clear that Ahmad Riza himself exercised
considerable personal religious authority over his followers, as did
his pir and other scholarly and saindy men over him. What were
the likely sources of this authority?
Simon Digby has addressed this question in relation to the Chishti
shaikhs in the Sultanate period (twelfth and thirteenth centuries).44
Digby looks at a range of personal attributes which, as sources o f
prestige, enhanced the reputation and standing of a pir at that time.
These could include ‘learning and orthodoxy in conjunction w ith
descent from the Prophet a n d . . . rank as a Sufi Shaikh’, ‘poetic
sensibility’, and ‘the ability to construct, extend and organize a

40 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 102; vol. 3, p. 2.

41 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 8 8 -9 , 108-12.
42 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 86, 97; vol. 3, p. 44.
43 In this context see Francis Robinson, ‘Islam and Muslim Society in South Asia’, in
Contributions to Indian Sociology, 17 (1983), 194-5, wherein he refers to the ‘special
chemistry o f personal contact’ as a factor ‘spreading Islamic knowledge and bringing
about a wider observance of Islamic law’.
44 Digby, ‘T he Sufi Shaikh as a Source o f Authority’, in M arc Gaborieau (ed.), Islam
and Society in South Asia, pp. 57-8.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 143

Khanqah; to feed, accommodate and attend to the material and

spiritual needs o f disciples and often numerous dependants; and to
accommodate travellers according to Muslim precept and the ex­
pectations of hospitality’.45 Most o f these personal attributes (and
Digby mentions others), with the exception of Sayyid ancestry,
accurately describe Ahmad Riza as pir. Zafâr ud-Din Bihari, Ahmad
R iza’s biographer, enumerates his qualities in the Hayat-e A'la
Hazrat, including, among others, Islamic equality, kindness to the
poor, generosity toward others, depth o f learning, and vigilance in
the observance o f din.4*
It should be pointed out, however, that these values applied in
the particular context of Ahmad Riza’s vision o f right belief and
conduct. Zafàr ud-Din sees no contradiction between ‘Islamic
equality’, by which he means that Ahmad Riza treated people o f
low social status at par with those of high social standing, and Ahmad
R iza’s proverbial respect for Sayyids, whom he treated with a
deference accorded to no one else on account o f their descent from
the Prophet.47 A small example of this was that Sayyids were given
twice as much food at a milad celebration as other guests at Ahmad
R iza’s household. Likewise, Ahmad Riza’s refusal to have anything
to do with Shi‘is is interpreted as a sign of his uncompromising
attitude in matters related to ‘mazhab’;48 Zafàr ud-Din comments
that people ignorant of din and shar‘ mistook Ahmad Riza’s mazhabi
firmness for rudeness or harshness.49 ‘Wahhabis’ o f various descrip­
tions, whose views Ahmad Riza devoted a lifetime rebutting, were
also understood to be outside the circle o f those to whom he
extended a courteous welcome. In all that Ahmad Riza said and did,
he drew a clear Une between right and wrong belief and action. This
unambiguity, backed by his unquestioned erudition, was perhaps his
greatest source of prestige and authority in his followers’ eyes.50

45 Ibid., pp. 61, 67.

46 Hayat-e A 1a Hazrat, pp. 40, 46, 50, 131, 181.
47 Ibid., pp. 2 0 3 -8 .
48 Zafâr ud-D in Bihari uses mazhab (Ar., madhab) interchangeably with din, the faith.
49 Hayat-e A 1a Hazrat, pp. 189-92.
50 See, in this context, Katherine P. Ewing, ‘Ambiguity and Shari‘at—A Perspective on
the Problem o f Moral Principles in Tension', in Katherine P. Ew ing (ed.), Shari'at and
144 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

S h a ik h ‘A b d ai- Q a d ir J ila n i , F o u n d e r of the Q a d ir i O rder

The Qadiri order (tariqa) named after Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani
Baghdadi (d. 1166) is more popular in South Asia than in any other
part o f the Muslim world apart from Iraq, its place o f origin. Ewing
writes that ‘Abdul Qadir G ilani. . . is regarded as the patron o f all
the sufi orders in South Asia’.51 Among pilgrims to his tomb in
Baghdad, South Asians outnumber those from other parts o f the
world.52 In the late twentieth century Pakistanis (and Iraqis) are the
chief source of the authority o f the keeper o f ‘Abd al-Qadir’s tomb
at Baghdad. The Pakistanis ‘periodically send gifts which form the
main source o f the revenues o f his establishment; the members of
this family find it worth while to learn U rdu’.53
‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani, bom in Jilan, Iran, migrated to Baghdad as
a young man. After several years in solitude as an ascetic he decided
in the latter half of his life to become a preacher. As a follower of
the Hanbali school, he taught and preached at a madrasa o f Hanbali
law, and also at a ribat or monastery. Both institutions were famous
in twelfth-century Baghdad, and ‘Abd al-Qadir was by all accounts
very popular. His efforts as a preacher gained him the tide ‘Muhyi
ud-D in’ or ‘reviver of the faith’ which, allegedly, had grown weak
at the time.54
To the Qadiris in the subcontinent, the founder o f their order
who has over ninety-nine names, is called ‘Ghaus-e A ‘zam’, or
‘Greatest Helper’.55 This suggests that he is viewed primarily as one
who intercedes with Allah. Padwick explains, ‘while the Shafa'a
[intercession] of the Prophet is his people’s great hope for the life of

Ambiguity in South Asian Liam (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988).

51 Ewing, ‘The Pir or Sufi Saint in Pakistani Islam’, p. 142.
52 Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p. 247.
53 D. S. M argoliouth, ‘Kadiriyya’, in E/2, p. 382. The article has presumably been
updated since M argoliouth’s death, though the editor’s name is not indicated.
54 See ibid., pp. 380-3. Also, Aftab ud-D in Ahmad’s ‘Life-Sketch’ in his translation o f
‘Abd al-Qadir’s Futuh al-Ghaib ('The Revelations of the Unseen) (Lahore: Sh. M uham m ad
Ashraf, 1967), pp. 1-14, for a biographical note on ‘Abd al-Q adir Jilani.
55 For a history of the Qadiri order from the fifteenth century, w hen it was first
introduced in the subcontinent, to the late nineteenth, see S. A. A. Rizvi, A History of
Sufism in India (Delhi: M unshiram Manoharlal, 1983), vol. 2, chapter 2.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 145

the world to come, [‘Abd al-QadirJilani is one o f four] intercessors

concerning the life that now is’.56 He occupies a pre-eminent
position in the hierarchy of saints, as we shall soon see; in some o f
the prayer manuals that Padwick studied, in fact, it is claimed that
Allah gave him a seat ‘with the spirits o f the prophets . . . between
this world and the next, between the Creator and the created . .
which claim, Padwick comments, ‘is remarkable, because entrance
to that rank [that is, of the prophets] had been regarded as closed
since thé coming of Muhammad’.57
In this respect, Ahmad Riza’s views on ‘Abd al-Qadir’s status
vis-à-vis the Prophet and the other saints o f the sufi hierarchy were
very clear. He definitely ranked him below the Prophet, but exalted
him above all other saints. In one of his poems he addressed ‘Abd
al-Qadir with these words:
Except for divinity and prophethood
You encompass all perfections, O Ghaus
(uluhiyyat nubuwwat ke siwa tu
tamam afeal ka qabil hai ya ghaus)58

and elsewhere he described how spiritual authority flows from Allah

to the Shaikh:
From Ahad to Ahmad, from Ahmad to you
in this order the divine command ‘Be’ or ‘D on’t Be’ is
followed, O Ghaus
(ahad se ahmad aur ahmad se tujh ko
kun aur sab kun makun hasil hai ya ghaus)59

56 Padwick, Muslim Devotions, p. 240. T he other three named by Padwick are: Ahmad
al-R ifa‘i (d. 1183), Ahmad al-Badawi (d. 1276), and Ibrahim al-Dasuqi (d. 1278).
57 Ibid. In this context, see also S. A. A. R izvi’s com m ent that ‘T o all intents and*
purposes, the Qadiriyyas advocated the deification o f their founder and all his
descendants'. A History of Sufxsnt in India, vol. 2, p. 54.
58 Ahm ad Riza Khan, Hada’iq-e Bakhshish (Karachi: Medina Publishing Com pany,
1976), p. 252. (Note: the reference here is to a different edition from the one cited in
footnote 8 o f this chapter. This edition is also published by the Medina Publishing C o.,
Karachi, but it has no date. Unlike the 1976 edition, it has no annotations. It has a slighdy
different collection o f poems, and occasionally gives dates o f composition, again unlike the
1976 edition. Hereafter, ‘n .d / or ‘1976 ed.’ will indicate which edition is being cited.)
59 Ibid., p. 249. Ahad = T he O ne, Allah; Ahmad = Muhammad.
146 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

As this verse suggests, ‘Abd al-Qadir was the apex o f spiritual

authority next only to the Prophat. Echoing the Shaikh’s famous
saying, ‘My foot is on the neck o f every saint’, Ahmad Riza writes:
W h o is to k n o w w h a t y o u r h ead lo o k s like
as th e eye level o f o th e r saints c o rre sp o n d s to th e sole o f y o u r fo o t
(sar bh ala kya k o ’i ja n e k i h a i kaisa te ra
auliya m ilte h a in a n k h e n w o hai talw a tera)60

For Qadiris he is the Ghaus, or the Qutb (Axis or Pole), ‘on [whom]
the government o f the world is believed to depend’.61 Ahmad Riza
explained the invisible hierarchy o f saints as follows:
E v e ry ghaus has tw o m inisters. T h e g h au s is k n o w n as ‘A b d U llah . T h e m in iste r
o n th e rig h t is called ‘A b d u r - R a b , a n d th e o n e o n th e left is called ‘A b d
u l-M a lik . In this [spiritual] w o rld , th e m in iste r o n th e left is s u p e rio r to th e
o n e o n th e rig h t, u n lik e th e w o rld ly sultanat. T h e reason is th a t th is is th e
su lta n a t o f th e h e a rt an d th e h e a rt is o n th e left side. E v e ry ghaus . . . [has a
special rela tio n sh ip w ith ] th e P ro p h e t.62

Ahmad Riza went on to name the succession o f ghaus and their

ministers from the time of the Prophet down to Shaikh ‘Abd
al-Qadir Jilani. The first ghaus in this list was the Prophet, followed
by the four ‘righdy-guided caliphs’ (Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Usman, and
‘Ali), each of whom was in turn first the minister o f the left hand to
the current ghaus, and at the latter’s death, replaced him in that
position. They were followed by Hasan and Husain, down to Shaikh
‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani. The latter was the last occupant o f the
‘Ghausiyat-e Kubra’ (the Great Succour[ship]); those who have
followed have been, and will continue to be, deputies (na’ib).
Ultimately the Imam Mahdi will receive the Ghausiyat-e Kubra.63
60 Ibid., p. 233. This saying is extremely popular and widely know n am ong Qadiris.
For comm ents sec, for example, Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, pp. 247-8.
61 Jo h n A. Subhan, Sufism, Its Saints and Shrines (N ew York: Samuel W eiser Inc., 1970),
p. 104.
62 Maljuzat, vol. 1, p. 102.
63 Ibid., Subhan, Sufism, pp. 104-6, gives the details o f this hierarchy, which is
considerably m ore complex than this b rief summary indicates. Schimmel suggests that
the concept o f the qutb (or ghaus, for the tw o terms are interchangeable) as ‘the highest
spiritual guide o f the faithful* bears a structural resemblance to the Shi'i concept o f the
hidden imam. See Mystical Dimensions, p. 200.
 Personalization o f Religious Authority 147

It is to be noted that in this scheme o f things the Prophet and the

first four caliphs stand at the head o f the spiritual hierarchy which
ends in Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani. In this way the lines o f
succession by which spiritual, gnostic knowledge is handed down
coincide with the ultimate sources o f authority for knowledge o f
shari‘a which, o f course, also culminate in the Prophet.64 Ahmad
Riza explicidy made this connection in one o f his poems addressing
the Shaikh:
You are mufti o f the shar‘, qazi o f the community
and expert in the secrets o f knowledge, ‘Abd al-Qadir
(mufti-e shar' -bhi hai qazi-e millat bhi hai
‘ilm-e asrar se mahir bhi hai ‘abd al-qadir)65

‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani’s relationship with the Prophet was not merely
one of spiritual lineage, however. It was also one o f genealogical
descent, for the Shaikh’s mother was a descendant o f Husain, and
his father of Hasan. This double genealogical link with the Prophet
earned the Shaikh one of his many names, ‘Hasan al-Husain’.66 For
Qadiri followers this genealogy was o f great importance for, as S. A.
A. Rizvi notes, ‘as a direct descendant o f the Prophet Muhammad
(through his daughter, Fatima), Shaikh ‘Abdu‘1 Qadir was believed
to have inherited every one of his ancestor’s spiritual achieve­
ments’.67 Ahmad Riza’s poetry is again helpful in understanding the
importance o f this factor to him personally. In the verses below,
Ahmad Riza uses metaphors from nature to describe the Shaikh. It
should be understood that the words ‘pure’, ‘beautiful’, and ‘lovely’,
stand for Fatima, Hasan, and Husain respectively:
Prophetic shower, ‘Alawi68 season, pure garden
Beautiful flower, your fragrance is lovely

64 Apparendy, Ahmad Riza was here following a scheme outlined by ‘Ali al-Hujwiri,
the eleventh-century saint populady know n in the subcontinent as Data Ganj Bakhsh.
See his Kashf al-Mahjub.
65 Hada’iq-e Bakhshish, Part 1, n.d., p. 27.
66 Subhan, Sufism, p. 176.
67 Rizvi, A History of Sufism in India, vol. 2, p. 54.
68 ‘Alawi: ‘of, belonging to, ‘Ali’.
148 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Prophetic shade, ‘Alawi constellation, pure station

Beautiful moon, your radiance is lovely
Prophetic sun, ‘Alawi mountain, pure quarry
Beautiful ruby, your brilliance is lovely
(nabawi menh, ‘alawi fasl, batuli gulshan
has am phul husaini hai mahakna tera
nabawi zil, ‘alawi burj, batuli manzil
hasani chand husaini hai ujala tera
nabawi khur, ‘alawi koh, batuli ma’adun
hasani la’l husaini hai tajalla tera)69

These verses indicate that Ahmad Riza saw Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir
as the repository of the virtues of each one of his illustrious ancestors,
not only that of the Prophet. This is the clearest indication we have
had so far of his belief that religious authority flows both spiritually
and genealogically. Ahmad Riza’s choice o f a Sayyid as his own pir
had already indicated the importance he attached to genealogical
descent from the Prophet. Further evidence that spiritual authority
is handed down genealogically was his nomination o f his own eldest
son for the sajjada-nishini.
As with other holders of religious authority, ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani
was a very real presence in Ahmad Riza’s personal life as lived from
day to day. He told his followers o f a time when the Shaikh had
answered his appeal for help during a visit he had made to Nizam
ud-Din Auliya’s tomb in Delhi. The tomb was surrounded by
musicians and singers, making what seemed to him ‘a great
commotion’ and causing him much distress. Invoking Shaikh ‘Abd
al-Qadir’s help with the words ‘Ya Ghaus’, he also addressed Nizam
ud-Din, saying, ‘I have come to your court. Release me from this
noise’. As he entered the tomb, silence suddenly reigned. He
thought the musicians had gone away, but as soon as he left the
tomb, the noise returned in full swing. Then he knew that the
Shaikh had answered his prayer.70

69 Haqa’iq-e Bakhshish, 1976 ed., p. 234.

70 Maljuzat, vol. 3, p. 59. Although Ahmad Riza had invoked the help o fb o th Shaikh
‘Abd al-Qadir and Nizam ud-D in Auliya, he interpreted this event as a miracle (karamat)
o f Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir alone. T h e latter’s miracles are numerous. M any are recorded
in the secondary literature in English.
 Personalization of Religious A uthority 149

‘Abd al-Qadir was also a constant presence in his life in terms o f

ritual practice. This included saying the Fadha in the Shaikh’s name
when a wish was granted, and celebration o f the Shaikh’s birthdate
on the eleventh of every month, a ceremony known as gyarahwin.
Zafar ud-Din Bihari records an occasion when someone asked
Ahmad Riza to read the Fatiha (the opening Sura o f the Q u r’an)
over some food, offered in the Sahikh’s name in thanks giving:
[Ahmad Riza] first asked all those present to do wuzu’ [ritual ablution] and did
so himself. The container o f halwa was placed in front. Everyone stood facing
the direction o f the Lord o f Baghdad [Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir] which is eighteen
degrees north o f the qibla [Mecca]. Ahmad Riza directed everyone to say
Bism’illah, and to follow this up with the durud Ghausia [prayer calling down
G od’s blessing on Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir], seven times. Then they were to read
al-hamd [giving thanks to God] once, the Ayat al-Kursi once, and say ‘Qul huwa
Allahu’ [Allah is all] seven times. After reading the durud Ghausia thrice, they
should offer nazar [the food] to the Sarkar-e Baghdad [‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani],
[After completing the reading] [Ahmad Riza] called for a plain table cloth to
replace the existing one which had verses written on it here and there, saying
that nothing other than the dishes o f food should be placed on a table cloth.
People clearing up are very careless, he said, as to where they step. Then a
bowl and cup containing halwa was placed in front o f each person. Everyone
said Bism’illah [once more], and sat down to eat. W hen they had finished,
Ahmad Riza told them not to wash their hands immediately, but to line up in
rows turning toward Iraq and raise their hands to do du‘a [prayer of supplication
for ‘Abd al-Qadir]. He said, the sadat [pi. o f Sayyid] should be in the front row,
in front o f everyone else. He himself stood behind them. After they had said
the du‘a, everyone washed their hands carefully, as he instructed, and he moved
the used water to a safe place, commanding each one to drink a little o f it rather
than rinse it out.71

It remains only to highlight once again the significance o f the Qadiri

order and its founder, Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani, to Ahmad Riza
in terms of religious authority. Basically the Shaikh was a means
(wasila) of intercession with the Prophet and thence with Allah, and
he was seen as a kindly, caring saint who has his petitioners’ interests
at heart. His Sayyid ancestry made him a perfect intercessionary
agent, as religious authority was seen to flow through both spiritual
and genealogical lines.

71 Hayat-e A 1a Hazrat, pp. 202-3.

150 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Indeed, it appears that we are now in a position to better

understand the significance to Ahmad Riza o f Sayyid ancestry. In
the previous chapter, we saw that Sayyids are generally considered,
by a large number of Muslims, to be imbued with baraka or grace,
by virtue of their descent from the Prophet, and that this quality
may be passed on to others through contact with relics associated
with them. W hen we consider that baraka is itself a source or
expression o f religious authority, it becomes apparent that Sayyids
‘automatically’ embody religious authority— though personal
spiritual worth is o f course also o f great importance in determining
how a man, or a pir or shaikh, may be judged. According to Zafar
ud-Din Bihari Ahmad Riza looked upon Sayyids first as a ‘part o f
the Prophet’, and only secondarily saw their personal qualities.
Consequently, it was inconceivable to him that a Sayyid could be
placed in the socially inferior role o f servitor: Sayyids were to be
served, regardless of material or social standing.72
A second, and rather different, point that emerges from this
examination o f the role of Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani, it appears to
me, is that Ahmad Riza saw the Shaikh as uniting within himself
both shari‘a and tariqa, both the law and the path. Although this
point does not emerge as clearly from the literature— which, by its
very nature, stresses the tariqa aspect o f belief and practice over
shari'a, and a more complete documentation o f which would
require us to examine ‘Abd al-Qadir’s teachings as they emerge from
his own writings— nevertheless, the history o f the Qadiri order in
the subcontinent indicates that ‘reformist’ or shari‘a-minded sufis
have been an important element in the order. Belief in the
miraculous, or in the inborn superiority o f noble (Sayyid) descent,
in no way contradicts emphasis on a ‘sober’ sufism.73 The evidence

72 See Hayat-e A ‘la Hazrat, p. 201. Zafar ud-D in recounts an incident in Ahmad R iza’s
household w hen it was discovered that one o f the household servants was a Sayyid.
Ahmad R iza immediately ordered everyone in the house to serve him instead, to
consider the salary he had been receiving as a gift (nazar), and to ensure that he was fed
and cared for. After a while the man left o f his ow n accord, made uncomfortable,
undoubtedly, by the reversal of roles.
73 Evidence for the ‘reformist1 or shari'a-minded orientation o f the Qadiris in the
subcontinent may be found, for example, in Eaton, Sufis o f Bijapur 1300-1700, pp.
2 8 4 - 6. S. A. A. Rizvi, A History o f Sufism in India, also indicates that some famous Qadiri
 Personalization of Religious Authority 151

from Ahmad Riza’s own life, his sayings as recorded in his Malfuzat,
and his writings, together with what we know o f the nature of his
ritual activities, all indicate (as noted previously) that esoteric beliefs
and practices had to be within the bounds o f the shari‘a, or, as
Muslims would say, ba-shar‘ (‘with’ shari'a).

T he ‘L o v e r of the P r o p h e t ’ (‘a s h iq - e r asu l )

W e have seen how the Prophet was the focal point and apex of
religious and spiritual authority for Ahmad Riza, the goal to which
devotion to pir and Shaikh lead. All such forms o f devotion are
undertaken ultimately in order to reach Allah. As he said on one
occasion, ‘W hoever seeks the help o f the saints and the prophets,
and of the chief of the prophets [Muhammad] . . . is in reality
seeking Allah’.74 Ahmad Riza’s writings on the Prophet are exten­
sive: numerous fatawa deal with the Prophet’s attributes, as do his
diwan o f na‘t poetry and his Malfuzat. I now highlight how the main
themes addressed by Ahmad Riza’s poetry and Malfuzat concern the
Prophet. I do not attempt an exhaustive treatment o f the subject,
for that would be more appropriate to a study o f sufism per se.
Veneration o f the Prophet has a long history in sufi and popular
devotionalism. It goes back to figures like al-Hallaj (d. 922), Sana’i
(d. 1131), Ibn al-‘Arabi (d. 1240), and Rum i (d. 1273).75 Ahmad
Riza’s Malfuzat indicate his familiarity with the lives and writings o f
sufis like Junaid Baghdadi (d. 910), the Persian poet Rum i, the
Egyptian poet al-Busiri (d. 1298) who wrote the Burda in praise of
the Prophet, and the Egyptian ‘Abd al-Wahhab Sha'rani (d. 1565).76
Given his erudition, it is likely that Ahmad Riza’s vision o f the
Prophet and o f the latter’s place in the life o f the believer was shaped

sufis such as Shaikh ‘Abd ul-Haqq Dehlawi (d. 1642) were devoted to uniting shari‘a
and tariqa. See pp. 91-4.
74 Malfuzat, vol. 4, p. 18.
75 Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, discusses the history o f the veneration o f the Prophet
in the Muslim world especially as manifested in poetry, pp. 213-27. T he subject receives
fuller treatm ent in her A nd Muhammad Is His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in
Islamic Piety (Lahore: Vanguard Books Ltd., Pakistan edition, 1987).
76 Malfuzat, vol. 1, pp. 43, 92-3; vol. 2, pp. 5 9 -6 0 : vol. 3, p. 29.
152 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

by this sufi tradition. Schimmel points as well to the popularity o f

na‘t poetry in the subcontinent since the Mughal period, written
first in Persian and later in Urdu and in regional languages such as
Sindhi.77 Some o f this poetry would have been familiar to Ahmad
Riza.
The resemblance in the themes o f the devotional poetry o f the
Muslim world generally, and those o f Ahmad Riza’s writings,
indicates that he was, indeed, writing within the context o f this larger
tradition. Schimmel describes the poets’ concerns as follows:
From earliest times, Muhammad, the messenger o f God, had been die ideal
for the faithful Muslim. His behavior, his acts, and his words served as models
for the pious, who tried to imitate him as closely as possible even in the smallest
details o f outward life . . . All the noble qualities o f his body and his soul w ere
described in terms o f marked admiration.78

Schimmel places the beginning o f a ‘genuine M uham m ad

mysticism’ in the early eighth century AD, with the first formulation
o f the ‘N ur-e Muhammadi’ concept that Muhammad was created
from God’s light and preceded the creation o f the world and o f
Adam. In the tenth century Hallaj took the idea a step further,
writing that the Prophet is both the ‘cause and goal o f creation’.
Proof o f this belief was cited from the hadis, ‘If thou hadst not been,
I would not have created the heavens’.79 In subsequent centuries the
concept o f the ‘Muhammadan light’ was further developed until the
theory o f fána fi’l-rasul ‘annihilation in the Prophet’ emerged in later
sufism. The Prophet had by now definitely become an intermediary
between man and God.80
Ahmad Riza, as a mufti writing fktawa, as a sufi preceptor giving
guidance to his followers in his Malfuzat, and as a poet expressing
his personal longings and passions, held much the same views. O ne
idea worth exploring at this stage is that o f the relationship between
Allah and the Prophet, for clarification on this point will help us

77 A nd Muhammad b His Messenger, pp. 207-13.

78 Mystical Dimensions, pp. 213-14.
79 Ibid., p. 215. This is a hadis qudsi (Divine Saying). O n the Divine Saying, see Graham,
Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam.
80 Mystical Dimensions, pp. 215-16.
 Personalization o f Religious Authority 153

understand one o f the major areas o f difference between Ahmad

Riza and his followers on the one side, and other South Asian
Muslims such as the Deobandis on the other. Ahmad Riza’s own
relationship o f ‘love’ for the Prophet will also become clear.
In his Malfuzat, Ahmad Riza says:
O nly the Prophet can reach God without intermediaries. This is why, on the
Day o f the Resurrection, all the prophets, walis, and ‘ulama’ will gather in the
Prophet's presence and beg him to intercede for them with G o d . . . . The
Prophet cannot have an intermediary because he is perfect [kamil\. Perfection
is concomitant on [mutafara *] existence [wujud]; and the existence o f the world
is dependent upon the existence o f the Prophet [which in turn is dependent
on the existence o f God]. In short, faith in the pre-eminence o f the Prophet
leads one to believe that only Allah has existence, everything else is His
shadow.*1

The hierarchy is clear Allah, the Prophet, the other prophets, the
saints, and so on. W ithin this framework o f the Prophet’s essentially
dependent relationship to Allah, however, there are no limits to the
qualities that may be ascribed to him. Ahmad Riza quotes ‘Abd
ul-Haqq Muhaddis Dehlawi, and the Egyptian poet al-Busiri, in
support o f his view that
setting aside the claim that Christians make [about Jesus being divine], you can
say whatever you wish in praise o f the Prophet for there was no limit to the
Prophet’s qualities.82

This belief in the practically limitless virtues and abilities o f the

Prophet, given him by God of His own will, is the basis for Ahmad
Riza’s assertion that the Prophet had knowledge o f the unseen
(‘ilm-e ghaib), a claim denied by the Deobandis. This knowledge
was said by Ahmad Riza to include (though by no means to be
limited to) the five things specifically said in the Q ur’an to be known
to God.83

81 Malfuzat, vol. 2, p. 58.

82 Ibid., pp. 58-9.
83 T he kernel o f Ahmad R iza’s argument with the Deobandis on the ‘ilm-e ghaib issue
was that ‘know n to God* did not mean only know n to H im , and not know n to the
Prophet. Ahmad Riza believed that Allah gifted such knowledge to the Prophet from time
to time, including knowledge o f the five things specifically m entioned in Q ur'an 31:34.
These were: knowledge o f the Hour (of Resurrection), o f when it would rain, o f the sex
154 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

In certain respects, however, the Allah-Prophet relationship is

not as clear as the above quotations would suggest. In the following
passage from the Malfuzat, Ahmad Riza made the point that the
Prophet is not ‘other than G od’ {ghair-e khuda):
[The Prophet had to teach his followers how to recite the Q ur’an in the early
days o f Islam.] After listening to the recitation of a sahabi, Abu Musa Ash'ari,
at night [from his own house], he praised his reading the next morning. The
sahabi said, O Prophet, had I known that you were listening, I would have
read with even greater fervour (aur zyada baria kar parhta) . . . . [Ahmad Riza
comments] The sahabi himself said he would have recited more forcefully for
the Prophet, and the Prophet did not object. This proves that reading for the
Prophet was not comparable to reading for one other than God (ghair-e
khuda). The Prophet’s business (mu'amala) is Allah’s business.84

Ahmad Riza also gave other examples o f the identification of the

Prophet and Allah, such as A‘isha’s (d. 678) statement that she was
repenting to Allah and the Prophet.
Once Ahmad Riza was asked whether it was permissible to use
lanterns and carpets (and similar expensive decorative items) at a
milad function. He responded that it was permissible so long as the
purpose o f the decoration was to honour the Prophet, rather than
some selfish or worldly motive, and reported this story:
Imam Ghazali wrote in his Iliya’ al-‘Ulum, on the basis o f a writing by Sayyid
Abu ‘Ali Rudhbari, that a believer had organized a zikr meeting [remembrance
o f the Prophet’s name]. He had installed a thousand lights in the meeting hall.
A guest arrived, and seeing the lights, began to leave [in disapproval o f the
host’s extravagance]. The organizer of the function held him back, took him
inside, and said, Any light that has been lit for one other than God should be
put out. The man tried to do so, but none o f the lights could be extinguished.85

T he apparent equation o f the Prophet with God is at first

astonishing. W e know, however, from numerous clearly stated
passages in Ahmad Riza’s works that he did not equate the Prophet
with God. W hat we have here, I think, is evidence of Ahmad Riza’s

o f a child in the w om b, o f w hat a person would cam on the m orrow, and o f w here one
would die. Ahmad R iza’s position on the ‘ilm-e ghaib debate is discussed in Chapter VIII.
84 Malfuzat, vol. 2, pp. 44-5.
85 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 99. Rudhbari, d. 934, was a contemporary ofjunaid Baghdadi. See
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, p. 54.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 155

unusually strong sense o f Muhammad’s prophecy, and the uniquely

close relationship to God that this implied. In our attempt to
understand this we may refer to William Graham, who, in his study
o f the hadis qudsi or Divine Saying, writes:
In the Divine Saying one sees perhaps most clearly that aspect o f M uhammad’s
mission that is most often ignored: his genuinely prophetic function as the
ordinary man who is transformed by his ‘calling’ to ‘rise and warn’— n o t only
through his ‘Book’, but in all his words and acts . . . . Outside the scriptural
Revelation, G od’s revealing goes on, and most vividly so in the action and
speech o f His messenger. In terms o f religious authority, especially within the
realm o f personal faith and personal piety, the Q ur’an and the varied materials
in the H adith form not two separate homogeneous bodies o f material, but one
continuum o f religious truth that encompasses a heterogeneous array of
materials.86

Ahmad Riza, like the early umma that Graham describes in his study,
appears not to have made any distinction between Muhammad the
prophet, recipient and messenger o f God’s immutable word, and
Muhammad the guide or leader, an ordinary mortal like those
around him. For him, the Prophet was ‘in all his words and acts’
prophetic, and thus extra-human. While all believing Muslims see
Muhammad as unique among humans in perhaps indefinable ways,
by virtue o f his calling, Ahmad Riza seems to have had a heightened
awareness of Muhammad’s ‘genuinely prophetic function’, causing
him to place the Prophet at the centre o f his own life as a believer.
As may be expected, these ideas are expressed particularly force­
fully in his poetry. In the following verses, the subject is
Muhammad’s close relationship with Allah:
The two worlds seek to please God
God seeks to please Muhammad
(khuda ki riza chahte hain do ‘alam
khuda chahta hai riza-e muhammad)

86 Graham, Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam, p. 110. Graham argues that
the very existence o f the hadis qudsi, which is a record o f a Divine Saying in the Prophet’s
words, and which thus straddles the boundaries o f Q u r’an and hadis, should alert us
against m aking a rigid distinction between the Prophet in his prophetic role and in his
personal role. Graham finds evidence to believe that the earliest Muslims did no t do so.
156 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

M uhammad is the threshold to Allah

Allah is the threshold to Muhammad
(muhammad bara-e janab-e ilahi
janab-e ilahi bara-e muhammad)
A vow was made for all time
to unite Khuda’s happiness with M uhammad’s
(baham ‘ahd bandhe hain wasl-e abad ka
riza-e khuda aur riza-e muhammad)87

In the following verse Muhammad is seen as Allah’s beloved,

completely united with him:
I will call you only ‘Lord’, you who are the beloved o f the Lord
there is no ‘yours’ and ‘mine’ between the beloved and the lover
(main to malik hi kahunga kih ho malik ke habib
yani mahbub o muhibb men nahin mera tera)88

O n the Prophet’s night ascension (mi'raj), he became G od’s

bridegroom:
You went as a bridegroom o f light
on your head a chaplet of light,
wedding clothes o f light on your body
(kya bana nam-e khuda asra ka dulha nur ka
sar pe sihrah nur ka, bar men shahana nur ka)89

As for his own relationship to the Prophet, Ahmad Riza made it

a conscious object of his life to immerse himself in serving the
Prophet in whatever capacity he could. Small details about him say
this most eloquendy: he used to sign himself as ‘Abd al-Mustafa
(‘Servant of Mustafa’, this meaning ‘the Chosen’ or ‘the Elect’, being
one of Muhammad’s names) on all correspondence, fatawa, and
other writings. When asked about this at one o f his daily meetings,
he replied that the name was the sign o f good judgm ent (husn-e zann)
87 Hada'xq-e Bakhshish, 1976 ed., p. 47.
88 Ibid., p. 9.
Ibid., p. 13. A lengthy poem on the mi'raj, adjudged (in a personal comm unication)
to be Ahmad R iza’s ‘masterpiece* by Professor M uhamm ad Mas‘ud Ahm ed, a scholar
on Ahmad Riza and his work, again pictures the Prophet’s ascension as a wedding. See
Hada*iq-c Bakhshish (n.d.), Part 1, pp. 106-15. T he imagery o f a wedding is also central
to the notion o f ‘urs, for, as noted* the w ord ‘urs literally means ‘marriage*.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 157

in a Muslim, and cited a hadis in which ‘Umar was reported to have

said that he considered himself a follower (banda) and servant
(khadim) of the Prophet.90 O n another occasion, he told those
gathered about him that if his heart were to be broken into two
pieces, it would be found that on one part was inscribed the first
part o f the kalima, ‘There is no God but Allah’, and on the other
was written the second half, ‘And Muhammad is His Prophet’.91
Just as Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani actively intervened on his
behalf from time to time, or was perceived to do so, so too did
Ahmad Riza experience the Prophet’s presence in a very personal
way. W hen he was learning the art o f divination (‘j'/nve jafr), the
Prophet appeared to him in a dream giving him permission (izn) to
proceed with his study.92 O n his second hajj in 1905-6, he spent a
m onth at Medina, the Prophet’s birthplace, being present there
during the Prophet’s birth anniversary celebrations on 12 Rabi‘
ul-Awwal. He spent this entire period, he said, at the Prophet’s
tomb, taking time off only once to visit the shrine o f one Maulana
Daghastani, and another time to go to (ziyarat) the tomb o f Hamza,
the Prophet’s uncle. W hen he met the ‘ulama’ o f Medina to engage
in learned discussions, it was in the precincts o f the Prophet’s tomb.93
This was, for Ahmad Riza, the holiest place on earth; he was willing
to go so far, indeed, as to say that Medina was better than Mecca,
as in this verse:
O pilgrims! come to the tomb o f the king o f kings
you have seen the Ka‘ba, now see the Ka'ba o f the Ka'ba

(hajiyo! a’o shahenshah ka rauza dekho

ka'ba dekh chuke ka'be ka ka'ba dekho)94

In his belief, the Prophet is very much alive in his tomb, leading
‘a life o f sense and feeling’, as do the other prophets. From his grave

90 Malfuzat, vol. 1, p. 43.

91 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 67.
92 However, he gave it up o f his own accord after some time. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 82-3.
93 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 34-5.
94 Hada'iq-e Bakhshish (1976 ed.), p. 96. Also see Malfuzat, vol. 2, pp. 4 7 -8 .
158 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

the Prophet helps his ‘guests’, those who visit his tomb, in whatever
way he sees fit.95
It was particularly in the hope of being honoured with a vision
o f the Prophet at his tomb in Medina, Zafar ud-Din Bihari writes,
that Ahmad Riza had undertaken this second hajj. W hile waiting
for him to appear Ahmad Riza spent the first night composing a
ghazal; the next night he presented the ghazal to the Prophet, and
it was after this that ‘his qismat (fortune) awoke. His watchful, vigilant
eyes were blessed with the presence o f the Prophet’.96 Unfortunate­
ly, Ahmad Riza himself does not appear to have written about this
experience.97
Ahmad Riza’s personal devotion to the Prophet shines through
in his poetry. Some poems have become popular nationwide in
Pakistan and are recited particularly on the Prophet’s birth anniver­
sary. The simplicity, humility in the presence of the awesomeness
o f the Prophet, and grateful confidence in his forgiveness with which
Ahmad Riza addresses the Prophet, are apparent over and over
again, as in these verses from the extremely popular poem Karoron
Durud:
I am tired, you are my sanctuary
I am bound, you are my refuge
My future is in your hands.
U pon you be thousands o f blessings

(khastah hun aur turn ma‘az basta hun aur turn malaz
age jo shai ki riza, turn pe karoron durud)

M y sins are limidess,

but you are forgiving and merciful
Forgive me my faults and offences.
U pon you be thousands o f blessings

95 Malfuzat, vol. 3, pp. 28-30.

96 Hayat-e A la Hazrat, pp. 43-4.
97 His lengthy ghazal is in the Hada’iq-e Bakhshish (n.d.), Part 1, pp. 92-105. I have
been unable to find any reference in it to his vision o f the Prophet, though this is not
surprising given Zafar ud-D in Bihari’s information that it was written before he had this
experience.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 159

(garche hain behad qasur, turn ho ‘afu-e ghafur

bakhsh do jurm o khata turn pe karoron durud)98

It was entirely consistent with Ahmad Riza’s personal piety and

devotion to the Prophet that the latter’s birth anniversary on 12
R abi‘ ul-Awwal, the milad un-nabi (or maulid, both forms being
derivatives of the Arabic root walada, to give birth), was celebrated
on a grand scale. It was a time o f rejoicing, eagerly anticipated by
Ahmad Riza and his followers. The Dabdaba-e Sikandari reported in
January 1916 that on the Prophet’s birthday ‘the Muslims ofBareilly,
Rampur, Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur and other towns performed the
pilgrimage to A‘la Hazrat [Ahmad Riza]’, for this was one o f the
three annual occasions on which he consented to give a serm on."
In fact, it appears from Zafar ud-Din Bihari’s account that he gave
two sermons that day, one in the morning after the first (fajr) prayer,
and the second in the evening after the last (*i s h a prayer. The
sermons were delivered at his ancestral house (the ‘Purani Haweli’,
or ‘O ld Family Hom e’), in which his younger brother Hasan Riza
lived. In addition to the ‘ulama’ who came from outside Bareilly,
the élite of the city were also invited. People considered it so
important to listen to Ahmad Riza on this day, Zafàr ud-Din writes,
that no -one of eminence in the town organized a similar gathering
o f their own at the same time.100
Preparations for the event began around dawn. The towns­
people— Ahmad Riza’s murids, followers, and admirers— bathed,
donned their new clothes, and hurried to the mosque to greet him
there at the time of the fajr prayer. After the obligatory prayer (fariza)
had been offered, people lined up waiting for him to finish saying his
prayers and hoped to get close enough to him to kiss his hand (dast-bosi).
Shortly thereafter, and again at night at the ‘Purani Haweli’,101

98 Ibid. (1976 ed.), p. 195. Although Ahmad Riza did not approve o f music and would
not have put his verses to music, this poem , as many others he wrote, has a lilt and
rhythm that makes it easy to rem ember and recite.
99 Dabdaba-e Sikatidari, 52:11 (January 24, 1916), 3.
100 Hayat-eA *laHazrat, pp. 96-7. Zafar ud-D in does not tell us to which year his account
refers, though I assume the proceedings were m ore or less standard from year to year.
101 T h e text o f the Hayat-e A % Hazrat is confusing here. Zafar ud-D in clearly refers to
the fajr prayer and the dast-bosi (kissing o f the hand) taking place in a mosque, and is
160 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

began the recitation by a trained reciter (na‘t khwan), o fn a‘t poetry

recalling the Prophet’s qualities. Ahmad Riza ascended the pulpit
(minbar) exactly at the moment ofqiyam (literally ‘to stay, to stand’)
when everyone in the meeting stood up at the remembrance o f the
Prophet’s birth (zikr-e wiladat). Ahmad Riza stood in silence for
several minutes, for his entrance had caused a tumult among the
crowd, which was swelling in numbers and finding it hard to fit into
the meeting hall. W hen the shoving and pushing subsided he rinsed
his m outh with water using a spitoon placed next to him, and began
his sermon with the words ‘Bism’illah ar-rahman ar-rahim’.
In his sermon Ahmad Riza said that Allah, who is intrinsic (zat),
chose the Prophet as His means o f bringing the extrinsic (ghair)
world to Him. Everything comes from Allah, and Muhammad
distributes what He gives. W hat is in the one is in the other. The
other prophets are a reflection or shadow o f Muhammad, like stars
reflected in water.
Allah made Muhammad from His light before He made anything
else. Everything begins with the Prophet, even existence (wujud).
He was the first prophet as Allah made him before He made anything
else, and he was the last as well, being the final prophet. Being the
first light, the sun and all light originates from the Prophet. All the
atoms, stones, trees, and birds recognized Muhammad as Prophet,
as did Gabriel, and the other prophets.
The majlis-e milad is held in order to recall God’s blessings
(ne‘mat), and to bring Muslims together so as to remember the
presence (tashrif-awari) and excellent qualities o f the Prophet. The
collective partaking o f food (which follows at the end o f a milad
meeting), Ahmad Riza said, is not central to the milad’s purpose;
nor, however, is there any harm in it, for it is an invitation o f people
‘for a good purpose’ (da ‘wat ala’l-khair), and is therefore necessarily

also unambiguous in reporting that the sermons were delivered at the Purani Haweli.
H ow ever, he then goes on to talk o f the na‘t reciter, and Ahmad Riza, getting up on
the pulpit to speak, which suggests that the meetings followed direcdy after the prayers
(fajr and ‘isha’) at the mosque itself, and that there was no change o f venue. H e also
refers to the people crow ding together at the mosque to do the dast-bosi and then getting
as close to the minbar as possible. This doesn't sound like a ‘by invitation only’ event.
See Hayat-t A % Hazrat, pp. 96-8, for the entire text concerning the milad meeting.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 161

good.102 Allah has said, ‘. . . the bounty o f thy Lord rehearse and
proclaim!’ (93:11, Y usuf‘Ali tr.).
Ahmad Riza reminded his audience that Allah had brought all
the prophets together and told them about the future prophethood
o f Muhammad. All, on Allah’s command, bound themselves to
believe in his prophecy, and were witness to the fact that the others
did so. Thus Allah was the first to speak o f the Prophet, and the first
majlis to mention the Prophet was this meeting o f the prophets. In
keeping with this covenant, all the prophets from Adam to Jesus
have remembered the Prophet’s coming and his birth. Speaking
about the circumstances o f the birth itself,103 he recalled its joyous
celebration by the angels and the fear with which the event was
viewed by the devils (shayatin). The meeting ended with a na‘t
calling down Allah’s blessings (durud) on the Prophet.
The practice of holding milad meetings, like that o f celebrating
the ‘urs o f a saint, reading the Fadha in thanksgiving over an offering
o f food, o f holding gyarahwin functions in honour o f ‘Abd al-Qadir
Jilani, was a matter o f intense debate and argument among the
‘ulama’ at the turn o f the nineteenth century. The Deobandi ‘ulama’
sought ‘to avoid fixed holidays like the maulud o f the Prophet, the
‘urs o f the saints’, and other feasts;104 the Ahl-e Hadis, taking an even
more disapproving attitude,
prohibited ‘urs and qawwalli, particularly opposing the giyarhwin o f Shaikh
‘A bdul-Q adir Gilani . . . . They prohibited all pilgrimage, even that to the
grave o f the Prophet at Medina . . . . In their emphasis on sweeping reform,
they understood sufism itself, not just its excesses, to be a danger to true
religion.105

102 Hayat-e A 'la Hazrat, p. 108. H ere he was defending his position on the legitimacy
o f m ilad functions. See Metcalf, Islamic Revival, pp. 300-1.
103 Hayat-e A la Hazrat, p. 112. Gabriel calmed the fears o f Amina, M uham m ad’s
m other, and assumed the shape o f a w hite hen when urging the Prophet to manifest
himself. Again the image o f a marriage comes up w hen Gabriel tells M uham m ad (not
yet bom ) that the procession (barat) o f the bridegroom o f both worlds is fully adorned
and ready to start for the bride’s house. (The Prophet, as bridegroom, is awaited before
it can set out.) It would appear that in this case the bride is the world rather than Allah.
104 M etcalf, Islamic Revival,?. 151.
105 Ibid., pp. 2 7 3 -4 .
162 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Like the Deobandis, they too opposed the practice o f milad.

In the 1890s, Imdad Ullah Muhajir Makki (1817-99) had ad­
dressed the controversy on this matter in his pamphlet Faisla-e Haß
Mas’ala. In his view, whether a milad was permissible (ja’iz) or not
depended on the intention of the participants. If a person equated
the details o f the milad (such as holding it on a particular date and
no other, distributing sweets, lighting incense sticks, or laying
carpets) with ibada or worship, on a par with namaz and the
Ramazan fast (roza), then it was reprehensible. It was a reprehensible
innovation (bid‘a) if a person considered it a religious obligation (dint
farz), a duty enjoined by the shari a. But as long as it was viewed as
one among several means o f honouring and remembering the
Prophet, it was permissible.106
Apart from the controversy over the permissibility o f holding a
milad, however, debate also centred over a particular aspect o f the
milad function itself, namely the practice o f standing up (qiyam)
during a sermon when the Prophet’s birth was recalled, and blessings
were called down on him (salat o salam). Ahmad Riza, answering a
query about the permissibility o f qiyam in a fatwa entitled Iqamat
ul-Qiyama, 107 responded by saying that the practice was viewed as
commendable (mustahsan) by a majority o f ‘ulama’ throughout the
Islamic world— particularly mentioning leading ‘ulama’ in the
Haramain— for two reasons. The first was that it had been practised
for hundreds of years, though admittedly not in the first three gene­
rations of Islam.108 Ahmad Riza considered this a valid argument on

106 Faisla-e Haft Mas'ala, pp. 5 0 -7 6 . In the above I have attempted to sum up his position
rather than lay it out in all its details.
107 Ahmad Riza Khan, Iqamat al-Qiyama \ala Ta'in al- Qiyam li-Nabi Tihamat il-Jaza'
al-Muhya li-Ghalmat Kanhaiyya (Performing [the Ritual of] Standing U p Despite the
Calumny [of Those who Refuse to) Stand for the P ro p h e t. . .), 1299/1881—2 (Karachi:
Barkati Publishers, 1986).
108 This was an important admission, in terms o f the argument, for it m eant that the
practice was an ‘innovation* or bid‘a. However, as Ahmad Riza argued at some length
in this fetwa, it was a bid‘at-e hasana or ‘good innovation*. T he argument was taken
even further, and the tables turned on the opponents, w hen Ahmad R iza quoted an
*alim from the Haramain as saying that because Muslims saw this as a good deed, those
w ho opposed it were bid'atis! Ibid., pp. 28-9. 1 will take up for discussion the Ahl-e
Sunnat use o f terms such as bid‘a and bid‘at-e hasana in C hapter VI.
 Personalization of Religious Authority 163

the basis o f the hadis that what Muslims consider to be good is good
in Allah’s sight too, and that a practice which hundreds o f ‘ulama’
have considered to be good over hundreds of years cannot be bad.109
Second, standing up when the Prophet’s birth is recalled, Ahmad
Riza argued, was an expression o f respect and honour (ta‘zim ),uo a
meritorious act that would earn great reward (sawab).111 Ahmad
Riza did not assert, as Metcalf writes, that the Prophet was actually
present (though invisible to the audience) at the time of qiyam,112
though he cited with obvious approval and concurrence a statement
by a Hanbali mufti that the Prophet’s spirit is present at this time.113

T he Im p o r t a n c e of I n te r c e ssio n

This chapter has highlighted the importance for Ahmad Riza of

intercession on behalf of the believer with God, a role fulfilled most
especially by the pir, the shaikh, and the Prophet. However, the
power o f mediation is accessible to many. ‘N ot only the dead but
the living could be intermediaries’,114 but the intervention or
mediation o f certain people is more powerful than that of others and
that o f the Prophet is best of all.
Ahmad Riza believed that such mediatory power (or grace,
baraka) inheres most especially in lineal descendants of the Prophet;
hence his marked respect for all Sayyids, regardless o f social standing.
Perhaps this was a significant factor, as well, in his (and his father’s)
choice o f the Sayyid Shah Al-e Rasul of Marahra as his pir. It also
accounts in part for his devotion to Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani.
As Ahmad Riza’s attention to birth or death anniversaries such

109 Ibid., pp. 25-6, 28-9.

Ibid., p. 36. Ahmad Riza offered detailed proofs on both counts, arguing his point
o f view in about 30-odd pages. The second half o f the fatwa was specifically in rebuttal
o f M aulana Nazir Husain Dehlawi, the Ahl-e Hadis leader.
111 Ibid., pp. 15-22.
112 See Metcalf, Islamic Revival p. 301. Ahmad Riza did assert in another context,
however, that the Prophet had the ability to be bodily present should he so desire. See
section entitled ‘Ahl-e Sunnat Prophetology’ in Chapter VIII below.
113 Iqamat ul-Qiyama, p. 23.
114 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 303.
164 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

as ‘urs, gyarhawin, and milad, indicates, he believed strongly that

the dead continued ‘to live’ in a spiritual sense, and that they retained
an especially close relationship with places that they had been
associated with during their lives. Moreover, their spirits were
especially alert and their grace heightened on certain days (their birth
or death anniversaries). For these reasons supplicants were well-ad-
vised to observe the anniversaries and exhibit the greatest respect for
tombs. Such behaviour, pleasing to the saint whose intercession was
sought, would find favour with him, and therefore be a source of
benefit (sawab) to the believer.
While having a pir, or visiting the tombs of saints and ‘ulama’ in
far-flung places were not on a par with the performance o f obligatory
ritual acts such as prayer or fasting, or substitutes for them, in Ahmad
Riza’s eyes they could only be a source o f good and an aid for the
believer. As he said in his fatwa in answer to the question as to why
one needed a pir, it was absurd to imagine that one could reach Allah
without an intermediary. O ne senses in all his writings and in his
Malfuzat the humility of one who believed he needed help in
reaching Allah, and in working out his own salvation. Ahmad Riza
saw the position taken by the Ahl-e Hadis, or ‘Wahhabis’, as he
called them, rejecting the need for intermediaries, as a sign o f their
arrogance.
As for the Prophet, his status was so elevated and he was so close
to Allah, that for Ahmad Riza the Prophet had in a sense displaced
Allah as the centre of his devotions. While Ahmad Riza’s writings
make clear that the Prophet’s qualities and abilities were God-given,
and thus contingent, and only God is intrinsic, the fact o f prophecy
itself had such compelling force in Ahmad Riza’s judgm ent that he
viewed love o f the Prophet as the best way o f showing love o f Allah.
In all he did or wrote about, love of the Prophet was a motivating
factor.
In fact, it was a standard Ahmad Riza consistendy applied in
drawing boundaries between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ action, and in
distinguishing between Muslims who were on the right or wrong
track. In my view it would be erroneous to conclude that because
Ahmad Riza supported a mediatory, custom-laden ‘Islam’, he ‘made
less of a demand for individual responsibility’ on himself or his
 Personalization of Religious Authority 165

followers than did the Deobandis or others.115 O n the contrary, his

whole life was spent defining how a Muslim should conduct him or
herself in his or her time and day, and in punctiliously following
these standards o f conduct and belief in his own life, while at the
same time distancing himself from those Muslims o f whose beliefs
or practice he disapproved. I have also tried to show that he attached
great importance to the intention with which an action was under­
taken. W hat emerges, I think, is the distinctiveness o f his ‘style’,
caused by the determining role in his life o f the Prophet and o f his
defence of the Prophet against perceived disrespect or slight.

1,5 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 397.

 Chapter VI

Ahmad Riza’s Concept of the Sunna

O ne cannot read far into the Barelwi literature without being struck
by the deliberate and repeated use o f the term Ahl-e Sunnat wa
Jama‘at, ‘people o f the sunnat [customary practices o f the Prophet]
and the [majority] community’, to describe those who shared
Ahmad Riza Khan’s vision o f the faith. The term recurs in a
multiplicity o f contexts: in fatawa, the malfuzat, debates with other
South Asian Muslims, the names given to journals, madras as, and
organizations o f ‘ulama’.1 To use this term, with its twin emphases
on ‘following the Prophet’s sunna’ and constituting the ‘majority
community’, was to stake a universalistic claim linking its claimants
with the Sunni Muslim world beyond the subcontinent. It was also,
implicidy, to deny that relationship to other Muslims whose beliefs
fell short o f standards which Ahmad Riza considered irreducible and
uncompromisable.
This spirit of competition with other Muslim groups is sometimes
more explicit, as in the following passage by one o f Ahmad R iza’s
followers:
It is recorded in hadis: This umma will split up into seventy-three groups. O n e

1 T o cite some examples: in 1894-5, a num ber o f ‘ulama’ from north India created a
body called the ‘Majlis-e Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama*at’ to counter the influence o f th e
Nadw at al-‘Ulama’; in 1904, a madrasa called the ‘Madrasa-e Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jam a'at
M anzar al-Islam’ was established in Bareilly; in 1920, Maulana N a‘im u d -D in
Muradabadi, one o f Ahmad Riza’s khalifas, started a journal called Sawad-e A ‘zam (T h e
Great Majority); in the 1940s, the ‘ulama’ o f Marahra began a journal entided A h l-e
Sunnat lei A w az (The Voice of the Ahl-e Sunnat).
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 167

group will be jannati [deserving o f heaven], the others jahannami [deserving

o f hell]. [A sahabi asked,] ‘W hich is that elect group, O Prophet o f Allah?* He
said, ‘Those who follow me and my sahaba, those, that is, who follow the
sunna’. There is another riwayat [report] which says, ‘That [elect group] is the
jama*at, that is, the great group o f Muslims known as the ‘Sawad-e A ‘zam \
W hoever separates himself from it separates himself in hell. That is why the
name o f the elect group is ‘Ahl-e sunnat wa jam a'at’.2

In attending here to the Barelwi definition of themselves as the Ahl-e

Sunnat wa Jama‘at, the focus shifts, as it must (given that the sunna
is one of the primary sources for Islamic law), to consideration o f
the Barelwis as ‘ulama’: as scholars o f Q ur’an, hadis, fiqh and related
fields. While the central position that the Prophet held for Ahmad
Riza is in consonance with the sufi tradition o f veneration o f the
Prophet, Sunni tradition also regards the ‘ulama’ as ‘heirs to the
prophets’.3 Ahmad Riza saw himself primarily as an ‘alim rather than
a sufi, and was so perceived by his followers. Given his belief in the
complementary roles o f shari‘a and tariqa in a Muslim’s life, and his
insistence that the shari'a should be accorded precedence over tariqa,
we must ask ourselves what sources his prophetology may have had
in Hanafi law, the law school (mazhab, Ar. madhab) that he, together
with most South Asian Muslims, followed. The answer requires an
examination o f his fatawa, particularly those in which he defended
his views on the Prophet and cited proofs from the classical sources
o f law (Q ur’an, hadis, and fiqh).
Ahmad Riza’s fatawa, which later followers of the Ahl-e Sunnat
movement have seen as the chief source and guidepost for belief and
action in their lives, are available for study in a multi-volume
collection (not yet fully published in the 1980s) entided Al- 'Ataya
al-Nabawiyyafi’l Fatawa-e Rizwiyya (The Gifts o f the Prophet in the
Fatawa-e Rizwiyya). Although not all Ahmad Riza’s fatawa are

2 The tradition about the seventy-three sects is a classical one to be found in a num ber
ofhadis collections. A. J. Wensinck, A Handbook of Early Muhammadan Tradition (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1960), p. 47, lists the following sources under the entry ‘Com m unity’: Abu
D a‘ud, Tirm idhi, Ibn Maja, al-Darimi, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal. For Abu D a’ud, see
Ahmad Hasan, Sunan Abu Dawud, vol. 3, pp. 1290-1.
3 W ensinck, Handbook, p. 234, notes under the entry ‘Ulama’ that this tradition is
recorded in al-Bukhari and Tirm idhi. Also see Ahmad Hasan, Sunan Abu Dawud, vol.
3, p. 1034; Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous, pp. 92-3.
168 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

contained in this collection, it provides an overview o f the range o f

his scholarship and enables the reader to follow his lines o f inter­
pretation on various issues and compare them with those o f ‘ulama’
in other movements.
In this chapter I turn to Ahmad Riza’s fatawa in order to
understand what it meant to him to ‘follow the Prophet’s sunna’. I
have chosen to examine in detail those o f his fatawa which deal with
a specific issue that engaged him and other ‘ulama’ o f the Ahl-e
Sunnat wa Jama'at movement in the early 1900s: the debate over
the call to prayer (azan, Ar. adhan). This debate is o f particular
interest in view o f its discussion o f the application o f the Prophet’s
sunna in the lives o f twentieth century South Asian Muslims. The
views o f the ‘ulama’ who engaged in the debate were printed in the
columns o f the Dabdaba-e Sikandari, the Urdu newspaper publish­
ed in the princely state of Rampur, over a two-year period (1914—
16). Ahmad Riza was at the centre o f the controversy, for it was
his attempt to ‘revive a dead sunna’ which had started the
discussion.
Before examining this debate, however, I would like to discuss
the meaning o f the term ‘sunna’ in a general way, indicating
differences amongst scholars regarding when it came to be used and
understood as the Prophet’s ‘way’ or ‘custom’. The relationship o f
the sunna to hadis literature, and to sunna’s opposite, bid‘a (innova­
tion), is pertinent as well, as are the paired opposites ofijtihad (mental
effort) and taqlid (adherence to one’s law school), and the term tajdid
(renewal). These terms were central to the azan debate, and to the
Ahl-e Sunnat literature more generally, as they were also to other
contemporary South Asian Muslim reform movements. Further­
more, examination of the Ahl-e Sunnat’s debates with the Nadwat
al-‘Ulama’ and Deoband in succeeding chapters reveals that there
were interpretative differences among the movements as to the
scope of the meanings that they assigned to these terms.

T he C o ncept of the Sunna of the P r oph et

The Q ur’an and the sunna o f the Prophet are regarded by Muslims
as the two most important sources o f authority in determining the
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 169

beliefs and conduct of a Muslim’s life.4 The word sunna (pi. sunan)
is o f pre-Islamic origin, signifying ‘way, law, mode or conduct of
life’.5 Goldziher writes that ‘for the old pagans o f the Jahiliyya
[pre-Islamic Arabia] . . . sunna was all that corresponded to the
traditions of the Arabs and the customs and habits o f their ancestors’.6
In the Q ur’an, and in hadis literature, the word has been used to
refer to law or practice emanating from sources other than the
Prophet, ranging from Allah (Q ur’an 33:62) to Companions o f
the Prophet, Muslims generally, and women. The term also refers
on occasion to a religious practice (‘the sunna o f salat’, for instance).7
There is disagreement among scholars as to when the term came
to be used more specifically to signify the Prophet’s ‘way’ or practice,
that is, his words, deeds, and decisions in his personal capacity rather
than in his role as prophetic messenger. Joseph Schacht places the
beginnings o f that usage at the end o f the first century AH, and
maintains that until this time the Muslim communities in Medina,
Syria, and Iraq continued to be guided by their ‘living tradition’,
that is, their pre-Islamic tradition, rather than by traditions o f the
Prophet. Even after this date, he believes, the ‘living tradition’
continued to reign, though frequendy given prophetic sanction:
. . . the ‘sunna o f the Prophet’ . . . is not identical with, and not necessarily
expressed by, traditions from the Prophet; it is simply the ‘living tradition’ of
the school [in Iraq] put under the aegis o f the Prophet.8

4 T here are tw o other sources, ijma’ (consensus) and qiyas (analogy), which may be
b ro u g h t to bear on a question in the absence o f clear guidance from the Q u r’an and the
sunna. T h e means by w hich the ‘ulama’ interpret the sources is know n as ijdhad, literally
‘(mental) effort, endeavour’. The ‘ulama’ have differed with one another as to the weight
that m ay be given to ijma‘ and qiyas in the exercise o f ijtihad. T he Ahl-e Hadis in
nineteenth-century India, for instance, narrowed the scope o f ijma‘ and qiyas, while
others such as M uhammad Iqbal argued for its extension.
5 M . Mustafa Al-A‘zami, On Schacht’s Origins of Jurisprudence (New York: John W iley
6 Sons, 1985), pp. 30-1.
6 Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, vol. 2, ed. S. M. Stem (Chicago, N ew York: Aldine,
A therton, 1971), p. 25.
7 A l-A ‘zami, On Schacht’s Origins, pp. 30-4.
8 Joseph Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1950), p . 76. O n the concept o f the ‘living Sunnahf, see also Fazlur Rahm an, ‘Social
Change and Early Sunnah’, Islamic Studies, vol. II, no. 2 (Karachi, June 1963), 205-16.
170 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Schacht’s view has recently been challenged by scholars writing

both from within the Islamic tradition and outside it. Al-A‘zami,
presenting what he calls the ‘Muslim view’, argues that the Prophet’s
sunna (which in several respects was a radical departure from past
practice) gained currency during the Prophet’s lifetime and was
implemented by the early Muslims in large measure.9 Because ‘total
obedience’ to the Prophet is ordered in several verses o f the Q ur’an,
and Muslims are commanded to regard him as a ‘perfect model to
be followed’,10 Al-A‘zami believes that the Prophet’s sunna over­
rode existing custom and practice from the very beginning o f Islam.
O n the basis of recent research in the early history o f hadis,
Graham also disagrees with Schacht:
It would . . . be a mistake to see this living sunnah o f the community o f the
Companions and early Followers as ever having been consciously set up as a
standard different from what was understood to be the sunnah o f the Prophet
. . . . However late the formal development o f sunnat an-nabi as a conscious
legal principle, the community always and ever understood its source o f ‘ilm
and guidance to lie in the Revelation and the practice o f its bearer. The later
fabrication o f hadiths is not a sign o f the late appearance of emphasis on the
sunnat an-nabi. 1

W hatever its date o f origin, what is o f significance to Muslims is that

the Prophet’s sunna is both an interpretetive guide to the Q u r’an,
and a source of authority in its own right. It is an interpretive guide
because ‘the Q ur’an cannot answer each and every eventuality; it
comes alive and becomes effective through the sunna’.12As Graham
explains, ‘in Islamic terms this is not because o f any limitations o f
the Q ur’an, but because of man’s limitations. The Q u r’an, ‘being
the word of God, is too sublime to interpret and decipher w ithout
the aid of the Prophet’.’13
The authority of the prophetic sunna, as several scholars indicate,
is perceived as being of divine origin. Goldziher writes, ‘Everything

9 Al-A'zami, On Schacht’s Origins, pp. 6 9 -9 5 .

10 Ibid., p. 8. Q ur'an 3:32, 3:132, 4:59, 4:80, 33:21, 59:7.
11 Graham, Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam, p. 12.
12 Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1981), p. 38.
13 Graham, Divine Word and Prophetic Word, p. 33.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 171

that die Prophet ordained in religious matters . . . he has decreed at

God's command; it was revealed to him as was the Koran'.14 And
according to Graham: ‘the word o f the P rophet. . . possessed from
the beginning, from the time of the Prophet, a divine authority*.15
This authority, while secondary to that of the Qur'an, was none­
theless, in practical terms, decisive.16
Because the Prophet was a ‘perfect model', everything that he
(and his Companions) had ‘held to be exclusively correct in matters
o f religion and law', was seen as ‘a norm for practical application'.17
The Prophet's sayings, actions, and decisions, were therefore meti­
culously memorized, recited, repeated, and ultimately recorded,18
by his Companions (sahaba) in the form o f hadis (literally, 4tale',
‘communication').19In view of the fact that the sunna o f the Prophet
is, with the Qur'an, a principally authoritative source, in Islamic
legal theory the 'adis literature tended to have an authority ‘coor­
dinate with that of the Q ur'an'.20

14 Muslim Studies, p. 31.

15 Graham, Divine Word and Prophetic Word, p. 13.
16 In Graham ’s view, the early Muslims had what he calls a ‘primarily unitive’ view o f
‘divine word and prophetic word*. Ibid., p. 3. His discussion o f the ‘hadith qudsi’ or ‘Divine
Saying*, which is a record of Allah's speech in the Prophet's words, illustrates his point.
The question o f what was to be done in cases where a contradiction arose between the
Q u r’an and hadis, was dealt with by al-Shafi‘i (b. 767) by the rule that ‘the Q ur’an can only
be abrogated by the Q ur’an and the sunna only by the sunna. The sunna cannot abrogate
the Q u r’an because its function is to interpret the Q ur’an, not to contradict it’. See N. J.
Coulson, A History of Islamic Latv (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1964), pp. 5&-9.
17 Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, pp. 37-8.
t8 T he attitude o f the Prophet and the early Muslims to committing hadis to writing
has been the subject o f considerable scholarly debate. See, e.g., Alfred Guillaume, The
Traditions of Islam: A n Introduction to the Study of the Hadith Literature (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1924), pp. 15-18; M uhammad Zubayr Siddiqi, Hadith Literature: Its Origins,
Development, Special Features and Criticism (Calcutta: Calcutta University Press, 1961),
pp. 37-45.
19 There are six major collections of hadis, the most authoritative being the Sahih Bukhari
by al-Bukhari (d. AH 256/AD 870), and Sahih Muslim by Muslim (d. AH 261 /AD 875). These
two collections are jointly referred to as die ‘Sahihain’, or ‘The Tw o Sahihs’, sahih meaning
‘correct*. T he other four collections are the Sunan o f Abu Da’ud (d. AH 275/AD 888),
al-Nasa’i (d. AH 303/AD 915), al-Tirmidhi (d. AH 273/AD 892), and Ibn Maja (d. AH 273/AD
886). See Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, p. 39.
20 Graham, Divine Word and Prophetic Word, p. 33.
172 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

As with the question of when, historically speaking, the Prophet’s

sunna came to supercede previously existing practices and customs
in Muslim-ruled territories, Western scholars have also been critical
o f several important aspects of Muslim hadis scholarship. Doubts
have been raised on the origin o f much o f the hadis literature, on
the reliability o f their chains (isnad) o f transmission, and on whether
the words ascribed to the Prophet had in fact been spoken by him,
among other things.21 The charge o f error or deliberate forgery o f
various kinds is admitted even by Muslim scholars writing from a
self-consciously Muslim perspective.22 This said, it is important to
recognize that for the earliest Muslims the repetition o f Muham­
mad’s speech or deeds was a pious act, to be performed with great
caution: ‘Zubayr [a Companion o f the Prophet] did not like to relate
traditions, because he had heard Muhammad say that he who
attributed anything to him falsely would make his seat in hell-fire’.23
But not all transmitters of traditions were as fearful o f committing
mistakes, particularly those of later generations. To ensure that false
hadis were weeded out, in course o f time hadis criticism (known as
al-ta'dil wal-tajrih) became a fully developed field o f scholarship
among the ‘ulama’, each tradition being subjected to a variety o f
rigorous tests.24

S o m e B asic L egal C o n c e it s

Sunna and Bid'a

Based on the four sources of Q ur’an, hadis, ijma‘ (consensus), and
qiyas (analogy), Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) classifies all human
21 See, e.g., Guillaume, Traditions of Islam, p. 12: ‘O u r estimate o f traditions circulated
in their [M uham mad’s Com panions’J names cannot but be adversely affected by the
frequent accusations o f forgery levelled against many o f the professional traditionists, by
the many anachronisms they contain, and the political and sectarian bias they display. .
. . it is difficult to regard the hadith literature as a whole as an accurate and trustworthy
record o f the sayings and doings o f Muhammad*.
22 See, e.g., Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, who states in his Preface that he is writing in order
‘to p rese n t. . . the viewpoint o f orthodox Islam with regard to Hadith Literature’, pp.
52-9; and Al-A‘zami, On Schacht’s Origins, p. 111.
23 Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, p. 36.
24 O n what these tests were, see Al-A‘zami, Chapter 7.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 173

actions on a scale of relative religious value, ranging from obligatory

acts (farz, Ar. fard) to those which are forbidden (haram).25 In the legal
context the term ‘sunna’ has a range o f specific meanings, being a
sub-class that falls under the category o f commendable (mandub) acts.
T he Muslim desire to imitate the Prophet in all spheres o f life
necessarily meant that any belief, idea, or practice that came into use
after the Prophet’s lifetime became problematic. The term for the
latter is bid'a (literally ‘innovation’), that for which ‘there is no
precedent in the time o f the Prophet’. As the opposite of sunna,
which is ‘old’ (qadim), it also has the meaning o f ‘new’ (muhdath or
hadath).26 Goldziher adds that ‘in general bid‘a is something arbitrary
that springs from individual insight and the admissibility of which is
not documented in the sources o f religious life’.27 Consequendy the
term bid’a has the connotation o f ‘reprehensible’.28 Thus the hadis:
‘May he who introduces new things into this town [Medina] be
cursed by Allah, his angels and all men’.29
Tracing the history of the use o f the term bid‘a in Islamic
scholarship, Khalid Mas‘ud believes that until the sixteenth century
the term was used in a ‘general and vague’ way by traditionalists
(muhaddithun) and theologians (mutakallimun), and was relatively
little used in a legal sense by the fuqaha. Moreover, it was applied
stricdy to religious beliefs and practices (‘ibada), rather than to social
customs in general.30 In the ninth century al-Shafi‘i (767-820) had

25 T he categories are: obligatory (farz), forbidden (haram), commendable (mandub),

abominable (makruh), and permissible (mubah). M andub, in turn, is sub-categorized into:
sutwa mu'akkada (omission o f act leading to rebuke, but not punishment, e.g. azan);
sunna nafila (a practice which the Prophet somedmes carried out, but not on every
occasion); and sunna al-mustahab (a desirable, though not obligatory, practice in imitation
o f the Prophet, such as his way o f walking). See Al-A‘zami, pp. 34-5.
26 J. R obson, ‘Bid‘a \ E12, vol. 1, p. 1199.
27 Goldziher, Muslim Studies, vol. 2, p. 34.
28 As R obson comments in E12, the term bid‘a is to be distinguished from heresy
(irtidad).
29 Q uoted by Goldziher, Muslim Studies, p. 26.
30 M uham m ad Khalid Mas'ud, ‘Trends in the Interpretation o f Islamic Law as Reflected
in the Fatawa Literature ofD eoband School: A Study o f the Attitudes o f the ‘Ulam a' o f
Deoband to Certain Social Problems and Inventions’, M. A. thesis, Institute of Islamic
Studies (Montreal: McGill University, 1969), p. 17.
174 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

made a broad distinction between a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bid‘a. As

Robson says,
a distinction came to be made between a bid'a which was ‘good’ (hasana) or
praiseworthy (mahmuda) and one which was ‘bad’ (sayyi’a) or blameworthy
(imadhmuma). Al-Shafi‘i laid down the principle that any innovation which runs
contrary to the Kur’an, the sunna, idjma‘, or athar (a tradition traced only to a
Companion or a Follower) is an erring innovation, whereas any good thing
introduced which does not run counter to any o f these sources is praisewor­
thy.31

In due course Islamic jurisprudence classified bid'a into five classes,

ranging from the obligatory to the prohibited, on the basis o f the
general principle described above.32
In the early nineteenth century, however, the Wahhabis in Arabia
‘claimed to go back to the early sunna o f the Prophet in contradis­
tinction to legal schools’.33 Goldziher is strongly critical o f this
development:
M odem Wahhabism follows the pattern o f earlier times in striving to brand as
bid'a not only anything contrary to the spirit o f the sunna but also everything
that cannot be proved to be in it. It is known that the ultra-conservative
opposed every novelty, the use o f coffee and tobacco, as well as printing,
coming under this heading.34

In nineteenth century British India the ‘ulama’ did not all define
bid‘a the same way. The Deobandi scholars Rashid Ahmad Gangohi
(1828-1905) and Ashraf‘Ali Thanawi (1863-1943) regarded ‘every
new thing . . . in conflict with sunnah [as] bid‘ah. According to
them the domain o f bid‘ah [was] only ‘ibadat or strictly speaking,

31 Robson, ‘Bid'a’, EI2.

32 Goldziher cites the following hadis as one which regards bid'at with favor: ‘Anyone
w ho establishes in Islam a good sunna (s. hasana) which is followed by later generations
will enjoy the reward o f all those w ho follow this sunna, without their losing their proper
reward; but anyone who establishes in Islam an evil sunna . . . ’ As Goldziher comments,
this hadis presupposes the continued introduction o f sunna(s) after the Prophet.
Goldziher, Mttslim Studies, p. 37. Although the w ord ‘sunna’ is used in this hadis rather
than ‘bid'a’, the m anner o f its use indicates that here it has the meaning o f a ‘good’ or
‘evil’ bid'a.
33 Mas‘ud, ‘Trends in Interpretation’, p. 17.
34 Goldziher, Muslim Studies, p. 34.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept o f the Sunna 175

religious practices’.35 Strongly condemning practices such as the ‘urs

o f saints, the giyarhawin o f Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani, and other
customs favoured by the Ahl-e Sunnat, the Deobandis and the Ahl-e
Hadis accused the former o f being ‘bid‘atis\ For the Ahl-e Sunnat,
by contrast, there was ‘good’ bid‘a and ‘bad’. This point will be more
fully elaborated in the context o f the azan debate below.

Ijtihad and Taqlid

Based on the four sources of Islamic law mentioned above, jurists
offer legal opinions on a wide range o f questions, as expressed in
their fatawa. In the formative period o f Islam the process o f legal
reasoning was known as ijtihad, ‘the maximum effort expended by
the jurist to master and apply the principles and rules o f usul al-fiqh
(legal theory) for the purpose of discovering God’s law’.36According
to Joseph Schacht and other Western scholars, the process o f ijtihad
ceased after the formation o f the four law schools (Shafi‘i, Maliki,
Hanafi, and Hanbali), in the early tenth century. The law schools
henceforth provided the basis for legal judgment. This development
is frequendy described as the ‘closing of the gate o f ijtihad’.
Wael B. Hallaq has recendy argued, on the basis o f a re­
examination o f original sources, that until the twelfth century the
presence of mujtahids (those who practised ijtihad) was assumed,
and there was no debate about the ‘closing of the gate’. However,
already by the tenth century ijtihad was practised only within the
confines o f one o f the established schools of law.37 In the eleventh
century, al-Ghazali ‘admitted the extinction o f independent muj­
tahids who were able to establish their own school o f law’, but
‘recognized the existence o f mujtahids fi al-madhhab [limited to a
particular school]’.38
Hallaq argues that the debate about the ‘closing o f the gate of
ijtihad’ began in the twelfth century, in the context of the Hanbali

3:> Mas'ud, ‘Trends in Interpretation’, p. 18.

36 Wael B. Hallaq, ‘Was the Gate o f Ijtihad Closed’? International Journal of Middle East
Studies, 16 (1984), 3. My understanding o f the concepts ijtihad, taqlid, and tajdid, as set
out in this section, are largely based on Hallaq.
37 Ibid., pp. 10-11.
38 Ibid., p. 17.
176 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

argument that unless there was a mujtahid in every age the shari‘a
would be in danger of extinction. The Hanafis, Malikis, and some
Shafi'is opposed this view. Gradually (by the fifteenth century), the
Hanbalis lost ground to their opponents, and the doctrine o f taqlid
(adherence to one’s mazhab) began to gain the support o f most
•IQ
junsts.
The perception seems to have grown among the ‘ulama’ that they
were unqualified to undertake the difficult task ofijtihad and to lay
claim to the tide of mujtahid. In Hallaq’s view, however, this
perception was not matched by the reality. In the Ottoman empire,
for instance, new legal problems relating to cash, coffee, drugs, and
tobacco, among other things, arose in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries and were adjudicated in fatawa: ‘In practice, therefore, the
methodology o f ijtihad continued to be employed but mostly
without being recognized under its proper name’.40
In the subcontinent, the eighteenth century scholar Shah Wali
Ullah (1703-62) argued in favour o f ijtihad, believing that taqlid
was a ‘bid‘ah and tahriffi’l-din (distortion o f religion)’.41 ‘He argued
that the “door to ijtihad”, in the classical phrase, was not closed, and
that those skilled in the traditional sciences had the right and indeed
the responsibility to consult original sources’.42 He also maintained
that an ‘alim ‘should know the judgments o f all the four law schools
and consult them eclectically, using whichever accorded best with
hadis\ 43
Unlike Shah Wali Ullah, both the Deobandis and Ahl-e Sunnat
in the nineteenth century took a strong stand in favour o f taqlid and
strict adherence to the Hanafi mazhab. M uhammad Qasim

39 Ibid., p. 27.
40 Ibid., p. 32. Also see Mas'ud, ‘Trends in Interprétation’, pp. 26-7: ‘In the technical
sense . . . ijtihad continues until to d ay . . . . O nly the injunctions existing in the nusus
(Texts o f the law) are theoretically outside the scope o f ijtihad. . . . Otherwise the
problems which are new, or about which there exists a difference o f opinion, or for
which the basis o f judgem ent has changed, are mujtahad fih (open for ijtihad)’.
41 Mas‘ud, p. 24.
42 Metcalf, blamic Revival, p. 37.
43 Ibid.; the process o f selective combination o f different law schools is known as talfiq.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 177

Nanautawi (1833-77), one o f the founders of the madrasa Dar

al-‘Ulum at Deoband, based his argument in favour of taqlid on
the assertion, self-evident to him, that the world had dramatically declined
from the time o f the Prophet and that there were simply no people alive today
who were as skilled as had been the imams o f the classical schools. To consult
the learned o f today, he suggested, would be like consulting a quack instead
o f a skilled doctor . . .

Ahmad Riza, likewise, argued in a number o f fatawa on the necessity

for taqlid, and asserted that there were no ‘absolute mujtahids’
(;mujtahid mutlaq) alive in his day.45 So great was the respect in which
he was held by his followers, however, that occasionally one finds
the claim that ‘if someone were to call [Ahmad Riza] a mujtahid, it
would be no exaggeration’.46 Despite such references, the number
o f fatawa in favour o f taqlid indicate clearly that the Ahl-e Sunnat
position was the classical Hanafi one indicated by Hallaq.
Among nineteenth-century ‘ulama’ in British India, the Ahl-e
Hadis, on the other hand, took a position strongly denouncing taqlid
based on the schools of law. They were known, for this reason, as
the ghair-muqallid (non-adherers, those who accepted only the Q u r’an
and hadis as a basis for law), a term used in a pejorative sense in the
Ahl-e Sunnat literature.47

Tajdid
The concept of tajdid (renewal) differs from that o f ijtihad in that,
rather than denoting a jurist’s opinion on a newly arising situation,
or a restatement on a new basis of an old problem, it describes the
attempt by the ‘ulama’ to restore the Prophet’s sunna when the
Muslim community has become negligent (ghafll) in implementing
something the Prophet had instituted. The Muslim belief that this
state o f neglect recurs every century is based particularly on the hadis

44 Ibid., p. 144.
45 Fatawa-e Rizwiyya, vol. 6 (Mubarakpur, Azamgarh: Sunni Dar al-Isha‘ac, 1981), p.
70 (on there being no mujtahids).
46 Zafar ud-D in Bihari, Hayat-e A'la Hazrat, p. 163. T he comm ent is made in the
context o f his knowledge o f ‘ilm-e taksir (the making o f numerical charts for amulets).
47 O n the Ahl-e Hadis, see Metcalf, pp. 268-96.
178 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

from Abu Da’ud which says: ‘[o]n the eve o f every century Allah
will send to this community a person who will renew its religion’.48
The one who emerges each century to renew the faith is the
mujaddid or renewer.
Hallaq observes, in the context ofhis study of ijtihad, that ‘mujaddids
. . . were, inter alia, mujtahids’.49 The status o f mujaddid was there­
fore the higher of the two. Yet while the claim to be a mujtahid
ceased to be made around the fifteenth century, mujaddids were
recognized (sometimes more than one at a given time) every century.50
Hallaq’s observation that because the Hanafis had embraced the
idea of taqlid, believing that ijtihad had ceased, they ‘did not even
participate in the race for tajdid’,51 does not hold true for the Indian
subcontinent. The majority of Sunni Muslims here are Hanafis, and
tajdid has been a major theme— as it has in other parts o f the Muslim
world—ofa number oflslamic reform movements since the eighteenth
century.52 The leaden of these movements, identified by their
followers as the mujaddids of their centuries, have been ‘ularna’,
‘men of learning and piety who symbolize the aspirations o f the
community and who come to the fore in what are seen as times of
crisis’.53 In early nineteenth century British India, this claim was
made on behalf of Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (1786-1831), leader of
the jihad against the Sikhs, by his followers. It was also made by
Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (1829—1905), one o f the founders o f the

48 j « •
T he translation is by Yohanan Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous, p. 95. As Friedmann
notes, the tradition occurs in the context o f a description o f the calamities expected to
occur just before the Day ofjudgm ent; the idea o f tajdid, thus initially associated with
eschatogical expectations, came in time to be associated with the idea o f revival every
hundred years. See Friedmann for discussion, pp. 94-101. T he tradition is recorded in
Ahmad Hasan’s translation o f Abu Da’ud as follows: ‘Allah will raise for this community
at the end o f every hundred years the one who will renovate its religion for it’. Ahmad
Hasan, Sunan Abu Dawud, vol. 3, p. 1194.
49 Hallaq, ‘Was the Gate o f Ijtihad Closed?’, p. 28.
The question o f timing, including the dates o f birth and death o f a potential candidate,
was in fact subject to considerable argument and debate. See Chapters VII and VIII
below for a discussion.
51 Ibid.
" Metcalf, hlamic Revival, p. 4.
53 Ibid., p. 6.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 179

madras a Dar al-‘Ulum at Deoband.54 And at the end of the nineteenth

century, it was made by Ahmad Riza’s followers on his behalf;
although he did not advance the claim himself, he was probably not
unwilling to accept the tide. The Ahl-e Sunnat did not, o f course,
accept the claims o f Sayyid Ahmad and Rashid Ahmad, and vice
versa.
That there was no consensus among nineteenth century Ahl-e
Sunnat and Deobandi ‘ulama’ as to the identity of mujaddids in
centuries close to their time55 is a significant indication o f their
interpretative differences on other issues. As a first step toward
understanding what these were, and to assessing their significance,
we must attend to Ahmad Riza’s concept o f the sunna o f the Prophet
as reflected in his fatawa.

T he F a ta w a of A hmad R iza K han

W hen Ahmad Riza was approaching death in 1921, he reportedly

told Hamid Riza Khan, his eldest son, that by Allah’s grace, for more
than ninety years the writing and sending out o f fatawa (to those
who had requested them) had been a continuous activity in his
house. The task had been started by his grandfather, handed over
after many years to his father, and passed on in turn to him when
he was a mere lad of fourteen. He had continued the work
throughout his life. Now he, in his turn, was entrusting it to his two
sons and nephew, as part o f his bequest. If they all worked together,
by Allah’s grace they would be successful.56
Ahmad Riza could not have indicated more forcefully than he
did in this statement from his deathbed the importance to him of
writing fatawa. He regarded it as a religious service he had rendered

54 M etcalf discusses the claims o f Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi
in ibid., pp. 60-1, 138-9.
55 Disagreement am ong the ‘ulama’ on the identity o f the mujaddid goes back even
earlier, as Friedmann's discussion in Prophecy Continuous, pp. 98-100, suggests. According
to Hallaq, ‘after Sirhindi [seventeenth century] the practice o f choosing a mujaddid seems
to have lost some im portance’. Hallaq, p. 28.
56 Hasnain Riza Khan, Wasaya Sharif, p. 5, in Rasa’il-e Rizm yya, vol. 5 (Faisalabad,
1984).
180 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

the Muslims o f the subcontinent uninterruptedly for about fifty

years. In his view, so great was the volume o f questions received
that it would require the joint efforts o f three ‘ulama’ dedicated to
the task, to accomplish what he had done singlehanded.
Elsewhere he had suggested that the volume o f fatawa he wrote
was so great that ‘it exceeds the work o f ten muftis’.57 In a fatwa
dated Z u’l Hijja 1331/November 1913, he wrote:
Questions come from the town [of Bareilly], from other cities, and from all
Hindustan: Bengal, Panjab, Malabar, Burma, Arakan, [as well as countries such
as] China, Ghazni, America, and Africa; so much so that they come even from
the Haramain. At any one time there are about five hundred questions (istifta).
If there is delay in answering any o f them, or if some go unanswered, then [I
will be] to blame. ‘O n no soul doth AJlah place a burden greater than it can
bear’. [Q ur’an 2:286]58

Ahmad Riza was not without assistance in handling this vast cor­
respondence, however. Zafar ud-Din Bihari, his disciple and biog­
rapher, offers glimpses o f how it was done. Each day’s mail was
gathered and opened occasionally during the late-aftemoon public
audience Ahmad Riza held every day at his home. Zafar ud-Din
Bihari would read the letters out one by one, and, depending on
their subject matter, each was assigned to different students or
disciples o f Ahmad Riza for reply. Thus
if the letter dealt with tasawwuf [sufism], A‘la Hazrat [Ahmad Riza] would
respond to it himself. If it asked for a ta'wiz [amulet], he would pass it on to
me [Zafar ud-Din] or to Maulana Hamid Riza Khan [Ahmad Riza’s eldest
son]. If it was an istifta [request for a fatwa], he would give it to [one o f several
assistants] or to me, . . . or to Maulana Amjad'Ali [a disciple o f Ahmad Riza, whose
tide was ‘Sadr ul-Shari‘at’], depending on the complexity of the question. If the
question was a particularly complex one, he would answer it himself.59

Questions which had not come up before, and for which there was
no precedent in Ahmad Riza’s fatawa, were also answered by him.
Ahmad Riza’s students received their training in the writing of

57 A mufti is an ‘alim who issues fatawa.

58 Fatawa-e Rizwiyya, vol. 4, problem 123 (Ramnagar, Nainital: Riza Dar al-Isha‘at,
1986), p. 149.
59 H ayat-e A 1a Hazrat, p. 68.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 181

fatawa chiefly by making copies of his fatawa, so that he retained a

record of them before they were sent out. A Dar al-Ifta had been
created sometime before 1904—5.60 It was a centre to which aspiring
students like Zafar ud-Din came to learn by assisting in the daily
writing o f fatawa. Over time they came to learn Ahmad Riza’s style
o f fatawa-writing, and to be able to write their own on his model.
As Zafar ud-Din Bihari’s biography indicates, once they became
proficient he entrusted some of his daily correspondence to them.
T he student Ahmad Riza regarded as most skilled in the art of
fatawa-writing was Amjad ‘AH A‘zami, author of the Bahar-e Shari ‘at.6'
The Dar al-Ifta was much closer to Ahmad Riza’s heart, in fact,
than was teaching. As indicated earlier, the Madrasa Manzar al-Islam
founded by Ahmad Riza in 1904 in fact owed more to Zafar ud-Din
Bihari’s interest and initiative than it did to Ahmad Riza’s. Ahmad
R iza’s time was devoted chiefly to answering, in the form o f fatawa,
the questions he received in the mail and by other means. It is said
that, despite help from students at the Dar al-Ifta, he personally
replied to the bulk o f the questions in the privacy o f his personal
library or his household living quarters (zenana-khana). The work
took up most o f his day, and as a follower o f his recalled, he kept it
going even when he fell sick.62 Regarding it as a shar'i duty, he was
offended when someone offered payment for a fatwa he had
written.63
It is probable that the first two volumes o f the Fatawa-e Rizuriyya

60 This was the date w hen Zafar ud-D in first came to Bareilly, and the Dar al-Ifta was
already in existence. M uham m ad Ahm ad Q adiri, ‘M alik u l-‘U lam a’ M aulana
M uham m ad Zafar ud-D in Bihari aur Khidmat-e Hadis’, Ashrafiyya (Mubarakpur, April
1977), p. 29.
61 Ahmad R iza used to recom mend that others leam the art o f writing fatawa under
Amjad ‘A h’s direction. Hayat-e A 'la Hazrat, p. 214.
62 T here is a remarkable story related in Hayat-e A 'la Hazrat, pp. 36-7, about how
Ahmad R iza was once seen dictating twenty-nine fatawa to four scribes, w hen sick in
bed. W hile one scribe wrote dow n his response to one question, he dictated the answer
to another to a second person, and so on— in continuous relay, as it were— until all
tw enty-nine questions had been answered.
63 Maulana Yasin Akhtar Misbahi, Imam Ahmad R iza aur Radd-e Bid'at o Munkarat
(M ubarakpur Al-M ajma‘ al-Islami, 1985), p. 75. I have been unable to trace Maulana
Yasin Akhtar’s source.
182 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

were published during Ahmad Riza’s lifetime, perhaps at the Hasani

Press at Bareilly owned by Ahmad Riza’s brother, Hasan Riza
Khan.64 Evidently the intention was to publish the full collection,
projected to be a twelve-volume work. For reasons that are not
clear, but that may have stemmed from financial difficulties at the
Hasani Press and disarray in the leadership o f the Ahl-e Sunnat after
Ahmad R iza’s death, publication o f the remaining volumes was not
undertaken until the late 1950s. It began at the behest o f Mustafa
Riza Khan, Ahmad Riza’s younger son, under the direction of
Maulana ‘Abd ur-R a’u f of the Dar al-‘Ulum Ashrafiyya at Mubarak-
pur, in district Azamgarh.65 Because the volumes have since been
published in a variety of locations, under different editors and over
a time span o f about three generations, they are o f uneven length
and have a varied format.
More troubling, though, is that when ‘Abd ur-R a’u f began the
process o f publication, he found that the manuscripts (themselves
copies o f copies at fourth remove, rather than originals) were in poor
condition, or incomplete, and frequendy had to be verified. W here
he and his associates were able to trace an incomplete reference, they
inserted it themselves. Where they were not able to do so, they left
it as it was. The process entailed laborious checking o f hand-written
materials, and considerable expense, apart from difficulties with
printers.66
From our point of view, however, the most troublesome aspect
o f all about the collection is that it omits a number o f important
64 O n this press, see Chapter III. Unfortunately only the most sketchy outlines o f its
operations are known. I thank M r. M uhammad Mustafa ‘Ali Rizw i, an advocate in
Bareilly, for kind permission to photocopy original works published at the Hasani Press,
and elsewhere, from his personal collection o f Ahmad R iza’s writings.
65 H e was Deputy Shaikh al-Hadis at the Dar al-‘Ulum Ashrafiyya. T he publication o f
the Fatawa-e Rizwiyya was not undertaken under the auspicies o f the Ashrafiyya,
however, bu t under a separately constituted body called the ‘Sunni D ar al-Isha'at’ o f
which ‘Abd u r-R a ’u f was the head. W hen he died in 1971, only volumes 4 and 5 had
been published. T h e rem aining volumes w ere published by o th e r ‘ulam a’ at
M ubarakpur, as also at Bareilly. See Introduction to Fatawa-e Rizwiyya, vol. 7, for details.
66 An interesting aspect o f the publication problems encountered was that the printers
occasionally turned out to have Deobandi views! Publication o f volume 5 languished
for five years with the N a'im i Press, Lucknow, for this reason, until it was finally
repossessed b y the ‘ulama’ at M ubarakpur and assigned to another printer. See ibid.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 183

fatawa by Ahmad Riza. This may be due to the loss o f some risalas
(treatises) intended for incorporation in the collection; in addition,
the Fatawa-e Rizwiyya may have been intended as a comprehensive
guide to Ahmad Riza’s opinions rather than sole reference on
specific matters. Consequently it is necessary to refer to fatawa
published separately in addition to the Fatawa-e Rizwiyya. Such
publications appeared in the course o f the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries from the Hasani Press at Bareilly, and from
presses in other small towns in the United Provinces, as well as Patna,
Bihar.
The Fatawa-e Rizwiyya are organized in the traditional manner
into a number o f books (kitab), some o f which are further broken
down into chapters (bab). Matters relating to ritual and the so-called
‘pillars’— purification (taharat), prayer (salat), alms-giving (zakat),
fasting (sawm), and the pilgrimage (hajj)— appear first and in that
order, in the first four volumes. The remaining volumes deal with
marriage (nikah), regulations concerning infidels, apostates; and
rebels (sail), economic issues such as partnership (shirkat) and sale
(bai‘), and bequests (rahn), among other things.67
Encompassed within this handful o f topics are a host o f important,
though subsidiary, issues. Thus in a lengthy chapter (of 377 pages)
on funerals (janaza), itself a part o f the book entided Salat, are fatawa
detailing beliefs about the dead, the performance o f death rituals
such as fatiha, and offering food to faqirs in memory o f the dead.68
Similarly in the book dealing with infidels, apostates, and rebels, are
fatawa relating to the Khilafat movement o f the 1920s, on learning
the English language, and on whether India was dar al-harb or dar
al-Islam. And so, although there is no separate treatment o f sufi-
related or political themes in the two instances cited, these are
enmeshed, as it were, in the primary classification o f the fatawa into

67 I was unable to make a complete listing o f the kitabs, on account o f inability to find
volumes 8, 9, and 12, which perhaps have not yet been published. T he order o f the
kitabs is similar to that o f the Hidaya by al-Marghinani (d. 1195) and o f the Fatawa-e
A lamgiri (composed 1664-72). See J. H. Harington, ‘Rem arks upon the Authorities o f
M osulman Law’, in Asiatic Researches, 10 (1811), 511.
68 This is only a small num ber of the subjects covered by the fatawa in this chapter. T h e
details are set out in the list o f contents to volume 4.
184 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

those dealing with funeral prayers or treatment o f apostates and non-

Muslims.
A not dissimilar issue is that the question that called up a fatwa in
the first place could and often did consist o f a cluster o f distinct
questions, such that the fatwa responding to it could be classified
under more than one head.69 Thus, a question as to whether a Sunni
who had become an Ahmadi (‘Qadiyani’) was an apostate, and if so,
what injunctions applied to his wife and children,70 was one that
related both to the treatment of apostates, and to marriage. It appears
in the book on apostasy rather than that on marriage, however,
because in his response Ahmad Baza concentrated on that aspect o f
the question, treating the second half relatively briefly.
This fatwa is a good illustration o f Ahmad Riza’s style o f ar­
gumentation, his citation of a number o f sources to support his
opinions, and his clear judgment on the question at hand. The
question had originally been asked o f an ‘alim in Amritsar by a
resident of that city in 1902-3, soon after Ghulam Ahmad first made
his claim to be a ‘shadowy’ prophet. The fatwa given by this ‘alim
was certified by a number of other ‘ulama’ from Amritsar. The first
‘alim then sent his fatwa and the certifications to Ahmad Riza,
requesting his opinion on the matter.
Ahmad Riza responded with a comprehensive review o f Ghulam
Ahmad’s writings, as he interpreted them. Citing these, and giving
complete references to each book and page he was quoting, he found
Ghulam Ahmad guilty of kufr on ten distinct grounds. He found
the first kufr, for instance, in
69 This was also the case with the Deobandi fatawa. Metcalf, discussing Rashid Ahmad
Gangohi’s fatawa, writes: ‘Any categorization o f the topics covered in his pronouncem ents
is necessarily crude, for a single fatawa could often illustrate at once a variety o f issues
concerning belief, practice, jurisprudential principles, and attitudes toward other
religious groups’. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 148.
70 T he Ahmadis are followers o f Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (c. 1835—1908). A num ber o f
Muslims, including the Ahl-e Sunnat, consider them to be non-Muslims. For a recent
interpretation o f the Ahmadi movement, see Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous.
T he question and the fatwa that was its response are in Fatawa-e Rizwiyya, vol. 6, pp.
297—307, in the form o f a risala (tract) entitled Al-Su* tva'l E'qab ‘ala’l Masih il-Kazzab
(Punishment o f the False Claimant to Prophethood). This risala has also been published
separately, in a collection entided the M ajm aeR asa'il; Radd-eMirza’iat (Karachi: Idara-e
Tasnifat-e Imam Ahmad Riza, 1985), pp. 23-45.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 185

a risala entitled Ek Ghalti ka lzala [The Annulling of a Mistake]. O n page 673

o f this, he writes ‘I am Ahmad’, and quotes from [Qur’an 61:6] [in which Jesus
gave] ‘glad tidings o f an aposde whose name shall be Ahmad’. [In saying this,
Ghulam Ahmad implies that] he, and not the Prophet Muhammad, was the
Prophet about whom Jesus spoke.71

After quoting from other books by Ghulam Ahmad in this way,

Ahmad Riza then examined Ghulam Ahmad’s claim that he was
using the word nabi (prophet) in a different sense from the one
ordinarily understood. Ahmad Riza poured scorn on this statement.
Citing authorities from fiqh, he demonstrated that such arguments
had not been accepted in the past. N or would they be acceptable to
people in the present: for instance, if a man told his wife that she
was ‘free’ (taliq), it would be understood that he was divorcing her,
not that he was giving her permission to go wherever she wished.72
Indeed, if such reversals of meaning were accepted, there would be
chaos (darham barham) in all religious and worldly affairs (din o
duniya).73
After arguing in this detailed, point-by-point manner that
Ghulam Ahmad was a kafir, Ahmad Riza asserted that it was
incumbent on Muslims who knew o f Ghulam Ahmad’s claims and
statements to pass the verdict of kufr on him. Those who did not
do this (he specifically mentioned the Nadwa), became kafirs them­
selves. Again a number of authorities from fiqh were cited in support
o f this view. Finally, addressing the related question about the
validity of the marriage between an Ahmadi man and his wife, he
said that the wife was released from her marriage bond, with all the
consequences that this entailed with respect to rights over the mahr
(marriage settlement) and children.
While the Deobandi ‘ulama’ did not always bolster their opinions
with a citation of sources,74 it was characteristic o f Ahmad Riza to
cite authorities from Q ur’an, hadis, and fiqh when writing a fatwa.75

71 Fatawa-e Rizwiyya, vol. 6, p. 299.

72 Ibid., pp. 300-1.
73 Ibid., p. 302.
74 See Mas'ud, ‘Trends in Interpretation’, p. 71, where he shows that the num ber o f
fatawa that did not cite a source outnum bered those that did.
75 T o give some examples from the fatwa examined above, in dismissing Ghulam
186 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

His appeal to logic was characteristic as well. In the fatwa cited, he

made his opponent’s position appear foolish, and the unassailability
o f his own view self-evident, by showing that the (seemingly)
arbitrary change in the meaning o f a word would lead to chaos in
everyday life. Finally, he argued that not only was Ghulam Ahmad’s
claim foolish; much worse, it was an act o f infidelity. Muslims must
recognize this fact, and denounce it unequivocally; else they too
would be guilty o f kufr.
At a time when a variety of conflicting opinions were being
expressed through different Muslim movements, the combined
effect o f Ahmad Riza’s erudition, logical argument, and decisiveness
must have had a considerable impact on those he addressed. As the
above fatwa illustrates, his judgments were as much a guide to belief
and action as a clear injunction and warning about what should not
be done or believed. The lack of ambiguity in his judgments was
thus joined by a call for action in the believer’s personal life, even if
this entailed taking a stand on controversial issues. As the next few
chapters will make clear, this call for action was not limited to his
condemnation of Ghulam Ahmad (in which he was joined by the
Deobandi ‘ulama’ and others), but was made in relation to his
opinions on other ‘ulama’ and other issues also. He firmly believed
that it was the shar‘i duty o f Muslims not only to follow the Q ur’an
and sunna but also to condemn those who failed to do so, regardless
o f the consequences.
It can be said about Ahmad Riza’s fatawa, as Metcalf notes
regarding the Deobandi fatawa, that while they focused on ‘belief
and ritual, ‘aqa’id and ibadat, . . . they explored [these areas] with
remarkable depth and range. Indeed,. . . the fatawa reflect not a
narrowing o f concerns but an expansion, for they treated issues
earlier fatawa had not even considered’.76 Reflecting problems o f
concern to a number of Muslims in his day, Ahmad Riza addressed
issues as diverse as the correct attitude toward Hindus, on whether

Ahm ad’s claim to be using the word nabi in a special way, Ahmad Riza cited the FusuUe
Imadiyya, Fatawa-e Hindiyya (presumably the same as Fatawa-e Hind, an Urdu[?]
translation o f Fatawa-e *Alamgm), Qazi Iyaz’s Al- Shi/a ', vol. 3, and Maulana R u m i,
among others.
76 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 148.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 187

Muslims should join the anti-British non-cooperation movement

launched by Gandhi in the 1920s, on the monetary value o f bank
notes, on whether news on the sighting o f the m oon during
Ramazan could be acted upon if conveyed by telegraph, and so on.
A remarkable feature is Ahmad Riza’s appeal to the ‘ulama’ o f
the Haramain for sanction and approval on a number o f controversial
issues.77 O ne such case was the debate about bank notes, mentioned
above, that began around 1877 (AH 1294).78 While both Ahmad
Riza and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi agreed that notes were a valid
form o f money and that zakat must be paid on them, they disagreed
on whether transactions involving exchange in unequal amounts
was similar to interest (riba), which is forbidden to Muslims. Gangohi
held such transactions to be unlawful in that they resembled interest,
whereas Ahmad Riza argued that they were not comparable to
interest and were permissible. Another mufti, ‘Abd ul-Hayy Firangi
Mahali, also opposed Ahmad Riza’s judgment. This debate had
political implications for the stand the ‘ulama’ took on British rule
in India, as will be discussed in Chapter IX.
While the details o f the jurisprudential arguments made on each
side are undoubtedly important, also significant is the fact that
Ahmad Riza wrote his definitive fatwa on the subject, Kafl al Faqih,
in Mecca in 1906 in response to questions by two ‘ulama’ in that
city on the monetary value of the bank note.79 Here we see him in
the role o f mufti to other ‘ulama’ o f the Haramain, which must
surely have been exceptional. His admirers view this (with under-
77 I am grateful to Khalid M as'ud for drawing my attention to this in a personal
comm unication.
78 M y summary o f the debate is based on Mas'ud, ‘Trends in Interpretation’, pp. 40-3,
for the Deobandi view; and, for the Ahl-e Sunnat side, Fatawa-e Riziviyya, Introduction
to vol. 7, pp. 9-10, and Ahmad R iza’s fatwa, Kafl al-Faqih al-Fahimfi Ahkam Qirtas al-
Darahim (Guarantee o f the Discem ingjurist on Duties relating to Paper M oney), in that
volum e, pp. 126-95.
79 They were Maulana ‘Abd Allah Ahmad Mirdad, imam at the Masjid al-Haram, and
Maulana Ham id Ahmad M uhammad Jaddawi, his teacher. These and other details are
in another fatwa by Ahmad Riza entided Kasir ul-Sqfih il- Wahimft Ibdal Qirtas al-Darahim
(Foolish Breaking and Misleading N otions on the Exchange o f Paper M oney), AH
1329/AD 1911, in Fatawa-e Rizwiyya, vol. 7, p. 228. A t the beginning o f this fatwa,
Ahmad R iza explains that the w ord ‘foolish’ in the tide refen to Rashid Ahmad Gangohi,
and the ‘misleading notions’ to ‘Abd ul-H ayy Firangi Mahali. Ibid., p. 199.
188 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

standable pride) as evidence o f Ahmad Riza’s high reputation,

already established in the course o f a previous judgment relating to
the Nadwat al-'Ulama’.80 In that debate, as in the one concerning
Deoband (both shortly to be examined in Chapters VII and VIII),
Ahmad Riza sought confirmation and approval by the ‘ulama’ o f
Mecca and Medina of a fatwa written in Bareilly.81 In this instance,
unlike the case of the bank note debate, he was seeking ratification
by a higher authority on a matter on which the ‘ulama’ in British
India were divided. Approval would not only confirm his position,
but could also be expected to discomfit his opponents. That several
‘ulama’ of the Haramain did ratify his fatawa on a variety o f issues,
over a span o f roughly twenty years, including his 1915 judgment
on the azan debate (to be examined below), and that his relationship
with them was one o f reciprocity, can be understood to have
considerably bolstered his personal standing in India.

T he C all t o P r a y e r : F r o m I n sid e the M o squ e o r O u t s id e ?

The ‘azan debate’ (Ahl-e Sunnat sources also call it the ‘Badayuni
affair’, for reasons that will shortly become clear) invites our atten­
tion because for three years (1914 to 1917) Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’
engaged with one another in fierce controversy in newspapers and
pamphlets, questioning and defining terms such as sunna and bid‘a
in different ways. The issues at stake were far wider than the specific
subject under discussion. The debate ended on a rather dramatic
note in 1917, in a British magistrate’s court in Badayun where a
charge of libel had been brought against Ahmad Riza the preceding
year. Indeed, a full analysis of the azan debate, whose participants
gradually drew in an audience not. only o f ‘ulama’ but also o f
educated May’ Muslims, takes us beyond questions o f ritual to issues
o f a public and political nature. For the present I shall focus on the
discussion as reported in the Urdu press and led by the ‘ulama’.

80 Sec, for example, M uhammad Mas'ud Ahmed, Fazil Barelun 'Ulama'-e Hijaz ki Nazar
Men, 6th edition (Mubarakpur, Azamgarh: Al-Majma* al-Islami, 1981), pp. 90-2.
81 T he success o f the Wahhabis in establishing their rule over the Arabian peninsula in
1924 may be the reason Ahmad Riza does not seem to have sought confirmatory
opinions from the ‘ulama’ o f the Haramain after 1906.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 189

The debate had apparendy already generated considerable heat

and argument (probably orally) when the Dabdaba-e Sikandari, the
weekly Urdu newspaper published in Rampur, addressed a series o f
ten questions to the ‘ulama’ at Bareilly’s Dar al-Ifta. These appeared
in the section of the paper entitled Chashma-e Dar al-Ifta-e Bareilly
(Fount of Bareilly’s Dar al-Ifta), which (as described in Chapter III)
had been started by Munshi Muhammad Fazl-e Hasan Sabiri, the
sub-editor, in November 1910, at the request o f some o f its readers.
N ow and then, Munshi Muhammad Fazl-e Hasan himself asked the
questions which occasioned the fatawa printed therein. In 1913,
thus, he asked about an unusual practice he said he had noticed in
the mosque near Ahmad Riza’s house at Bareilly. This was the act
o f blessing (salat o salam) the Prophet thrice aloud after the azan,
just before the start of the prayer. Since the practice was unusual in
the country, was it a bid‘a? O n what authority could it be said to be
valid, he asked.82
Ahmad Riza, responding himself on this occasion, asserted that
the practice of blessing the Prophet after the azan was followed in
Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and other countries o f dar al-islam; and indeed
also in the Holy Mosque at Mecca, and in Medina, at all times except
during the maghrib (evening) prayer. It had been an accepted
practice for more than five hundred years. ‘Holy remembrance of
[the Prophet] is the faith of the Muslim at every instant, at all times.
It is the life of faith, the tranquillity of life, and the source o f repose’.
Citing a work of fiqh83 in support of the practice, Ahmad Riza went
on to say that it was a bid‘at-e hasana, a good bid'a, which had started
in AH 781/AD 1379-80. This was one o f those new (taza) things
which was ‘good and praiseworthy’ (nek o mahmud).
The questions and corresponding fatwa about the azan appeared
in the Chashma-e Dar al-lfta-e Bareilly section in January 1914.84
Unlike the usual brief question and answer, however, the questions
in this case were detailed and lengthy, as was the response. The tone

82 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 50:2 (December 8, 1913), 7.

83 Al-Durr al-Mukhtar, a seventeenth-century work by a mufti o f Damascus.
84 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 50:9 (January 26, 1914), 3 - 5 . T he questions were asked by one
M aulawi M uhammad Jamil ur-R ahm an Khan, o f Bareilly, o f w hom nothing is know n.
This fatwa also appears in the Fatawa-e Rizwiyya, vol. 2, pp. 488-94.
190 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

suggests that the issue had already been debated and that disagree­
ment was known to be strong in certain circles. Moreover, the style
o f the questions seems to indicate that the questioner himself had a
position on the questions he was asking, and that he expected the
mufti concerned to take a stand in sympathy with his view, although
this is nowhere stated.85 The central question was whether the
second call to prayer (azan-e sani),86 should be given from inside the
mosque (facing the pulpit, minbar), or from outside it. Among the
related questions were the following: W hat was the practice o f the
Prophet Muhammad and the four ‘righdy-guided’ caliphs and what
did the books o f fiqh say on the matter? Should one act on the
practice o f the Prophet and the first four caliphs, and on the
command o f fiqh, or on customary practice, when the latter differed
from the former, and what was the current practice o f the ‘ulama’
o f the Haramain? Do the hadis command one to revive the sunna,
and do they promise a reward equal to that received by a hundred
martyrs to the person who does so? Is it obligatory (lazim) on the
‘ulama’ to revive a dead sunna, or not?
In his response Ahmad Riza87 wrote that in the time o f the
Prophet, Abu Bakr, and ‘Umar, the azan had been given from the
door o f the mosque, which he interpreted to be ‘outside’ rather than
‘inside’. Citing a hadis from the Sunan o f Abu Da’ud, he said that
the (key, though controversial) words bain yad (‘a hand’s breadth’)
were followed by the words ‘ala’l bab al-masjid (‘at the door o f the
mosque’).88 Moreover, the books o f Hanafi fiqh (of which he cited

85 I owe this insight to a comm ent by Khalid Mas'ud, made in an unpublished paper.
86 This second azan is given only at the start o f the Friday congregational prayer; thus
the debate concerned only this particular prayer.
87 T he name o f the writer of the fatwa, given at the end, is Ham id R iza Khan, Ahm ad
R iza’s eldest son. Ahmad Riza has confirmed it, along w ith other ‘ulama’ from the O ar
al-Ifta. How ever, both the style o f the fatwa, and later references to it as Ahmad R iza’s
fatwa, reveal that it was he, rather than his son, w ho w rote it. Perhaps the controversial
nature o f this fatwa had prom pted Ahmad Riza to ascribe it to his son, as a precautionary
measure. Questions about the authorship o f a tract later w ritten on this very issue w ere
similarly raised in the course o f the Badayun libel case.
88 In Ahmad Hasan’s translation, the relevant passage in this hadis reads: ‘T he call to
the (Friday) prayer was made at the gate o f the mosque in front o f the Aposde o f Allah
(may peace be upon him) when he sat on the pulpit, and o f Abu Bakr and ‘U m ar’.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 191

several) have forbidden the practice o f calling the azan from within
the mosque. Replying to the other questions, he said that obviously
Muslims must never cling to custom when this goes against hadis
and fiqh, that one must distance oneself from that which is contrary
to the sunna o f the Prophet and the caliphs, that the practice in
Mecca and Medina was in accordance with the sunna, and that
several hadis promised great reward to the one who revived a dead
sunna. He ended on a note o f appeal to all Muslims:
Muslim brothers! This is din. It is not some worldly quarrel. See what your
Prophet’s sunna is, what is written in the mazhabi books. It [this fatwa] is
submitted (ima'mz) to the ‘ulama’ o f the Ahl-e Sunnat. . . . Revival o f the
sunna is your task. D on’t say to yourselves that a small person among you has
started it. It is for you to do it too. Your lord has commanded [you to]
‘strengthen piety and faith’ (ta'wana ‘ala’l bin wa’l-taqwa). If you think my
opinion on this matter is wrong, do not get angry. W ithout hesitation, give
your opinion as to what is right.89

H e also added five new questions to the ten already asked and said
that whoever dissented with his opinion must include in his response
an answer to the fifteen questions raised.
The note o f challenge thus sent out was reinforced, on the same
page, by Mustafa Riza Khan, who as muhtamim (manager) o f the
D ar al-Ifta, issued an ‘important request (zaruri guzarish) to [our]
Muslim brothers’. He asked that whoever came across the above
fatwa make every effort to publicize it among his fellows, by reading
it out loud to friends and in the mosque, and that the names and
addresses o f all those who revived this sunna be sent to him, Mustafa
Riza, so that they could be published at some future date in the
paper. He asked, further, that those ‘ulama’ who agreed with the
opinion should say so in writing, and send their approval to him
with the signatures o f as many people in their town as possible.
Finally, the names o f twenty-odd men, who had already revived this
sunna in their mosques, were listed.
The second round of the azan debate (insofar as the Dabdaba-e
Sikandans pages reveal) followed about six weeks later. O n March

Ahmad Hasan, Sunan Abu Dawud, vol. 1, p. 280.

89 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 50:9 (January 26, 1914), 4 -5 .
 192 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

16, 1914, the paper reproduced an istifta (request for a fatwa) from
some ‘ulama’ of Pilibhit, which they had sent to an ‘alim ofR am pur
for reply. Both the question and the response, which had been
confirmed by four other Rampur ‘ulama’, condemned the fatwa of
the ‘ulama’ o f Bareilly. The istifta argued that the practice o f saying
the second azan from inside the mosque was in force in places such
as Mecca, Medina, Hindustan, Turkistan, Iran, and Egypt, among
others, and had been so for 1,300 years. Muslims were agreed that
this was a lawful (imasnun) azan. For an ‘alim to say that it was a great
sin (gunah kabira) was to accuse all Muslims o f perpetrating a grave
offence. At best, his judgment could be said to be his ijtihad, not
one on which all Muslims must act. What was the opinion o f the
‘ulama’ ofR am pur on this?
In their fatwa and confirmatory opinions, the ‘ulama' ofR am pur
agreed with those o f Pilibhit that saying the second azan from within
the mosque was, and had been, the practice o f Muslims all along, in
keeping with the original practice of the Prophet and o f the ancestors
(salaj). There was consensus (ijma‘ among Muslims on this point,
and ‘ijma‘ is regarded by the Ahl-e Sunnat as proof (hujjat)’. It was
also pointed out that the second azan had been started by the caliph
‘Usman, not by the Prophet, and that it was evident from the nusus
(clear verses of the Q ur’an), as from hadis and fiqh, that unlike the
first azan, which was given outside the mosque, the second azan was
to be given ‘in front o f the imam’, and ‘near the khatiV. O ne Ram pur
‘alim wrote: ‘Brothers! This is not to make a dead sunna come alive,
but to kill a living sunna. And far from getting a reward, you will
be punished’.
To this, Ahmad Riza gave a detailed, three-part rebuttal, printed
in the pages immediately following the above fatwa. In the first part
of the rebuttal, aimed at ‘ordinary Muslims’, he made two major
points. First, he charged that the Arabic fiqh texts quoted by the
. Rampur ‘alim nowhere commanded that the azan be given inside
the mosque, and that by failing to give an Urdu translation o f the
texts, he was misleading those (in effect, most Indian Muslims) who
could not read Arabic. Second, he challenged the interpretation by
the Ram pur ‘ulama’ o f the phrase which was key to the whole
discussion, namely, bain yad. He argued that this phrase, ‘a hand’s
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 193

breadth’, did not imply that the muezzin had to be contiguous to

the pulpit when making the call to prayer, but only that he face the
pulpit. In addition, he challenged the nature o f the Rampur ‘alim’s
sources, pointed to the range and large number of his own, and
accused the Ram pur ‘ulama’ of committing a list o f twenty wrongs
in their fatwa.90
An interesting aspect of this discussion, which emerged in the
open letter Ahmad Riza wrote to the Rampur ‘alim who had
opposed his fatwa (also printed in this issue of the Dabdaba-e
Sikandari), was his citation o f the writings of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi,
founder o f the Naqshbandi Mujaddidi sufi order. A note at the end
of this letter, apparendy by the newspaper editors, indicated that all
those who had opposed Ahmad Riza’s fatwa were followers o f the
Shaikh Mujaddid.
Digressing for a moment from the substance of the arguments
made on each side, it is important that we pay attention to the source
of the opposition. The fact that the ‘ulama’ ofPiiibhit and Ram pur
were (primarily) Naqshbandi Mujaddidis in their capacity as sufis,
while Ahmad Riza and his supporters were primarily Qadiris, had
no doctrinal significance. The occurrence o f multiple affiliation, by
the nineteenth century, had decreased the difference in religious
styles between orders.91 (In fact, the editorial note rejoiced at the
fact that Ahmad Riza was citing Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi’s writings
in his support, for that was a source which his opponents would
have to accept.) The manner in which the difference in sufi
affiliation of the various ‘ulama’ impinged on this debate would seem
to have been social, rather than religious. For, as Metcalf points out
in a different context, what the orders did define were ‘different
spiritual networks’.92 It was the operation of these different spiritual
networks, it seems to me, that explains the strong opposition to the
‘ulama’ o f Bareilly that emerged in subsequent months from the
Naqshbandi Mujaddidi khanqah at Ganj Muradabad, near Awadh.93
90 For the details, see Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 50:16 (March 16, 1914), 3-8.
91 See Metcalf, blamic Revival, p. 158.
92 Ibid., p. 164.
93 See Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 50:20 (April 13, 1914), 9, article endded ‘A Voice from
Ganj Muradabad on the Second Azan o f Friday’; Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 50: 21 (April 20,
194 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

and still later from the Sabiri Chishti khanqah at the shrine o fM u'in
ud-Din, at Ajmer.94
There was opposition from other quarters as well. In his open
letter to the Rampur ‘alim who had opposed his fatwa Ahmad Riza
suggested that its author had been encouraged by certain ‘Wahhabis’
to openly disagree with him when a personal letter would have
enabled them to discuss their differences in private.95 That Ahmad
Riza was probably referring to some ‘ulama’ from Deoband is
indicated by another open letter in the paper a week later, by
Maulana Amjad ‘AH A ‘zami (author o f the Bahar-e Shari ‘at, as noted
above) and addressed to an ‘alim o f Deoband. This accused the
Deobandi ‘alim of misquoting certain sources on the question o f the
second azan being said from inside the mosque. Amjad ‘AH offered
a fifty-rupee prize if the claim could be substantiated from the
sources.96
This extended, many-sided, and strong disputation, together with
the deep sense o f anguish created in some by the prolonged
uncertainty surrounding a prayer ritual o f central importance to
Muslims, provided the context for the fatwa that appeared in the
February 15,1915 issue o f the Dabdaba-e Sikandari by certain ‘ulama’
o f the Haramain. It had been requested by a Muslim ofPilibhit, who
wrote to one Maulana Muhammad Karim Allah o f Medina. Enclos­
ing a copy o f Ahmad Riza’s fatwa, he said:
Here people have raised a huge uproar {shot o ghul) on account o f [Ahmad
R iza’s fatwa], saying that the [second Friday] azan should be said inside the

1914), ‘Voices from Sirhind on the Question o f the Second Azan on Friday: A Very
U rgent Appeal to Hazrat Shah Ahmad Miyan Ganj M uradabadi’; Dabdaba-e Sikandari,
50:24 (May 11,1914), 5-6, ‘J anab Shah Ahmad Miyan Sahib Ganj M uradabadi’s Answer
to the Appeal’; and Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 50:25 (May 18, 1914), 4 -5 , ‘Second Appeal to
Shah Ahm ad Miyan Ganj Muradabadi’.
94 See Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 53:6 (D ecem ber 4, 1916), 3 - 5 , ‘A n In terestin g
Conversation betw een Maulawi N a‘im ud-D in Muradabadi and M aulawi M u'in
ud-D in Sahib Ajmeri, on the Question o f the Second Friday Azan’; and Dabdaba-e
Sikandari, 53:26 (April 23, 1917), 4 -6 , ‘Investigation into the Question o f the Second
Azan, and its . . . Answer’.
95 Ibid., 50:16 (March 16, 1914), 5.
96 Ibid., 21 (March 20,1914), ‘An O pen Letter in the Nam e ofM ufti ‘Aziz ur-R ahm an
Deobandi, and a Promise o f a Fifty-rupee Prize’.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 195

mosque. Kindly, therefore, send your reply to this istifta, with the confirmation
o f the ‘ulama’ there, very quickly, so that the discord may be repelled. In
writing this, kindly think deeply. The Wahhabis have raised a great tumult
here. The answer o f Shahab-e Saqib [The Brighdy Shining Star, a tract by an
opponent o f Ahmad Riza] has been published.97

In a letter dated Z u’l Qa’da 1332/October 1914, Muhammad Karim

Allah replied that requests for a fatwa on the azan question had been
received by a number o f ‘ulama’ in Mecca and Medina, from
Muslims resident in places as diverse as Karachi, Bhopal, Bareilly,
and Badayun (via a resident of Bombay). He explained that he had
circulated this particular istifta in Medina, and that the replies o f two
‘ulama’ were included in the letter.
All the three ‘ulama’ who replied to the question endorsed
Ahmad Riza’s position strongly.98 Praising Ahmad Riza’s erudition
and his devotion to the Prophet, Muhammad Karim Allah wrote:
I would urge upon you that at this time there are few who equal A‘la Hazrat
Barelwi. The ‘ulama’ o f the Haramain, o f Arabia, o f the East, o f Syria, and o f
Egypt, have acknowledged (qa’il) A‘la Hazrat, and have accepted him as their
imam . . . . [The ‘Wahhabis’] bum from head to foot in the fire o f wretched­
ness, asking why A‘la Hazrat has become so famous in the whole Islamic world
. . . . D on’t pay attention to other people. Soon Daulat al-Makkiyya [Ahmad
R iza’s 1906 fatwa, written in the Haramain] will be published, and you will
[gauge] A‘la Hazrat’s quality from its study."

Addressing the issue itself, Ahmad al-Jaza’iri al-Husain, the Mufti

al-Malikiyya, wrote in his fatwa that the second azan had been
instituted by the caliph ‘Usman, and since his time, the residents o f
the cities o f the Maghrib, and o f the countryside, had given this azan
from the minaret. He added:
. . . and that is correct (saba). . . . there is no advantage to giving the azan in

97 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 51:13 (February 15, 1915), 3 - 6 , ‘Fatawa by the ‘Ulama o f the
Haramain on the Azan Q uestion’. T he writer o f the isafta was one Sayyid M uham m ad
‘U m ar, o f Pilibhit, Muhalla Ahmad Z a’i.
98 They were: M aulana M uhammad Karim Allah o f M edina, the addressee o f the isdfta,
M aulana Ahm ad al-Jaza’iri al-Husain, M ufti al-Malikiyya, and M aulana Sayyid
M uham m ad Taufiq Afendi al-Ayubi al-Ansari al-Hanafi, teacher (mudanis) at al-Haram
al-Nabawi al-Sharif, the mosque o f Medina.
99 Ibid., p. 4.
196 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

(fi’l) the mosque. Those people who are outside the mosque [are alerted, by
the azan, that they] should strive after the rememberance o f Allah, and leave
off selling, and whatever is forbidden. There is no need for an azan for those
who are [already] inside the mosque.
Imam Malik considered it makruh to say the azan inside the mosque. He
said, ‘Some have [called it a] bid'at madi'at [a useless bid'a]’.100

In addition to the points already made by various ‘ulama’ in

support, or rejection, of Ahmad Riza’s position on the second azan
on Fridays, there was considerable discussion of the reliability that
was to be placed on hadis which some regarded as weak (za ‘if). The
main hadis to be cited in the course o f this extended debate was
from the Sunan o f Abu Da’ud. Opponents o f Ahmad Riza’s position
argued that this hadis was weak, while supporters (including
Muhammad Taufiq Afendi, of Medina) claimed that it was included
in the universally accepted Sahih of al-Bukhari, and in other collec­
tions.101
It might have been expected that the strong endorsement of
Ahmad Riza’s position by the ‘ulama’ o f the Haramain in 1915
would have ended the matter. This was not the case. That opposition
to his fatwa continued is indicated by continued correspondence in
the Dabdaba-e Sikandari, such as the report of a debate between
N a‘im ud-Din Muradabadi, Ahmad Riza’s khalifa, and the sajjada-
nishin of M u‘in ud-Din Chishti’s khanqah at Ajmer, mentioned
above. It is also evident that at some point the matter began to be
debated in tracts (risala), rather than in the newspapers. It was this
‘war o f the risalas’ (which calls to mind the ‘fatwa war’ o f about ten
years before, to be discussed in Chapter VIII), which led to the

100 Ibid., p. 5. The mention o f ‘leaving off selling’ is a reference to Q u r’an 62:9: ‘O ye
w ho believe! W hen the call is proclaimed to prayer on Friday (the day o f assembly),
hasten earnestly to the remembrance o f God, and leave ofFbusiness (and traffic). That
is best for you if ye but knew!’ (Y usuf‘Ali tr.). I am grateful to Professor M uhamm ad
Mas‘ud Ahmed for bringing this Q u r’anic verse to my attention.
101 H ow ever, one writer, while saying that the phrase bain yad did not appear in any
sahih hadis other than the one by Abu D a’ud, nevertheless argued that it be accepted.
His reason was that ‘among Hanafis, the position is that in matters relating to worship
(‘ibada) it is fitting and better to act on a weak hadis. In worship, a weak hadis cannot
be given up’. Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 51:21 (April 12, 1915), 6-7. O ne wonders w hether
the Hanafi ‘ulama’ o f the subcontinent would have concurred with this position.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 197

institution o f a court case against Ahmad Riza, probably in 1916, by

a resident o f Badayun. The charge was that o f libel.
According to the magistrate who heard the case, and who
delivered his judgment on it in early 1917, the origins o f the dispute
between the ‘ulama’ ofBareilly and Badayun lay in a fatwa opposing
Ahmad Riza’s stand on the azan, written by one Maulana Muham­
mad Ibrahim, and confirmed by Maulana ‘Abd ul-M uqtadir
Badayuni.102 W hether in response to this, or somewhat earlier,
Ahmad Riza had stated his position in a risala entitled Ta ‘bir-e Khwab
(Interpretation of a Dream). The magistrate’s account o f subsequent
events is as follows:
N ow the discussion o f this question began in earnest, and [more] risalas . . .
began to be published. Efforts were made to hold a [verbal] debate, but were
unsuccessful. In the series o f risalas published, one wasJawab-e Shafi [A Decisive
Answer], published from Badayun. This was the incentive for Sad al-Firar
[Fleeing a Hundred Times]. This debate had generated a great deal o f anger,
which is reflected in the writings.103

It was Sad al-Firar which apparendy gave the most offence. The
prosecution alleged that in it, Ahmad Riza had libelled Maulana
‘Abd ul-Muqtadir, recently deceased. One of the subsidiary charges
was that this risala, though allegedly by Hamid Riza Khan, had in
fact been written by Ahmad Riza.
The Hindu magistrate who passed judgment on the case rejected
the Badayuni plaint that Sad al-Firar was libellous, while accepting
that, in his view, Ahmad Riza rather than his son had probably
written the book. The decision was seen as a great victory for
Ahmad Riza, who had refused to testify in the court when sum­
moned, and a loss of prestige for the ‘ulama’ o f Badayun. In Ahl-e

102 M uhamm ad Ibrahim (1876-1956) was a khalifa o f Maulana ‘Abd ul-M uqtadir
Badayuni (1866—1915). T h e latter was a w ell-known and gready-respected ‘alim in
Ahl-e Sunnat circles, and belonged to the famous line o f ‘Usmani ‘ulama’ and pirs, whose
madrasa Shams al~‘U lum was a scholarly centre for the Ahl-e Sunnat. It was Maulana
‘Abd ul-M uqtadir’s father, ‘Abd ul-Q adir Badayuni, who in 1877 had directed Ahmad
R iza and his father to Shah Al-e Rasul o f Marahra, that they may becom e his disciples.
103 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 53:20 (March 12, 1917), 7-10, ‘Decision on the Famous Libel
Case betw een Badayun and Bareilly*.
198 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Sunnat sources, the judgment was seen as a landmark vindicating

their position.104

W id e r S ig n if ic a n c e o f the A zan D ebate

Despite the court judgment in Ahmad Riza’s favour, his ‘victory’

was in fact inconclusive. Three years after the issue first arose much
opposition still remained. Although some Muslims did change their
practice o f calling the second Friday azan from inside the mosque as
a result o f the debate, the majority appear to have continued their
old practice.105
A number o f assertions had been made during the debate, several
o f them contradictory. Proponents o f the change, couching their
argument in terms of reviving a dead sunna, had defended their
position by claiming to be following the Prophet’s sunna, which in
this case had died out in the subcontinent, though it was in use in
various parts o f the Islamic world, including Mecca and Medina.
Their opponents, recasting the debate in terms o f the consensus
(ijma‘) of the Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulanm’, had argued that the second azan
only came into currency during the reign o f‘Usman, the third caliph
(and by extension, therefore, no sunna could be traced back on this
issue to the Prophet himself, only to one o f the ‘rightly-guided’
caliphs). Moreover, the practice in other parts o f the Islamic world,
they held, was to say it as they did, inside the mosque.
Both sides had cited textual sources in their support. Indeed, most
o f the attention was directed to citing texts in support o f the
respective positions, and to faulting the manner in which sources
had been quoted by the opposition. As the magistrate commented
in his judgment, ‘In the risalas, the kinds o f arguments that were
made were: Some books had been wrongly quoted; or, their
104 The importance of this case is indicated in Ahl-e Sunnat sources by the fact that past
events are sometimes dated in reference to this judgment, such as ‘when the Badayuni
case was going on’, or ‘soon after the Badayuni case was won’. Such usage illustrates the
landmark nature of the event in the subsequent oral tradition of the movement. See
Zafar ud-Din Bihari, Hayat-e A 'la Hazrat, pp. 150 and 190, for examples.
105 Apparendy this continues to be the current practice in the subcontinent. This was
conveyed to me by Maulana Yasin Akhtar Misbahi, author of Imam Ahmad Riza aur
Radd-e Bid'at o Munkarat, in a private communication in 1987.
 Ahmad R iza ’s Concept of the Sunna 199

meaning had been misrepresented; or, does a particular word have

only one meaning, or several?’106 This textual orientation was a
distinctive feature of other debates between the Ahl-e Sunnat and
their fellow Muslims as well.
But the azan debate differs from earlier ones in one important
respect: to a large extent those who opposed Ahmad Riza’s stand
perceived themselves as Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama‘at (rather than
Nadwi, Deobandi, or Ahl-e Hadis, for example). Indeed, this is the
first major internal debate that we can reconstruct through written
sources. Most striking is the fact that Ahmad Riza was opposed by
‘ulama’ in Badayun, whose elders (as we shall see more fully in the
next two chapters) had been partners in debate with Ahmad Riza
in opposing the Nadwat al-‘Ulama’, affirming belief in the Prophet’s
knowledge o f the unseen, and trying to counter Shi'i influence in
their midst, among other things. Prior to this, there had been no
hint o f a difference o f opinion between Ahmad Riza and ‘Abd
ul-Qadir Badayuni (d. 1901), while his son ‘Abd ul-Muqtadir had
reportedly held Ahmad Riza is such esteem that he called him
‘Mujaddid’ in a meeting attended by the Ahl-e Sunnat leadership in
1900. The same ‘Abd ul-Muqtadir now signed his name to a fatwa
opposing Ahmad Riza on the azan issue. That this was a significant
new development is confirmed by ‘Abd ul-Muqtadir’s further
opposition to Ahmad Riza in the course of the Khilafkt movement
o f the early 1920s.
The azan debate was, historically, the last o f its kind insofar as the
early history o f the Ahl-e Sunnat movement is concerned. Freitag’s
comment that in the early twentieth century ‘the dynamic o f debate’
was moving from the personal to the public sphere107 is apposite to
this case. The azan debate marked, in a sense, a watershed. From a
past in which the Ahl-e Sunnat had only defined themselves against
those Muslims they perceived as ‘O ther’— Nadwis, Deobandis,
Ahmadis, Sir Sayyid’s ‘Aligarh school’, and Shi‘is— they were now
also debating one another, thereby making internal distinctions in

106 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 53:20 (March 12, 1917), 8.

107 Sandria B. Freitag, ‘Ambiguous Public Arenas and Coherent Personal Practice:
Kanpur Muslims 1913-1931’, in Ewing (ed.), Shari 'at and Ambiguity, p. 146.
200 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

leadership and future direction. The political implications o f this

emerge more fully in Chapter IX.
Another change— a dramatic one— was that, apparently for the
first time insofar as Ahl-e Sunnat debates are concerned, a party to
the debate had signalled its willingness to take its differences with its
fellow Muslims to court.108 As the Hindu magistrate in the case
wrote, ‘Muslims of the same belief (‘aqida) were engaged in a trial
o f strength (zor-azma'i) with one another’.109 This had considerably
intensified hostile feelings. More importandy, the act o f taking one’s
internal differences of opinion to a British Indian court was to
completely change the terms o f the debate. By choosing an outside
arbiter, the differences o f opinion no longer remained internal, o f
concern to the Muslim umma alone, and which it could iron out in
self-sufficient wholeness. Conceptions o f authority and tribunal, it
seems, were in process o f change within the movement.
But before we try to understand these larger issues thrown up by
the azan debate, in the next couple o f chapters I would like to
continue to explore definitions o f sunna and related terms by
attending to the attitudes of Ahmad Riza and the Ahl-e Sunnat
toward fellow Indian Muslims, both Sunni and Shi‘i. In so doing, I
take a step backward in time, to debates that preceded that about
the Friday azan.

108 N ote that the circumstances in which the Badayun libel case began w ere in this
sense very different from those o f the Kanpur mosque incident o f 1913, w hich F reitag
describes in ‘Ambiguous Public Arenas’. In the latter case, a dispute with an outside
group— the British Indian government itself—was involved.
109 Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 53:20 (March 12, 1917), 7.
 Chapter VII

The Ahl-e Sunnat and O ther Muslims,

Late Nineteenth Century

N ot infrequently, religious reformers exhibit in their life and work

a sense o f deep moral outrage against those guilty, in their view, of
moral laxity and weakening of faith. In late nineteenth century
British India—which saw the rise of several movements o f religious
reform, both Muslim and non-Muslim—a number o f reformers
spoke and wrote with dismay about the moral condition o f their
communities, and saw an urgent need for self-correction. In the
writings of Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan, the Ahl-e Hadis leader, for
instance, ‘there [was] a pervasive pessimism, a fear of the end o f the
world, and an emotional commitment to the need for dramatic reform’.1
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadi movement, likewise
‘was convinced that Islamic religion, Islamic society, and the posi­
tion o f Islam vis-a-vis other faiths [had sunk] in his times to
unprecedented depths’.2 O n the Hindu side o f the religious
spectrum, Swami Dayanand, founder of the Arya Samaj movement
in the 1860s, attacked Hindu orthodoxy for weakening Hinduism
from within, and causing it to fall before the challenges o f ‘invading
Islam and the Christian British’.3
Ahmad Riza Khan’s writings also convey a sense of pessimism

1 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 269.

2 Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous, p. 105.
3 Jones, Arya Dharm, p. 33.
202 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

about the condition o f Islam in his day and age, while urgendy calling
upon Muslims to reform their ways. As with most nineteenth
century Muslim reformers in British India, he blamed his fellow
Muslims, rather than others, for their situation. He denounced the
views o f Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and his ‘modernist’ Aligarh school,
and o f ‘ulama’ such as the Ahl-e Hadis, the Deobandis, the Nadwat
al-‘Ulama’, and the Ahmadis. In addition, the Shi‘is came under
attack.4 The Hindu reform movement o f the Arya Samaj was also a
concern, though debates and writings rebutting it arose later than
those against other Muslims, and were largely the work o f Ahl-e
Sunnat leaders who followed Ahmad Riza.
It is essential to examine the Ahl-e Sunnat’s opposition to the
Muslim movements mentioned above in order to understand what
they meant by the sunna and the way in which they sought to apply
it in their lives. In a broad sense, their opposition to their Muslim
contemporaries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
period stemmed from the argument that there is a constellation of
beließ, the zaruriyat-e din (‘essentials o f the faith’), which includes
the main creed of Islam but is wider than it in scope, and which
must be embraced if one is to ‘be’ a Muslim. Failure to believe in
even a single one o f these ‘zaruriyat’ made one a kafir. Thus,
whoever denies any o f the zaruriyat-e din is a kafir, and whoever doubts his
kufr and punishment is a kafir.5

Does a man become a Muslim . . . merely by saying die kalima and bowing
before the qibla? Until he believes in the zaruriyat-e din, he is not entided to
call himself a Muslim. N or will he be saved from the eternity o f the fire . . .

4 It was a measure o f the Ahl-e Sunnat’s strong disapproval o f these m ovem ents that
the terms used in their writings to describe them are implicitly derogatory: Sir Sayyid
and his school are referred to as nechari (nature lovers); the Ahl-e Hadis are ghair-muqallid
(followers o f none o f the four Sunni mazhabs, or schools oflaw) or wahhabi, a term also
used to describe Deobandis; all Ahmadis, w ithout distinction, are qadiyanh (after the
tow n o f Qadiyan, where the m ovem ent first began); Shi'is are referred to as rafizi (Ar.
rafidi; lit., dissenters), the name o f a Shi'i group in early Muslim history. T h e Ahl-e
Sunnat’s opponents, o f w hom there were many, responded in kind w ith terms such as
‘Barelwi’, ‘bid'ati’, and ‘mushrik’ (‘innovators’, ‘idolaters’).
5 Ahmad R iza Khan, Fatawa al-Haramain bi-Rajf Nadwat al-Main, reply to question 2,
pp. 29-31.
6 Haji La’l Khan, Datbar-e Sarapa-e Rahmat, p. 5.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 203

W hat exactly is meant by the apparently vague term zarunyat-e

din becomes clearer when we examine Ahl-e Sunnat opposition to
groups such as the Shi‘is and the Nadwat al-‘Ulama\ More specifi­
cally, Ahl-e Sunnat differences with other Muslims, which surfaced
particularly in debates with the Deobandis, but also in and-Ahmadi
writings, were based on their prophetology. This will form the
subject o f Chapter VIII.

T h e Z a r u r iy a t -e D in a n d C a t e g o r ie s of ‘F alse ’ B elief

In 1896 (Shawwal 1313), Ahmad Riza Khan wrote a series o f fatawa

in response to several (self-generated) questions about contemporary
Muslim groups such as Sir Sayyid Ahmad o f Aligarh and his
followers, the Shi'is, the Ahl-e Hadis, the Deobandis, and the
Nadwat al-‘U lam a\ Four years later, in 1900 these fatawa received
the approval ofleading ‘ulama’ o f the Haramain, and were published
in a risala entitled Fatawa al-Haramain bi-RajfNadwat al-Main (Fatawa
from the Haramain [causing] the Falsehood o f the Nadwa to
Shudder). Twenty o f the twenty-eight questions in the risala dealt
with the Nadwat al-‘Ulama’, one o f the most recent Sunni Muslim
movements to have arisen.
Taking the groups in turn, Ahmad Riza concluded that each, in
one way or another, was guilty o f ‘false’ belief, thereby becoming
bad-mazhah (people with ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ beliefs) and gumrah (‘those
who had lost their way’), or kafirs and murtadds (apostates).7 The
terms occur in pairs. A group was described as either ‘bad-mazhab’
and ‘gumrah’, or as ‘kafir’ and ‘murtadd’. Sir Sayyid Ahmad and his
followers were said, in the first question, to deny the corporeal
existence o f the angel Gabriel, the other angels, the jinn, Satan,
heaven, and hell, as well as the resurrection o f the dead on the Last
Day, and the occurrence of miracles. In their view, all these stood
for moral states such as good and evil, and did not ‘actually exist’.

7 T he distinction between these terms is discussed below. It should be noted at the

outset, however, that in this and other texts where the discussion is confined to Muslims,
the terms kafir and m urtadd are treated as a single category, i.e. ‘those w ho have become
kafirs by apostasy from Islam’. Non-M uslims, while kafirs, cannot be apostates unless
they had earlier been Muslims.
204 Devotional hlam and Politics in British India

Moreover, the question said, they believed ‘that all books o f hadis
and tafsir are false; they have all been created by ‘ulama’ from their
own heads . . . . Only the Q ur’an is true’.8 In view o f such beliefs,
were they to be considered to be Muslims, as they claimed to be?
In response, Ahmad Riza wrote:
the nechariyya [Sir Sayyid Ahmad and his followers] have no relation to Islam.
They are kafirs and murtadds, as they deny the zaruriyat-e din. Although they
read the kalima, and accept the qibla o f the Muslims, this is not sufficient to
make them ahl-e qibla and Muslims. There is no room for alternate interpreta­
tion (ta’wil) of the zaruriyat-e din. This has been the judgm ent o f the ‘ulama’
in their books o f ‘aqa’id and fiqh, as stated in clear expositions (tasrih).

In that case, the next question asked, what was Ahmad Riza’s
judgment on those who, being acquainted with their views, never­
theless called them Muslims and considered them to be celebrated
leaders o f Muslim opinion (namwar ahl-e ra’e)? T o this, Ahmad
Riza replied that ‘approval of kufr is kuf r . . . if one advances and
promotes that kufr [by publishing the views of persons holding beliefs
that qualify as such, for instance], then the kufr is even greater’.10
About the Ahl-e Hadis Ahmad Riza further said they were bid‘ati
(i.e., they had introduced reprehensible innovations), andjahannami
(deserving o f Hell) on account of their rejection of taqlid and their
exclusive reliance on Q ur’an and hadis:
Sayyid AUama T ahtaw i. . . writes, ‘Those who separate themselves from the
collectivity o f the people o f fiqh and ‘ilm [knowledge], and from the great
majority, separate themselves in that which will take them to Hell. O , you
Muslims! It is imperative (lazim) on you, the group that will receive salvation,
that you follow the ahl-e sunnat wa jama'at, because Allah’s help, guidance,
and favour are with those who agree with the ahl-e sunnat, while those who
oppose the ahl-e sunnat, leave Allah and make Him angry. This salvation-at­
taining group is today divided into four mazhabs: Hanafi, Shafi‘i, Maliki, and
Hanbali. W hoever is outside these four, is bid'ati, jahannami.11

8 Fatawa al-Haramain bi-Rajf Nadwat al-Main (Bareilly: Matba‘-e Ahl-e Sunnat wa

Jama'at, 1317/1900), pp. 27-8.
9 Ibid., p. 29.
10 Ibid., pp. 29-31. This second quesdon, and its reply, referred to the Nadwat
al-‘Ulama’, discussed further on in this chapter.
11 Ibid., p. 35. Al-Tahtawi was (apparently) a nineteenth century Egyptian w ho wrote
 ’The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 205

B eing ‘bid‘ati’, they could not be among the Ahl-e Sunnat, the terms
‘b id ‘a’ and ‘sunna’ being mutually contradictory and opposed. In
another fatwa, Ahmad Riza said clearly that ‘it is farz qat‘i (a
definitive obligation) to recognize all groups other than the Ahl-e
Sunnat as bid'ati’.12 It did not follow, however, that all bid'atis had
denied the zaruriyat-e din (and were therefore kafirs). The Ahl-e
Hadis were among those who ‘are not kafirs, but have been declared
to be gumrah on account of their opposition to the Ahl-e Sunnat’.13
T hey were ‘bad-mazhab’ and ‘gumrah’, and it was ‘necessary by the
mazhab o f the Ahl-e Sunnat’ to ‘show contempt for them and to
oppose them . . . it is forbidden to show love for them or to unite
w ith them’.14 In the Fatawa al-Haramain he wrote: ‘How can it be
permitted (ja’iz) to honour bad-mazhabs? . . . The Prophet said,
“W hoever attempts to honour a bad-mazhab, is helping in the
destruction of Islam”.’15
The company o f Ahl-e Hadis, and of bad-mazhabs generally, was
to be shunned lest they mislead ignorant Muslims, and cause wrong
belief to spread further:
Continually, hadis and the words o f the imams [here, the founders o f the four
Sunni law schools] have come down, saying that it is forbidden to mingle with
bad-mazhabs and that it is imperative to stay away from them . . . . the Prophet
said, ‘Stay away from them, lest they lead you astray, and cause turmoil (fitna)
[among you]’ . . . . [He also said,] ‘If they fall ill, don’t ask about them, if they
die, don’t join their funeral’. [And,] ‘W hen you meet them, don’t salute them ’.
‘D on’t sit near them, don’t drink or eat with them, don’t marry them ’. ‘D on’t
read the namaz w ith them ’.16

one o f the earliest biographies o f the Prophet in that country. See Schimmel, And
Muhammad Is His Messenger, p. 234.
12 Ahmad Riza Khan, Fatawa al-Qudwa li-KashfDafin al-Nadwa (Exemplary Fatawa to
Reveal the Nadw a’s Secret), 1313/1895-96, p. 6. (Publication details not legible.)
13 Ahmad Riza Khan, Fatawa al-Sunna li-Rjam al-Fitna (Fatawa on the Sunna to R ein
in Discord), (Bareilly: Matba* Ahl-e Sunnat w ajam a‘at, 1314/1896-97), p. 14.
14 Ibid. Ahmad R iza cited sources from Ghazali’s Ihya al-Ulum, Shaikh Ahmad
Sirhindi’s Maktubat, and Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz’s Tafsir 'Azizi, among other things, in
support o f his view.
15 Fataiva al-Haramain bi-Rajf al-Main, p. 37.
16 Ibid., p. 43. These and other comments below about relations with bad-mazhabs
were made in the context o f the Nadwat al-‘U lam a\ whose members were also described
206 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

More positively, they were to be openly denounced and rebutted,

and their wrongdoing and false belief made known, particularly by
the ‘ulama’:
W hen bad-mazhab things are published, by the ijma‘ o f the ummat-e din (the
religious community), it is one o f the important duties [of the ‘ulama’] to rebut
diem, and to make their baseness apparent.17

If the ‘ulama’ did not do so, people would begin to respect them,
they would listen to what they had to say, and soon they w ould be
misled. ‘Then the work o f din would fall into the hands o f those
who have broken their faith into many pieces . . . and becom e a
separate group’.18
In Ahmad Riza’s interpretation ‘bad-mazhabi’ and ‘gumrahi’
differed from kufr and irtidad (apostasy) in terms o f degree, the latter
being o f course the worst category for a Muslim. For instance, he
said if the Shi‘is (referred to as ‘Rafizis’ in the literature) elevate ‘Ali,
the Prophet’s son-in- law and fourth caliph in the Sunni view, above
Abu Bakr and ‘Umar, the first and second caliphs respectively, this
is merely ‘bad-mazhabi’ according to the jurists. Categorical denial
o f the caliphate of either or both o f the latter, however, is kufr, at
least in the eyes of the jurists. Theologians (mutakallimin) are more
cautious, preferring to call this too ‘bad-mazhabi’ rather than
‘kufr’.19 Ahmad Riza, who saw himself as a jurist, based his conten­
tion that a Muslim became a kafir murtadd if he denied any o f the
‘essentials’ o f the faith, the zaruriyat-e din, on an array o f Sunni
juridical sources. In practical terms, a Muslim may offer the namaz
behind a bad-mazhab, even though this is undesirable, but ifhe does
so behind a kafir, his prayer will be rendered invalid.20
W hat, then, were these ‘essentials’, in Ahmad Riza’s definition?
In an early work, written in 1880-81,21 he devoted a brief chapter

as ‘bad-m azhab’.
17 Ibid., pp. 39-41; also sec p. 65.
18 Ibid., p. 39.
19 Ibid., p. 31.
20 Ahmad Riza Khan, Radd-e Rafaza (1320/1902-3), in Majmu'a-e Rasa‘il: Radd-e
Rawafiz (Lahore: Markazi Majlis-e Raza, 1986), pp. 47, 49.
21 E'tiqad al-Ahbab f i ’l Jamil wa’l Mustafa wa’I A l wa’l Ashab (Faith o f th e D ear Ones,
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 207

to the zaruriyat-e din, describing them as those beließ which are

based on the clear verses (nusus) o f the Q ur’an, on accepted and
unbroken (mashhur wa mutawatir) hadis, and the consensus (ijma‘) o f
the community.22 He then listed a number o f beliefs founded on
these sources, which the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama‘at therefore uphold.
Starting with the unity o f Allah and the prophethood o f Muham­
mad, the list includes belief in heaven and hell, the delights and
punishments of the grave, the questioning o f the dead, the reckoning
on the Day o f the Resurrection, and the heavenly river (Kausar) and
bridge.23 The other chapters in the book describe in some detail the
qualities o f Allah, the Prophet, the angels, the Prophet’s Com ­
panions, his family, and the relative ranking o f the first four caliphs.
This organization suggests that the topics treated in the rest o f the
book fall outside the rubric of the zaruriyat-e din, which in this case
seem to relate more to Ahl-e Sunnat cosmology than to its belief
system as a whole.
In later writings, however, Ahmad Riza clearly indicated that the
term zaruriyat-e din had the widest application. Based on (or
deduced to be based on) the three sources o f clear verses o f the
Q ur’an, unbroken and accepted hadis, and the consensus o f the
community, they included everything that falls under the term
‘aqa’id (articles o f faith), which were central to the identity o f a
Muslim. The Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama'at were defined, in fact, as those
who faithfully followed and believed in the zaruriyat-e din. As long
as one did not deny these, one was a Muslim.
N ot all Muslims, however, were necessarily o f the Ahl-e Sunnat.
As we have seen, some groups, perceived to be opponents o f the
Ahl-e Sunnat, were described as bid‘ad, gumrah, and bad-mazhab,
though not kafir. I turn now to the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama‘at’s use
o f these terms in relation to some specific groups.

Consisting o f the Beautiful, the Prophet, the Family, and the Companions), reprinted
w ith translation and annotations by Mufti M uhamm ad Khalil Khan Barkati (Lahore:
H am id and Com pany Printers, n.d.).
22 Ibid., p. 77.
23 Ibid., pp. 77-8.
208 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

T he A hl- e Su n n a t and S h i ' ism

Anecdotes from Ahmad Riza’s life illustrate his complete refusal to

have any social relations whatever with Shi‘is.24 He is reported to
have refused to meet, or to accept any gifts from, Hamid ‘Ali Khan
(ruled 1896-1930), the Shi'i Nawab of Rampur.25 He admonished
a follower for wearing a black cap during the month o f Muharram,
when Shi‘is observe mourning rituals to commemorate Husain’s
death at Karbala.26 In addition, he is reported to have challenged a
group of Tafzilis (Shi'is who accord pre-eminence to ‘Ali over the
Prophet’s other Companions, but do not deny the legitimacy o f the
first three caliphs) to debate with him, though the challenge was
allegedly not taken up.27
The Ahl-e Sunnat’s objections to Shi'i doctrines are probably not
in their general oudine significandy different from those o f other
Sunni Muslim movements,28 though they appear to differ on matters
of detail from the Deobandi ‘ulama’ in regard to certain Shi‘i ritual
practices. Doctrinally, Ahmad Riza distinguished between Shi'is on
the basis o f how ‘extreme’ (ghali, tabara’i) their beliefs were. At the

24 Zafar ud-D in Bihari, Hayat-e A 'la Hazrat, pp. 189-90.

25 Ibid., pp. 191-2. Perhaps Ahmad Riza was influenced by the reported refusal of
Maulana N ur o f Firangi Mahal to greet the Shi'i minister o f the N aw ab o f Awadh.
Maulana N ur, w ho had taught Ahmad R iza’s sufi preceptor, Shah Al-e Rasul, would
have com m anded respect with Ahmad Riza for that reason. See Malfuzat, vol. 1, p. 81.
26 Hayat-e A ‘la Hazrat, p. 194. Ahmad Riza is repotted to have said that green, red, and
black were the three colours to be avoided during the first ten days o f M uharram — green
was the colour o f the Shi‘i standard-bearers; red was the colour worn by the Kharijis,
w ho celebrated Husain’s death; and black is w orn by the Shi’is as a sign o f mourning.
27 Ibid., pp. 12-13, 197. This event dates to 1882-83. Tafzili ‘ulama’ from Badayun,
R am pur, and Sambhal sent a representative to Bareilly, hoping that Ahm ad Riza, then
physically weakened by a digestive disorder, would be easy to defeat. But Ahm ad Riza
sent the representative a set o f thirty questions, seeing which the latter left Bareilly
w ithout attem pting to reply. Zafar ud-D in Bihari alleged that Ahmad R iza’s personal
doctor had conspired with the opposition.
28 For a general treatment o f Sunni-Shi'i differences, see, e.g., Anwar A. Q adri, Islamic
Jurisprudence in the Modem World, 2nd. rev. ed. (Lahore: Sh. M uhammad Ashraf, 1973),
pp. 159-73; and M oojan M omen, A n Introduction to Shi'i Islam: The History and Doctrines
o f Twelver Shi'ism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985). For a Shi'i perspective, see
Sayyid M uhamm ad Husayn Tabataba’i, Shi'ite Islam (Albany: State University o f New
York Press, 1975).
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 209

‘mild’ and therefore less objectionable end, were Tafzili Shi‘is, who
were merely bad-mazhabs. But in his view most Shi‘is in his day
were ‘extreme’, being guilty o f kufr on one or more grounds, such
as belief that the Q ur’an in its existing state is defective; that ‘Ali and
the other imams are superior to the non-legislative prophets (anbiya);
or denial o f the legitimacy o f the first three caliphs before ‘Ali.29
Belief in the perfection o f the Q ur’an, in the superiority o f prophets
over the imams, and acceptance o f the caliphate o f the first three
caliphs were all among the zaruriyat-e din. Hence Shi'is holding
beliefs to the contrary were kafirs and apostates.30
Turning to Shi‘i ritual practices, such as the making o f ta'ziyas
(replicas of Hasan and Husain’s tombs) during Muharram, or the
reading of shahadat-namas (elegaic poetry dealing with Husain’s
martyrdom), Ahmad Riza was, however, more equivocal. W hen
asked for his judgm ent on ta ‘ziyadari (rituals associated with the
re-enactment o f Husain’s martyrdom), Ahmad Riza responded that
in principle there was no harm in keeping a reproduction o f Husain’s
tomb as a tabarruk (sacred relic). It was like keeping pictures o f the
Ka‘ba, or of the Prophet’s tomb, or reproductions o f the Prophet’s
shoes. These were all sources of baraka, or grace, and the making
and keeping o f reproductions of inanimate objects is permitted in
Islam.31 So long as people kept faithful reproductions o f Husain’s
tom b, and transferred the reward (isal-e sawab) accrued by read­
ing the Q ur’an to the spirits of the martyrs, this was permissible
(ja’iz).
However, ta‘ziyadari as currently practised was completely haram
as it contained a number of bid‘a. These included the fact that the
ta‘ziya bore no resemblance whatever to Husain’s tomb. The
excessive display o f grief, bowing before the image, circumambulat­
ing it, making a wish on it, and the mingling o f men and women,
were also bid‘a and haram. Sunnis should avoid associating them­

29 Fatawa al-Haramain bi-Rajf Nadwat al-Main, pp. 3 1 -3 ; Radd-e Rafaza, pp. 47-50.
30 Ibid., pp. 53-7.
31 Ahmad Riza Khan, A 1a al-Ifadafi Ta 'ziya al-Flind wa Bayatt al-Shahada (Great Benefit
in the Ta'ziya o f Hind, and Discourse on the Shahadat[namaJ), (1321/1903—4), in
Majmu 'a-e Rasa’il: Radd-e Rawafiz, p. 74.
210 Devotional blam and Politics in British India

selves with such acts, for not to do so would be to convey the

impression o f similarity (mushabefy with Shi'is.32
Ahmad Riza’s judgments on other Shi‘i practices w ere similar.
O n the reading o f the shahadat-nama, in which the m artyrdom of
Husain and his army at Karbala are recalled, he said that if the events
o f that battle were accurately portrayed, and if the grief and m ourn­
ing that takes place on such occasions were replaced by recollection
o f the martyrs’ qualities and their patience under duress, there w ould
be no harm. But as currendy practised, the participation o f Sunnis
in a shahadat-nama was forbidden. In addition, recollection o f the
martyrs o f Karbala should never take place in a majlis-e milad, in
which the Prophet’s birth is narrated or recited, and w hich is an
occasion for happiness.33
Likewise, Ahmad Riza, apparendy differing from the ‘ulama’ o f
Deoband, saw no intrinsic harm in the practice o f offering food to
the poor on ‘Ashura (the tenth day o f Muharram). If food or water
were offered ‘with the right intention, purely for the sending o f
reward (sawab) to the good spirits o f the imams, then w ithout a
doubt this is good and pleasing’.34But he warned against wastefulness
in offering langar (food offerings for religious purposes), and lack o f
respect toward either food or money: ‘Allah has made everything
for the fulfillment o f man’s needs, and it should not be throw n [on
the ground]’.
Ahmad Riza emphasized several times the importance o f having
the right intention. N ot only were the bid*a associated w ith many
o f the rituals o f Muharram to be avoided, but their performance had
to be accompanied by the right niyya (purpose, intention). Some­
times he advised that a ritual act, even when not objectionable in
itself, be avoided because of the possibility that others may imitate
the act with the wrong intention. Thus he advised a questioner
against eating food offered to Husain’s spirit, because ‘even if one’s
intention is good, in the eyes o f ignorant people a forbidden

32 Ibid., pp. 7 4-6. In the same risala, Deobandis (‘Wahhabis’) are said to consider
ta‘ziyadari shirk (associating another with Allah). See p. 88.
33 Ibid., pp. 7 6 -9 .
34 Ibid., pp. 8 2 -4 .
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 211

(na-ja’iz) matter [i.e., eating the food with the wrong intention] will
acquire respect’.35
Despite the careful manner in which Ahmad Riza weighed his
opinions and judgments, hedging his approval o f certain Shi‘i
practices with conditions, particularly the requirement that all such
practices be within the limits o f the shari'a (as he interpreted it),
he has been accused ofholding views sympathetic to Shi‘i thought.36
These criticisms centre, most importandy, on Ahmad R iza’s
‘belief concerning the knowledge o f the unseen possessed by the
prophets, and the doctrine o f will [and predestination] . . . ,37
Critics charge that he quoted Shi‘i traditions w ith approval, and
that the personal names of his parents and ancestors betray a Shi‘i
background.
The personal charge against Ahmad Riza, that he ‘belonged to a
Shi‘i family’ which passed off as Sunni in order to undermine the
Sunnis from within,38 is easily dismissed. His Sunni Pathan back­
ground is well documented, and has already been m entioned in
C hapter II. H ow ever, we have seen (C hapter IV) that Ahm ad
R iza’s sufi preceptor, Shah Al-e Rasul, belonged to a renow ned
Sayyid family w hich had m igrated from Bilgram, in Awadh,
in the seventeenth century, but continued until the early
tw entieth century to maintain marriage links w ith the Shi‘i
branch o f the family w hich had rem ained in Bilgram. T he fact
that different branches o f a single extended family could have
Sunni and Shi‘i affiliations was n o t in itself unusual o r rem ark­
able in the eighteenth century. Shah ‘Abd u l-‘Aziz, eldest son
o f the famous Shah Wali Ullah, him self had Shi‘i in-laws, and
is said to have ‘complained that in most households one o r tw o
m em bers had adopted Imam [Twelver] Shi'ism ’.39 In the
n ineteenth century, the Barkati Sayyids o f M arahra, to w hich
family Shah Al-e Rasul belonged, engaged vigorously in

35 Ibid., p. 86.
36 See, e.g., Ehsan Elahi Zaheer, Bareilavis: History and Beliefs, tr. by D r. Abdullah
(Lahore: Idara Tarjum an al-Sunnah, 1986), pp. 42-6.
37 Ibid., p. 42.
38 Ibid.
39 Cole, Roots of North Indian Shi “ism in Iran and Iraq, p. 230.
212 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

countering Shi'i influence in their midst. To the extent that this

affinal connection o f his pir influenced Ahmad Riza, it seems
probable that it strengthened his anti-Shi‘i attitudes.
However, one must take more seriously the charge that some of
Ahmad R iza’s ‘beließ and ideas . . . were borrowed, from the
Shi‘a’.40 While the term ‘borrowed’ seems misplaced, one does find
on examination that the views o f Ahmad Riza and the Ahl-e
Sunnat are close to Shi‘i doctrine in some aspects o f the concept
o f prophecy.41 Like Shi‘is, hie believed in the sinlessness o f all the
prophets preceding and including Muhammad.42 Extreme respect
for the Prophet Muhammad’s family was another feature shared by
Ahmad Riza and Shi'is; in an earlier chapter I noted Ahmad Riza’s
belief that baraka or grace is inherent in Sayyids, those genealogi­
cally related to the Prophet through his daughter Fatima and her
descendants.
Moreover, there is a remarkable similarity between the Shi‘i
concept o f the ‘divine light’ and that revealed in Ahmad R iza’s
writings on the Prophet. Ahmad Riza attached considerable impor­
tance to the concept of the pre-eminence o f the Prophet’s light,
which was created before Allah created the spiritual or material
universe, and before the creation o f Adam, the first prophet.43 In
some Shi‘i traditions, the Prophet and ‘Ali were said to have been

40 Zaheer, Bareilavis, p. 42.

41 Ahmad R iza’s views on M uham m ad’s prophethood are further examined in C hapter
VIII, in the contcxt ofhis differences with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder o f the Ahmadi
m ovem ent, and leading early tw entieth-century Deobartdi ‘ulama'.
42 O n the Shi'i view, see Tabataba’i, Shi'ite Islam, pp. 144—5; for Ahmad Riza's view,
see E'tiqad aUAhbab, pp. 40-1.
43 In his risala, Silat al-Safaß N ur al-Mustafa (The Rewards o f Internal Purity in Discourse
on M uham m ad’s Light), 1329/1911, included in Majmu fa-e Rasa’il: Masa’il Nuraur Soya
(Karachi: Idara-e Tahqiqat-e Imam Ahmad Raza, 1985), p. 8, Ahmad Riza cites the
following (Sunni) hadis on the authority o f ‘Abd al-Razzaq (d. A H 211): ‘T he Prophet
told the sahabi Jabir b. ‘Abdallah that Allah had created the light o f M uham m ad from
His ow n light, prior to all things . . . . W hen Allah wanted to create the world H e divided
the light o f M uham m ad into four parts. From the first He created the pen (al-qalam)9
from the second He created the tablet (al-lawh), from the third the throne. T h e fourth
part was subdivided into four. From the first o f the four parts He created . . . *T he above
translation is by U. R ubin, w ho cites the hadis in full in ‘Pre-existence and Light: Aspects
o f the C oncept o f N u r M uham m ad’, Israel Oriental Studies, V (1975), 115.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 213

created before Adam, their light being the source for all other
things.44 O ther traditions include Fatima in the light from which
Allah created all else:
‘W hen Allah created paradise’, says a [Shi‘i] tradition, ‘He created it from the
light o f His face. Then He took the light and dispersed it. O ne third hit
Muhammad, one third hit Fatima, and another third hit ‘Ali. All people whom
this light reached found the right path o f loyalty to M uhammad’s family; those
who missed it— went astray’.45

Prior to Muhammad’s birth, according to Shi‘i tradition, the light

was transferred through successive generations o f men, each ‘the
most excellent o f mankind’, until Muhammad was bom .46 Here
Ahmad Riza’s views were identical to Shi‘i belief. He wrote that
the divine light had been transferred from generation to generation
by Muhammad’s ancestors, through ‘pure backs [i.e. loins] and pure
wombs’ until his birth. ‘All [Muhammad’s] male ancestors were
noble, and his female ancestors pure’.47
Because they were always the best o f their generation, and were
pure bearers of the divine light, it followed that they could not have
been kafirs: ‘Allah always chose the prophethood to pass through
the best qaums. And what could be worse, more base, and more
impure, than kufr and shirk?’48 Ahmad Riza cited a hadis from ‘Ali,
said by him to be sahih (based on a sound chain of transmission), to the
effect that there had never been less than seven Muslims on the face
o f the earth; Muhammad’s ancestors had been among these.49
Finally, he based his opinion, as do Shi‘i interpretations, on a Q ur’an

44 M om en, A n Introduction to Shi'i Islam, p. 148: ‘T he following Tradition is attributed

to the Prophet: ‘G od created ‘Ali and me from one light before the creation o f Adam .
. . then H e split (the light) into two halves, then H e created (all) things from my light
and'A li’slight”.”
45 R ubin, ‘Pre-existence and Light’, pp. 65-6.
46 Ibid., pp. 7 2 - 6 ,9 2 - 5 .
47 Ahmad Riza Khan, Shumul al-Islam li-Usul al-Rasul al-Karam (Inclusion in Islam o f
the Doctrines o f the Noble Prophet), (Bareilly: Hasani Press, 1315/1897-98), pp. 5,
20.
48 Ibid.. p. 17.
49 Ibid., pp. 3, 4.
214 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

verse (26:219) in which Muhammad is told to put his trust in ‘the

worshippers’ (sajidin).50
Similarities between Shi‘i thought and Ahmad Riza’s views on
Muhammad’s prophecy, including the nur Muhammadi concept,
can be traced further. For instance, Shi‘i tradition holds that
the entire world was created [for the purpose of] M uhammad’s prophetic
emergence at a predestined time and place . . . . Allah revealed to Adam that
M uhammad was the only cause for his own creation, as well as for the creation
o f heaven, earth, paradise and hell.51

This idea is readily found in Ahmad Riza’s work. In his collection

o f poems, for instance, one finds the following:
T he earth and the heavens are for you
The master and the house are for you
This and that, it’s all for you
The two worlds were made for you52

O r again:
The world gets its life from you
Because o f you the world came into being
The real is bound to its shadow
U pon you be thousands o f blessings53

According to another Shi'i tradition, ‘Muhammad and the imams,

created from the divine light, were believed not to cast shadows’.54
Here too one find parallels in Ahmad Riza’s writings: there are

50 As R ubin explains in ‘Pre-existence and Light’, p. 77, the term sajidin is interpreted
by Shi'is as standing for M uhamm ad’s ancestors. ‘Sajidin’, ‘worshippers’, is understood
by extension to mean ‘believers’ or Muslims. Ahmad R iza’s opinion is in Shumulal-Isbm,
p. 20.
51 R ubin, ibid., p. 95.
52 zamin o zaman tumhare li’e makin o makan tumhare li’e
chunin o chunan tumhare li’e bane do jahan tumhare li’e
Ahmad Riza Khan, Hada’iq-e Bakhshish (Karachi: M edina Publication C o., 1976), p.
374.
53 turn se jahan ki hayat turn se jahan ka sabat
asal se hai zill bandha turn pe karoron durud
Ibid., p. 426.
54 R ubin, ‘Pre-existence and Light’, p. 112.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 215

several fatawa in which he argued that the Prophet, being made of

light, had no shadow.55
It is unnecessary to search the literature for further similarities,
which undoubtedly exist, particularly in relation to the Prophet.
O ne must, however, be careful not to interpret this as a ‘borrowing’
o f Shi‘i concepts by Ahmad Riza and his followers. First, and most
obviously, there are important differences o f detail. The fact that in
Ahmad Riza’s interpretation the Prophet Muhammad’s light was
not passed on, differs significandy from Shi‘i belief that the infallible
imams inherited it from Muhammad through ‘AH.56 As noted in
Chapter V, Ahmad Riza considered Muhammad’s spiritual descen­
dants to be the sufi ‘helpers’ or ghaus, culminating in Shaikh ‘Abd
al-Qadir Jilani. The ghaus, and the auliya, inherited or achieved
grace (baraka), but the light was Muhammad’s alone. And again, in
the case of Muhammad not having a shadow, for Ahmad Riza this
quality was unique to the Prophet Muhammad, and was not shared
by the imams.
The larger point that emerges, however, is that one has to attend
seriously to the insistent claim made by Ahmad Riza and his
followers that they were the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama* at, people o f the
Prophet’s ‘way’, whose belief system and self-identity centred
around the Prophet. Paradoxical though this may seem, the
resemblance between aspects o f Ahl-e Sunnat prophetology and
Shi‘i concepts regarding the Prophet appear to have arisen from the
centrality o f the figure o f the Prophet and desire to faithfully follow
his sunna in Ahmad Riza’s thought, rather than any direct influence
derived from Shi‘ism. To the extent that Muhammad and the ahl-e
bait (members o f [his] house) occupied centre-stage for both Ahmad
Riza and the Shi‘is, they reached similar positions. However, they
did so along different paths, coming from different traditions.
An important measure o f the fact that Ahmad Riza was writing
very much from within the Sunni tradition is the fact that his sources
were entirely Sunni. Even when he cited a tradition from ‘AH, or

55 Several o f these are collected in Majmu ‘a-e Rasa’il: Mas’ala Nur o u t Soya.
56 See R ubin, p. 108, for the Shi'i tradition: ‘It is related that before his death,
Muhammad transmitted to ‘Ah his divine light, together with the rest o f the heritage
that was handed dow n to him through the preceding prophets’.
 216 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

interpreted a Q ur’an verse as Shi‘i tradition does, he did so on the

basis o f Sunni sources. Thus, when citing the hadis that says that all
o f creation proceeded from the Prophet’s light, he named the Sunni
authorities who had accepted this hadis, Ahmad bin Muhammad
al-Qastallani (d. 1517), a Shafi'i authority on tradition and theology
in Cairo, and ‘Abd ul-Haqq Dehlawi (d. 1642), the well-known
hadis scholar from Mughal India.57 O ther prominent sources for
hadis and fiqh cited by him were Muhammad al-Zurqani, a Maliki
scholar; Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 1505), a scholar o f Mamluk Egypt;
al-Tirmidhi, the Sunni traditionist; Ibn al-Jauzi; and ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz
Dehlawi. Occasionally sufi sources were cited, such as Shaikh
Ahmad Sirhindi.58 In another work, in which Ahmad Riza argued
that ‘Ali, the fourth caliph, had been a believer (mu’min) from the
earliest yean of his life, the sources used were largely Ash'ari and
Maturidi, both Sunni theological schools—not Shi‘i, as one may have
expected given the subject matter.59
To sum up, then, while there are some important conceptual
similarities between Shi‘i thought and aspects o f Ahmad Riza’s
prophetology, the evidence indicates that his writings were based
on Sunni sources, most of them well-known works o f fiqh, hadis,
and collections o f fatawa. In his works, he indicated clearly that he
regarded the Shi‘is o f his day as kafirs. Given this unequivocal
judgm ent and the lack o f evidence that Ahmad Riza was acquainted
with Shi‘i literature, one has to discount the suggestion that he was
influenced by Shi'ism.

57 See SiUt d -S jft f i Nur p. 9.

** These names are a selection o f those d ie d in Ahmad Riza s Nafy d-Fmy" 'Aimmm
A n m i ki-Nuhhi KuBa Stuty* (Negation o f the Shadow from him w ho Illuminated
Everything by his Light (i.e., the Prophet]), 1296/1878-9, reprinted in
Rim'i'I: Afo'«afa S u r m a S ty * pp. 51-69.
** Ahmad Rixa Khan. Tmzih d-SUbamt H jsjvm 'Ahd d-J M tyym
(Discussion o f the Purity of ‘Ah's Dignity from the Blemish of the JUUK Era).
1312. 1894—95. reprinted under »he tide ‘Ah Skok-eJ*kia fAM's Innocence
oiJ J u k Assoaanoiusm). (Mnhmnaibbad, Azamgprh; Madnsa Fan at-‘Uium. n_d_).
^PP

\
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 217

T he A hl- e Sun n a t and the N a d w a t al - ‘U la m a ’

The Nadwat al-‘Ulama’ (Council o f ‘Ulama’) was first conceived in

1892 by a group o f ‘ulama’ who had assembled at Kanpur’s Madrasa
Faiz-e ‘Amm to attend the school’s annual graduation (dastar-bandi)
ceremonies.60 Senior teachers at the school, such as Maulana Lutf
Ullah Aligarhi (the madrasa’s sadr mudarris, or principal), Sayyid
Muhammad ‘Ali Mungeri (the Nadwa’s first nazim, or adminis­
trator), and Ahmad Hasan Kanpuri, were in the forefront o f the
leadership. More importandy, the early leaders o f the Nadwa were
united by the fact that several o f them had either studied under, or
were disciples of, Shah Fazl-e Rahman Ganj Muradabadi (1797-
1895/96). Maulana Fazl-e Rahman had taught hadis to Maulanas
Muhammad ‘Ali Mungeri, Ashraf ‘Ali Thanawi, Ahmad Hasan
Kanpuri, and Sayyid Zuhur ul-Islam Fathpuri, among others, all o f
w hom were leaders of the Nadwa in its early years. Muhammad ‘AH
Mungeri and Wasi Ahmad Muhaddis Surati (a close friend o f Ahmad
Riza’s and a supporter o f the Nadwa at this time) were, in addition,
disciples o f Shah Fazl-e Rahman Ganj Muradabadi. Indeed, accord­
ing to one writer, the latter was the ‘spiritual centre’ uniting the
founders o f the Nadwa.61
These leaders were soon joined by others, notably Maulana Shibli
N u ‘mani, then teacher of Arabic at the Muhammadan Anglo-
Oriental College founded by Sir Sayyid Ahmad. Their chief aims
were twofold, to improve the system o f madrasa education by
establishing one of their own, based on a new curriculum, and to
promote unity among the ‘ulama’, settling disputes between them
internally.62 By improving on the existing madrasa system o f educa­
tion, of which the founders were highly critical, they hoped to train
a new generation of religious leaders who would be respected both
within the Muslim community and by the British Indian govern­
ment: ‘They would act as spokesmen for Muslims to the government

60 .Sayyid M uhamm ad Al-Hasani, Sirat-e Maulana Sayyid Muhammad ‘Ali Mungeri Bani-e
Nadwat al-‘Ulamat (Lucknow: Shahi Press, 1962), p. 115.
61 Khwaja Razi Haidar, Tazkira-e Muhaddis Surati (Karachi: Surati Academy, n.d.), p.
102, quoting Sayyid Suleiman Nadwi’s Hayat-e Shibli.
62 Al-Hasani, Sirat-e Maulana Sayyid Muhammad Mungeri, pp. 119-20.
218 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

. . . . They called for improved communications among the ‘ulama,

and, in the style o f the Congress and the Educational Conference
[of Sir Sayyid Ahmad], annual meetings at which they would assemble’.63
By one account—Al-Hasani’s— , the proposal to start such a
‘council’ was greeted with enthusiasm by a large number o f ‘ulama’.
Support for the idea was expressed by ‘ulama’ from Deoband,
Rampur, Patna, Aligarh, Bhopal, and Bombay, among other places,64
and two ‘ulama’ whose views were close to Ahmad R iza’s, Wasi
Ahmad Surati and ‘Abd ul-Qadir Badayuni, attended the Nadwa’s
1893 annual meeting.65
Serious opposition to the Nadwa, however, was not long in
coming. At their 1894 annual meeting, held at Kanpur, statements
made by one Maulana Ibrahim Arwi o f the Ahl-e Hadis, and by the
Shi‘i ‘alim Ghulam Hasnain Kantori, upset the Sunni Hanafi ‘ulama’.
The Ahl-e Hadis speaker used the Nadwa platform to talk about the
shortcomings o f taqlid, concluding that logically the founders of
each o f the four major schools o f law (mazhabs) were bound to
declare each other to be kafirs. As for the Shi‘i ‘alim, he addressed
the Sunni ‘ulama’ at length on ‘Ali as the Prophet M uhammad’s
successor ‘without any separation’ (bila fast), implying thereby that
the caliphate o f Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, and ‘Usman (the first three
caliphs, in the Sunni view) was invalid. However, having previously
agreed that there would be no argument (radd o qadh) at the
meeting, the ‘ulama’ reportedly remained silent.66
At the same meeting, Shibli also spoke, saying, ‘W e recognize
both muqallids and ghair-muqallids as muwahhid (professors of
Allah’s unity) and mu‘min (believers, Muslims), and we regard it as
a grave fault (gunah) to call any believer a mushrik and bid‘a ti\67
The namaz would be considered valid if read behind another
Muslim, regardless of distinction, because ‘whoever has faith in the
kalima-e tauhid is a Muslim’. At the next annual meeting held at

63 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 336. M etcalf s brief account o f the Nadw a, on pp. 335-47,
is one o f the few available in English.
64 Al-Hasani, p. 118.
65 Khwaja Razi Haidar, Tazkira-e Muhaddis Surati, pp. 101-2.
66 Ibid., pp. 103-4.
67 Ibid., p. 105.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 219

Lucknow in 1895, Maulana Muhammad ‘AH Mungeri, the chief

administrator (nazim), is reported to have expressed similar senti­
ments minimizing internal differences between Muslims. H e said,
for example, that the differences between muqaUids and ghair-
muqallids were like the minor differences, relating to matters o f
detail, that existed between the four Sunni law schools.68
Ahmad Riza had supported the Nadwa initially, in the hope, he
wrote, that ‘in this era full o f misfortune, in which the affliction o f
bad-mazhabi surrounds us and the plague of freedom [azadi
(religious ‘free thinking’?)] has conquered the world, the Nadwat
al-‘Ulama’ . . . would strengthen the Ahl-e Sunnat, and dispel
turmoil’.69 In January 1896 (Sha‘ban 1313), however, he wrote a
private letter to Maulana Muhammad ‘Ah Mungeri to persuade the
Nadwa’s leadership to adopt certain ‘reforms’ (islah) he viewed as
essential.70 These included, most importandy, the exclusion o f all
but ‘Sunni’ ‘ulama’ (the Ahl-e Hadis, as noted earlier, were not in
the category o f ‘Sunni’) from the Nadwa’s leadership, and a public
repudiation o f statements which were objectionable from the Sunni
point of view. Muhammad ‘Ali replied that the Nadwa’s aims had
been misrepresented and misunderstood, that the differences bet­
ween Ahmad Riza and the Nadwis were not as wide as appeared,
and that the reforms Ahmad Riza wanted the Nadwa to undertake
could best be carried out if he joined the new organization. M uham­
mad ‘Ali also felt that lengthy written rebuttal o f each others’
arguments was poindess, and that they could sort out their differen­
ces verbally at the forthcoming Nadwa conference in Bareilly.71
As the exchange o f letters continued, however, it became clear

68 Ibid., p. 105.
69 M uhamm ad Hasan Riza Khan Sawalat Haqa'iq-Numa ba-Ru’asa Nadwat al- ‘Ulama’
(Truth-Show ing Questions Addressed to the Leaders o f the Nadw at al-'Ulam a'),
(Badayun: Victoria Press, 1313/1895-96), p. 2. T he questions were asked by Ahmad
Riza, not by his brother Hasan Riza as suggested by the tide page.
70 Both sides o f this correspondence were published in Murasalat-e Sunnat wa Nadtva
(Correspondence o f the [Ahl-e] Sunnat and the Nadwa), published by Ham id Riza
Khan (Bareilly, 1313/1895-96), 23 pp. Ahmad R iza’s letters are also available in a new
edition, Maktubat-e Imam Ahmad Riza Khan BareluH, ed. M ahm ud Ahmad Qadri (Lahore:
Maktaba N abuw w a, 1986), pp. 88-102.
71 Murasalat-e Sunnat wa Nadwa, pp. 3-5.
220 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

that the positions were irreconcilable. Muhammad ‘Ah argued that

while he himself had no sympathy for ‘Nechari’ (Sir Sayyid
Ahmad’s) or Ahl-e Hadis or Shi'i views— and he was taking steps to
ensure that the Shi'is did not make statements distressing to Sunni
members, as they had done in previous meetings— the inclusion of
all these different Muslim groups within the Nadwa was nevertheless
‘necessary’ or ‘expedient’. In his view, new groups such as the Ahl-e
Hadis would not have become as numerous or as influential as they
were if the ‘ulama’ had simply ignored them at the outset, w hen
they were but a handful. By opposing them, the ‘ulama’ had merely
helped to publicize their beliefs, and thereby helped spread their
movement. In saying this, he implied that Ahmad Riza’s opposition,
too, was counterproductive, and that quiet persuasion w ould be
more effective. Second, present disputes with other Muslim groups
were distracting the ‘ulama’ from the more important task o f ‘erasing
the dishonour’ with which they were regarded by the ‘kafir rulers’.72
Given the appalling state into which Muslims had fallen, w hen ‘our
enemies laugh at us and at our pure m azhab,. . . [our] disgraceful
quarrels should be set aside’. In short, it was against their best interest
(khilaf-e maslahat) to exclude any Muslim group from the Nadwa,
because they needed to unite and strenghen their position against
the British government.
Ahmad Riza completely rejected this interpretation o f maslahat,
or ‘benefit’, ‘interest’. In his view, by bringing Sunnis and ‘bad-
mazhabs’ under one platform, the Nadwa was engaged in that which
was absolutely contrary to the Muslims’ best interest as spelt out in
Q ur’an, hadis, and the writings o f the founders o f the law schools.
Quoting Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi from the Maktubat, to the effect
that ‘the harm done by a single mubtadi* (innovator, heretic) is
greater than that done by a hundred kafirs’, he asked: ‘Maulana, do
you . . . and the leaders of the Nadwa know the best interest in din
and mazhab better, or does the Shaikh Mujaddid?’73 And, catalogu­
ing a long list o f statements by which the Ahl-e Sunnat had been
‘slandered’ at past meetings o f the Nadwa, he asked rhetorically: ‘In

72 Ibid., pp. 11-15.

73 Maktubat-e Imam Riza Khan, pp. 90-1.
 77ie Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 221

which direction does the benefit lie (maslahat kis tarafhai)V74 In fact,
the Nadwa was no longer entitled to its name, ‘Nadwa’ or ‘Council’
o f ‘ulama’, given its opposition to the ‘ulama’ o f the Ahl-e Sunnat.
It was now better suited to »be a meeting seeking (religious?)
freedom, as so many others were, in association with the followers
o f Sir Sayyid Ahmad (‘nechari sahib[s]’).75
By the time the Nadwa held its next annual session at Bareilly
some months later, a veritable ‘storm o f opposition’ had broken out.
Ahmad Riza alone is said to have written approximately two
hundred anti-Nadwa works over the next few years.76 Several were
collections o f fatawa, circulated to ‘ulama’ around the country and
printed with their confirmatory opinions and seals at the end.
Statements were taken from one or other o f the Nadwa’s annual
reports, and posed as a question (istifta). An influential set o f fatawa
was one entitled Fatawa al-Qudwa li-Kashf Dajin al-Nadwa (Ex­
emplary Fatawa to Reveal the Nadwa’s Secret), which was signed
by more than fifty ‘ulama’ from places as far apart as Bombay,
Allahabad, and Delhi, apart from smaller towns like Bareilly,
Muradabad, and Rampur. A number o f the questions dealt with
relations between different Muslim groups. For instance, was it
correct to say that Shi‘i—Sunni differences were exaggerated, given
that both groups agreed on love o f the Prophet, his family, and the
Companions?77 Was it true, as the Nadwa claimed, that the person
with the greatest taqwa (religious fear) was closest to Allah, regardless
o f his or her mazhab (group affiliation)?78 O r again, should Muslims

74 Ibid., pp. 93-4.

75 Ib id This com m ent probably points to the fact that large numbers o f ‘ulama’ had
begun to leave the Nadwa, as a result o f the aggressive anti-Nadwa initiative o f leaders like
Ahmad Riza. As we shall see, several were soon to form an organization o f their own.
76 Al-Hasani, Sirat-e Maulana Sayyid Muhammad Mungeri, p. 175.
77 This was answered, here and elsewhere, in the negative. Ahmad Riza said that the
Shi'is denied some o f the zaruriyat-e din and were therefore kafirs. Fatawa al-Qudwa
li-Kashf Dafin al-Nadwa, pp. 6-7. Also see M uhamm ad ‘Abd ur-Razzaq Makki
Haidarabadi’s Fatawa al-Suntta li-Iljam al-Fitna, p. 8.
78 Taqwa had nothing to do with ‘aqa’id, came the reply. If there was fisq (falsehood)
in o ne’s ‘aqa’id (or mazhab, the same thing in Ahmad R iza’s usage) no amount o f pious
conduct could alter the fact that one was a bad-mazhab, gumrah, and bad-din. Fatawa
al-Qudwa li-Kashf Dafin al-Nadwa, pp. 3-4.
222 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

o f one group desist from characterizing those o f another group as

mushrik, bid‘ad, gumrah, or fasiq?79
As the signatures at the end o f Ahmad Riza’s fatawa indicate, he
was by no means alone in his denunciations o f the Nadwa. Maulana
‘Abd ul-Qadir Badayuni was also most forcefully opposed. Among
the many publications o f this period is one in which ‘Abd ul-Qadir
is reported to have met Maulana Lutf Ullah Aligarhi, w ho had
chaired the Nadwa’s Bareilly meeting, and got his signature to an
anti-Nadwa fatwa. Charges were later made that the fatwa had been
wrongly represented to Lutf Ullah, to which ‘Abd ul-Q adir even­
tually replied, among other things, by challenging Lutf Ullah Aligarhi
to a mubahala.80 Apparendy Ahl-e Sunnat leaders and repre­
sentatives continued to communicate with Lutf Ullah even after he
left for Haidarabad to serve under the Nizam shortly thereafter.
According to Ahl-e Sunnat sources, Lutf Ullah indicated to them
that while Ahmad Riza’s opinions were essentially ‘correct’ (from a
jurist’s point o f view), they were ‘against the exigencies o f the times’
(muqtaza-e waqt ke khilafhain).sx
The high point o f Ahl-e Sunnat writing against the Nadwa
(which included posters, poems, and risalas, in addition to fatawa)
was, undoubtedly, Ahmad Riza’s Fatawa al-Haramain bi-Rajf Nadwat
al-Main which was published in 1900 (AH 1317) w ith the tasdiq
(confirmatory opinions) o f sixteen ‘ulama’ from Mecca, and seven
from Medina. In this fatwa, Ahmad Riza had argued that the Nadwis
were ‘bad-mazhabs’, who were misleading ordinary Muslims and
creating yet another group in opposition to the Ahl-e Sunnat.82
Among the ‘ulama’ who confirmed his opinions were tw o muftis

79 Ahmad R iza’s reply to this was that no Muslim should call another a mushrik; but
all groups apart from the A hl- e Sunnat were bid'ad. Ibid., p. 6.
80 Yohanan Friedmann, in Prophecy Continuous, pp. 197-8, explains that the literal
m eaning o f mubahala is ‘an act o f cursing each other’, and defines it as ‘a procedure in
which two opponents in a debate invoke the curse o f Allah on the person w h o is wrong’.
Sayyid Ikhlas Husain Sahaswani Chishd Nizami, Hadis-e Jankah Mufti L u tf Ullah (A
H eart-R ending Calamity concerning Mufti L utf Ullah), especially pp. 13-14. As Lutf
Ullah refused to respond to the challenge, the mubahala never took place.
81 Fatawa al-Qudwa li-Kashf Dafin al-Nadwa, pp. 17-19.
82 See discussion eadier in this chapter, in the context o f the concept o f ‘zaruriyat-c
din’, for m ore detailed treatm ent o f this fatwa collection.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 223

o f Mecca (one o f them Shafi'i, the other Hanafi) and several teachers
at the Haram mosque. In this fatwa, Ahmad Riza set a pattern to be
followed some years later in a more dramatic fashion, with a bitter
‘fatwa war’ against the Deobandis culminating in his getting confir­
matory opinions from the Haramain, thereby considerably bolster­
ing his authority at home.
If the Ahl-e Sunnat’s anti-Nadwa efforts had been confined to
writing and publication, that alone would have remarkable. By the
end o f the nineteenth century, however, a new phase in the
m ovem ent’s history was inaugurated with the creation o f the
‘Majlis-e Ahl-e Sunnat wajama‘at’, a forum for the annual gathering
together o f ‘ulama’ much the same way as the Nadwat al-‘Ulama’
was. Its sole purpose was opposition to the Nadwa.
Although the Ahl-e Sunnat organization appears to have first met
at Bareilly (perhaps in the immediate aftermath o f the Nadwa
meeting in that town in 1896), its centre o f activity soon shifted to
Patna in the state of Bihar. To have art eastern centre rather than a
western one based in Bareilly, was in fact a logical choice, given that
the Nadwa itself was centred in places such as Lucknow (where it
had established a Dar al-‘Ulum in 1898), and Kanpur (at the Madrasa
Faiz-e ‘Amm). The Nadwa’s influence could thus be understood to
be strong in the eastern region. Or, as one Ahl-e Sunnat source had
it, the ‘plague’ o f the Nadwa had reached such proportions in Patna
and its environs that a collective effort by the ‘doctors o f the shari‘a
and the physicians o f din and millat’ became necessary in order to
eradicate it. In June 1897 (25 Muharram 1315) the Ahl-e Sunnat
‘ulama’ o f Patna met for the first time.83 This meeting was a
forerunner to the first major meeting o f the Majlis-e Ahl-e Sunnat
wajama'at, in Rajab 1318/October 1900, attended by ‘ulama’ from
all over the country.
The creation o f the Majlis-e Ahl-e Sunnat was itself part o f a
larger multi-faceted organizational effort mounted by Qazi ‘Abd
ul-Wahid Azimabadi of Patna to promote Ahl-e Sunnat interests.84

83 Makhzan-e Tahqiq, m ore commonly known as Tuhfa-e Hanafiyya, vol. 1, no. 1, Jamadi
al-Awwal 1315/Septem ber 1897, pp. 9-10.
84 Few biographical details appear to be available about Qazi ‘Abd ul-W ahid, whose
name is absent from Rahm an ‘Ali’s Tazkira-e 'Ulama'-c Hind (Karachi, 1964), as well as
224 iJevotumal Liam and Politics in British India

It coincided with hu founding o f the Madrasa Hanafiyya (the formal

opening o f which probably took place on the occasion o f the
Majliv-e Ahl-e Sunnat meetings in October 1900). Qazi ‘Abd ul-
Wahid was the school’s first muhtamim (manager). Wasi Ahmad
Muhaddis Surati was its sadr mudarris (principal) for the first tw o
yean, leaving his own madrasa in Pihbhit in order to set up this new
one on a sound footing. Qazi ‘Abd ul-Wahid had also started the
monthly journal Tuhfa-e Hanafiyya in 1897, in which and-Nadwa
writings figured prominendy. This paper continued to be published
unni about 1910.85 Early lists o f the buyers o f the Tuhfa-e Hanafiyya
indicated that it enjoyed the support o f a number o f the local
landowning and government-employed Muslim élite o f the N orth-
Western Provinces and Oudh, and Bihar.86
From the first, the Majlis-e Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama'at adopted the
aggressive strategy o f holding its annual meetings (generally lasting
about a week) at the same time as, and in the same town as, the
Nadwa. Its first meetings, held in Patna in 1900, thus took place side
by side with those o f the Nadwa. A list o f participants attached to
its published report shows that this first Majlis was attended by all
the leading ‘ulama’ o f the Ahl-e Sunnat: ‘Abd ul-Qadir Badayuni,
Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi, Wasi Ahmad Surati, and ‘Abd us-Salam
Jabalpuri, among others. The total number was about a hundred;
the sadr, or ‘chair’, was taken by ‘Abd us-Samad Sahaswani.87

M ahm ud Ahmad Qadri's Tazkira-e 'Ulama’-e Ahl-e Sunnat (Muzaffarpur, Bihar:

Khanqah Qadiriya Ashrafiyya, 1391/1971). Brief m ention may be found in Hasnain
Riza Khan, Si rat-e A la Hazrat, p. 113. Qazi ‘Abd ul-W ahid was a ra’is (‘person o f
^authority’, notable) o f Patna, at those home Ahmad Riza stayed w hen attending the
Majlis meetings in 1900.
H5 Khwaja Razi Haidar, Tazkira-e Muhaddis Surati, pp. 7 8 -9 . T he Tuhfa-e Hanafiyya
lasted until shordy after Qazi 'Abd ul-W ahid’s death in 1908. T he last volume 1 have
been able to trace is vol. 13, dated Sa&r 1327/February 1910.
M* Tuhfa-e Hanafiyya, vol. 1, nos. 4-5, Sha‘ban-Ramazan 1315/Dec. 1897-Jan. 1898,
last 4 pages o f journal. O f the 119 persons listed, 43 were styled ‘ra’is’ or ‘ra’is-e V zam ’;
some had governm ent tides such as *wakil\ ‘honourary magistrate’, ‘station master’,
‘municipal commissioner’, or ‘tahsildar*; finally there were several imams o f mosques.
See C hapter III.
Unfortunately, 1 have not been able to see the report. Brought out by 4Abd ul-W ahid
Axinubadi. it was entided Darbar-e Haqq o Hidayat (Patna: M atba4 Hanafiyya,
1318/1900), and was approximately 160 pp. long.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 225

Ahmad Riza addressed the gathering in a sermon (wa‘z) on the

Prophet’s light, and the meaning o f faith (iman).88 Faith had two
pillars, he said: Allah was the first pillar and the Prophet the second.
Allah had created the jinn, and men, that they may worship Him.
But He himselfneither benefited by their worship, nor was diminished
by their failure to do so. He had commanded it because it was a
measure o f people’s obedience to the Prophet. Worship o f Allah
strengthened love o f the Prophet, as exemplified by ‘Ali who once
missed saying his prayer because the Prophet had fallen asleep on his
lap, and Abu Bakr, who allowed himself to be bitten by a snake
rather than wake the Prophet.89 ‘Such respect and love were the
self-sacrificing devotion of the moth for the candle o f prophethood’.90
Ahmad Riza then spoke o f Muhammad being the distributor o f
Allah’s bounty:
T he Prophet said, ‘I am the distributor, and Allah is the giver’. From the first
day until today, and from today until the last d ay ,. . . whatever blessings have
been received, or will be received, were and will be distributed by the hand
o f Mustafa. D in and millat, Islam and sunna, virtue and prayer, devotion and
purity, knowledge and gnosis, all these dini blessings have been distributed by
him; in the same way, the worldly blessings o f wealth and property, cure and
health, respect and dignity, power and rulership, and children, were also
received from him .91

Such blessings cannot be reciprocated. One can only be grateful,

devoted and humble. And this in turn invites further blessings, as
were received by Abu Bakr and ‘Ah.92
Ahmad Riza had been discoursing at length on Abu Bakr’s

88 R eprinted in full in Zafar ud-D in Bihari’s Hayat-e A 1a Hazrat, pp. 113-31.

89 Ibid., pp. 118-20. These two incidents are based on hadis. T he Prophet rectified the
damage. In ‘Ali’s case, he ordered the sun, which had set by the time he awoke, to
return, so that ‘Ali could offer his prayer; and in Abu Bakr’s, he spat on the snake-bite
and made him well.
90 Ibid., p. 120.
91 Ibid., p. 121.
92 Abu Bakr’s behaviour (suluk) toward the Prophet was said to be superior to that o f
all others—consequently he received the h o n o u r o f becom ing the P ro p h e t’s
father-in-law; ‘Ali received the blessing o f being brought up by the Prophet in his
childhood and later married the Prophet’s daughter, Fatima. Ahmad Riza insisted,
how ever, on Abu Bakr’s superiority to ‘Ali. Ibid., p. 123.
226 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

superiority over ‘AH when he learned that some Nadwis had joined
the audience. From then on he spoke along now-familiar lines of
argument against the Nadwa. He also rebutted the latest Nadwi
charges that his own anti-Nadwa fatwa, ostensibly approved by
‘ulama’ o f the Haramain, had in fact been signed by Indian ‘ulama’
on hajj. The sermon, which had started at eight in the evening,
continued well past midnight.93
The efforts of the ‘ulama’ of the Ahl-e Sunnat to weaken the
Nadwa continued forcefully for several yean. In December 1901,
the Majlis-e Ahl-e Sunnat met at Calcutta, again in conjunction with
the Nadwa’s annual meeting there.94 The persistent opposition it
represented was at least partially responsible for the loss o f the
influence o f the Nadwa, and the withdrawal o f the Shi‘is, and those
from Aligarh, from its membership.95

A hmad R iz a as t h e M u ja d d id o f t h e H ijr i Fourteenth C entury

It was during the debates surrounding Ahl-e Sunnat differences with

the Nadwis that a number o f Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ made the
remarkable claim that Ahmad Riza was the mujaddid (renewer) of
the Hijri fourteenth century. In the course o f the Ahl-e Sunnat
meeting at Patna in 1900, Maulana ‘Abd ul-Muqtadir Badayuni, the
sajjada-nishin of the Khanqah-e Qadiriyya at Badayun, referred to
Ahmad Riza in his sermon as the ‘mujaddid o f the present [i.e.
fourteenth Hijri] century’.96 Zafar ud-Din Bihari wrote that all those

93 See ibid., pp. 124-31.

94 A report o f the Ahl-e Sunnat meeting, entided Darbar-e Sarapa-e Rahmat, was
published by M uham m ad Zia’ ud-D in, m uhtamim o f the Tuhfa-e Hanafiyya at Patna,
in 1319/1901.
95 See Metcalf, Islamic Revival, pp. 3 4 2 - 4, for the many reasons for the N adw a’s loss of
support.
96 N o t having been able to locate the report of this meeting, ‘Abd ul-M uqtadir’s sermon
was not available to me, nor were the reactions o f other participants. Secondary sources
refer to the event, however. My source here is Zafar ud-D in Bihari, Chaudltwin Sadi ke
Mujaddid (Lahore: Maktaba Rizwiyya, 1980), p. 66. (Although recendy published, the
work must have been written before the early 1950s, the time o f Zafar u d -D in ’s death.
In view o f Zafar ud-D in's close association with Ahmad Riza Khan, I regard it as a
reliable source.)
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 227

present at the meeting accepted the title, and that later thousands o f
others, including several ‘ulama’ o f the Haramain, did so. Thus there
was ijma‘ (consensus) among the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama'at on the
question.97
The proclamation o f Ahmad Riza as the mujaddid o f the Hijri
fourteenth century at this meeting occurred at a time when ‘ulama’
who identified themselves as Ahl-e Sunnat were strongly united in
condemnation o f the Nadwat al-‘Ulama’. Ahmad Riza had written
extensively in its rebuttal, and it was not surprising that his personal
influence should have grown considerably as a result. The formation
o f the Majlis was also a major new development, lending coherence
to previously individual and uncoordinated opinions on the Nadwa.
Each o f these factors seems to have played a part in Ahmad Riza’s
emergence at this time as the intellectual centre o f the new move­
ment.
As he and his followers saw it, of course, their movement was
not new: their main purpose being to revive the Prophet’s sunna,
they were following in the footsteps of the Prophet and his Com ­
panions, and thereby reviving the ‘old’ way. For the same reason,
the term ‘founder’ was— as it is today—rejected as a way of describing
Ahmad Riza’s relationship to the movement. To the ‘ulama’ attend­
ing the Ahl-e Sunnat meetings, the term ‘mujaddid’, on the other
hand, must have seemed to perfectly describe the role Ahmad Riza
had come to play, while at the same time being a means of
commenting on all that they collectively found wrong with the
Muslim community of their day.
The concept o f the mujaddid is based, as Zafar ud-Din Bihari
indicated, on the hadis from Abu Da’ud in which the Prophet is
reported to have said, ‘on the eve o f every century Allah will send
to this community a person who will renew its religion’.98 As is well
known, the need for renewal is premised on the Muslim belief that

97 Ibid., pp. 68-71. Zafar ud-D in Bihari cited the opinions o f some ‘ulama’ o f the
Haramain w ho certified Ahmad R iza’s 1906 fatawa, Husam al-Haramain and Daulat
al-Makkiyya. These fatawa will be discussed in Chapter VIII.
98 Zafar ud-D in Bihari, Chaudhwin Sadi he Mujaddid, p. 33; for an analysis o f the concept
of tajdid (renewal), see Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous, pp. 94-101. Also see discussion
on the relationship betw een tajdid and ijtihad in Chapter VI above.
228 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

‘an almost unarrestable process o f decline’ set in im m ediately after

the death o f the Prophet Muhammad, in whose lifetime ‘divine will
[had been] embodied in the most perfect fashion’.99 T he process of
decline could, however, be temporarily reversed by the appearance,
once every hundred years, o f the renewer or mujaddid w h o would
*reviv[e] the beliefs and customs o f the prophetic age’.100
Among the conditions necessary for one to qualify as mujaddid,
Zafar ud-Din wrote, were that the man (it could not be a woman)
be a Sunni of sound belief, an ‘alim who combined in him self all
the sciences and skills ( ‘ulum ofunun kajam i’), that he be well known
(‘the most famous among the celebrated o f his age’), a protector of
din unfettered by fear of going against prevailing ‘innovations’, and
learned in shari‘a and tariqa (sufism). He also had to satisfy the
technical requirement that he be well known by the end o f the
century in which he was bom, and at the beginning o f that in which
he was to die.101 In fact, failure to appear at the right time disqualified
an otherwise acceptable person. According to Zafar ud-D in, Shah
Wali Ullah (1115-76/1703-62) could not be a mujaddid because
he was bom and died in the Hijri twelfth century, thus failing to
span two centuries. Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (1201-47/1786-1831)
was disqualified for the same reason.102 Ahmad Riza, on the other

99 Friedmann, p. 95.
100 Ibid., p. 100. Friedmann indicates that the concept o f tajdid was initially associated
with the eschatological expectation o f the end of die world and Judgment Day, in that the
appearance o f the mujaddid was instrumental in postponingjudgment Day. H ow ever, the
tw o ideas gradually became dissociated. In his view, Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, know n as
the ‘R enew er o f the Second M illenium ’, restored the eschatological connection o f the
concept o f the mujaddid. For Sirhindi, see Friedmann, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, pp.
13-21. T here is no evidence in Ahmad R iza’s writings, as far as I can tell, o f his having
associated the concepts ofjudgm ent Day (qiyamat) and the coming o f the mujaddid.
101 Zafar ud-D in Bihari, Chaudhivin Sadi he Mujaddid, p. 34. O n this last issue, Friedmann
writes: ‘Considerable attention is devoted to the question o f exacdy w hen the mujaddid
should appear in order to qualify for the tide . . . . It has become accepted that the
m ujaddid should be a well-known scholar at the end o f a century and should die in the
first years o f the next one. Doubts were cast on the status o f persons w ho w ere suggested
as m ujaddidun if their death occurred later than the second decade’. Friedm ann, Prophecy
Continuous, pp. 98-9.
102 Zafar ud-D in Bihari, pp. 39, 41. It should be noted, however, that the A hl-e Sunnat
had serious differences with Sayyid Ahm ad’s vision o f Islam, and in particular with that
 The Ahl-e Sunnat and Other Muslims 229

hand, did span two Islamic centuries, having been born in

1272/1856, and died in 1340/1921.103
The Ahl-e Sunnat saw Ahmad Riza as having succeeded Shah
‘Abd ul-‘Aziz, Shah Wali Ullah’s eldest son, as mujaddid. Shah ‘Abd
u l-‘Aziz, as mujaddid o f the Hijri thirteenth century, was said to
have had all the necessary qualities o f learning, piety, and fame
among the ‘ulama’ both in India and in the Arab lands. He was a
brilliant teacher of hadis, and writer o f fatawa. Moreover, he had
dissociated himself from the movement o f Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi
and Shah Muhammad Isma'il. W hen Muhammad Isma'il wrote the
book Taqwiyat al-Iman (Strengthening the Faith), he was unable to
write a rebuttal to it, being then a blind man in old age. However,
had he not been so weak it is said that he would have done so.104
Zafar ud-Din recognized (as does the classical theory o f tajdid)
that there could be more than a single mujaddid in any one century.
Sometimes there was no consensus on any one person. This was,
indeed, the situation in late nineteenth and early twentieth century
British India, in which different Muslim groups looked to different
people as the mujaddid of the century. The Deobandis looked to
Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (though he himself apparendy suggested
that the term could be applied to a group o f ‘ulama’ rather than a
single individual), while the founder o f the Ahmadi movement
claimed that he was the mujaddid.105
Disputation about the validity of rival claims to the mujaddid tide,
however, arose to some degree from the very commonalities shared
by the movements o f the period. While their vision o f the ideal
society differed, movements such as the Deobandi and the Ahl-e

o f M uhamm ad Isma'il, who was Shah Wali UUah’s grandson and Sayyid Ahmad's
disciple. They would thus have refused to accept Sayyid Ahmad as a mujaddid on other
grounds. W ith regard to Shah Wali Ullah too, they had reservations, saying, for instance,
that his writings could not be relied upon as they had been changed by others since his
death. See ‘Introduction* to Zafar ud-D in Bihari’s Chaudhwin Sadi ke Mujaddid, p. 18.
103 His death would have been considered ‘late’, however, in accordance with classical
theory. See note 100 above.
104 Zafar ud-D in Bihari, Chaudhwin Sadi ke Mujaddid, pp. 50-5. For the Ahl-e Sunnat
interpretation o f Sayyid Ahm ad’s m ovem ent, and their view o f M uham m ad Isma'iTs
Taqwiyat al-Iman, see Chapter VIII.
105 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, pp. 138-9; Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous, pp. 107-8.
 I

230 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Sunnat were at one in their desire to bring a b o u t a morally

self-conscious society, guided by the Prophet’s su n n a and other
sources o f Islamic law.106 Despite differences o f o p in io n ab o u t Shah
Wali Ullah’s contribution to the task of tajdid, b o th movements
revered his successor Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz and adopted aspects of his
teaching. Paradoxically, then, these common roots a n d purposes
were perhaps responsible to some degree for the sense o f deep divide
that separated the Ahl-e Sunnat and Deobandi ‘u lam a’. In the
following chapter, I turn to examination o f the n atu re o f their
differences.

106 See Metcalf, blamic Revival, p. 314: ‘In feet, [despite their d iffe re n c es]. . . these
groups were concerned w ith the Law and with devotion to the P ro p h et; a n d .. •
expressed their beliefs in a self-conscious oppositional style’.
 Chapter VIII

The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis

and ‘Wahhabis’

In 1906, Ahmad Riza Khan addressed some Meccan ‘ulama’ in his

fatwa Husam al-Haramain ‘ala Manhar al-Kufi wa’l Main (The Sword
o f the Haramain at the Throat of Kufr and Falsehood), as follows:
Tell me clearly w hether you think these leaden ofheresy are as I have portrayed
them . . . , and if so, whether the judgm ent [of kufr] that I have passed on them
is appropriate . . . some ignorant people, in whose hearts faith has not lodged
itself, claim that because they are ‘ulama’ and maulawis the shari‘a calls upon
us to respect them— even though they are Wahhabis, and even though they
insult Allah and the Prophet.1

The ‘leaders o f heresy* referred to in the above passage were

well-known ‘ulama’ in early twentieth-century British India: Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad o f Qadiyan, the first on Ahmad Riza’s list of kafirs,
was the founder o f the Ahmadiyya movement. The others— Rashid
Ahmad Gangohi, Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi, Ashraf ‘Ali
Thanawi, and Khalil Ahmad Ambethwi—were leading figures at the
Dar al-‘Ulum at Deoband or in affiliated institutions. In this fatwa,
originally written in 1902, all but Mirza Ghulam Ahmad were
described as ‘Wahhabis’, a word frequendy encountered in the then
current literature of the Ahl-e Sunnat in reference to ‘ulama’ with
Deobandi or Ahl-e Hadis affiliations.

1 A hm ad R iza Khan, Husam al-Haramain ‘ala Manhar al-Kufi wa'l Main (Lahore:
M aktuba Nabawiyya, 1985), p. 10. Originally written in 1323/1905-6.
232 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

The judgment o f kufr passed in Husam al-Haramain in 1906 2 was

a highly public one, delivered in Mecca while Ahmad R iza was on
his second hajj. Despite Ahmad Riza’s unrelenting opposition to
numerous groups of Muslims, among them the Twelver Shi'is and
the organization o f ‘ulama’ known as the Nadwat al-‘Ulam a’ ex­
amined in the previous chapter, it was only in 1902, and again in
1906 when Husam was written, that he had accused specific persons
of kufr. Hitherto he had written in general terms of various groups of
Muslims being either bad-mazhab (those whose beliefs were ‘wrong’),
or gumrah (‘lost’, on the wrong path), or murtadd (apostates from Islam),
based on whether or not they had, as he interpreted it, denied any of
the ‘fundaments’ of belief (zaruriyat-e din). Though he had used the
term kafir in this context, it had not been personally directed. There
was no specific takfir (declaration o f someone as kafir) involved.
It was thus o f some consequence that Ahmad Riza should have
accused the ‘ulama’ named in Husam al-Haramain o f kufr, and have
presented this fatwa to certain ‘ulama’ in Mecca and Medina for their
seals and signatures (tasdiqat), whereby they signalled approval o f his
opinion.3 He himself regarded the takfir o f another Muslim with
great seriousness. Experts in the law (fuqaha), he wrote, had enjoined
restraint in making a charge o f kufr as long as any possibility existed
that a statement that seemed on the face o f it to involve kufr may
not have been intended that way, that another, perfectly ‘Islamic’
(as opposed to kufr-laden) interpretation of the statement may have
been meant.4
Nevertheless, and on the face o f it in contradiction o f the above
principle (in fact not so, seen in Ahl-e Sunnat terms), Ahmad Riza
wrote that when confronted with one who ‘ascribes lies to Allah or
decreases the glory o f the leader o f prophets’, such search for

2 In feet, Husam al-Haramain was written in 1902, in the form o f a com m entary (shaih)
on Fazl-e Rasul Badayuni’s Al-Mu'tamad al-Mutttaqid. Originally in Arabic, entitled
Al-M u 'tamad al-Mustanad, it was probably not widely know n before its reissuance in
Mecca in 1905-6.
3 Some o f these ‘ulama’ had previously signed Ahmad Riza’s earlier fatwa against the
Nadw at al-'Ulama*. See Malfuzat-e A ‘la Hazrat, vol. 2, p. 7.
4 Ahmad R iza Khan, Tamhid al-lman ba-Ayat al-Qur‘att (Bombay: Raza Academ y, n.d.),
pp. 33-5. Originally written in 1326/1908.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and 'Wahhabis’ 233

intended meaning was unnecessary, for this was a clearcut case o f

kufr. Failure to acknowledge such a person as kafir, or doubt o f such
a person’s kufr, resulted in the denier or doubter of kufr becoming
a kafir as well.5 Because offences o f this nature (denigrating Allah or
the Prophet Muhammad) were against the ‘fundaments’ of religion,
even if a person’s faith (‘aqida) was within the bounds o f Islam in
every other respect, in Ahmad Riza’s view the person was a kafir.
As he put it rather graphically, ‘If you put one drop o f urine in nine
hundred and ninety-nine drops of rose water, it will all become
urine. But these ignorant people say that if you put one drop o f rose
water in nine hundred and ninety-nine drops o f urine it will all
become pure’.6 Seen in this light, everything hinged on whether or
not a statement constituted denial o f a ‘fundament’ o f belief.
The Deobandis and others, however, saw their faith in different
terms. After Hus am was written in 1905-6, the Deobandis countered
Ahmad Riza’s fatwa with fatawa of their own, collecting signatures
from ‘ulama’ in the three north Indian princely states o f Tonk,
Bhopal, and Bahawalpur, as well as British north India, testifying
that the Deobandis were Sunni Hanafi Muslims.7 The Ahl-e Sunnat
likewise gathered signatures from other ‘ulama’ in support o f their
position. In short, there was a ‘fatwa war’.
Detailed analysis ofHusam provides a useful entrée into the nature
o f the Ahl-e Sunnat’s differences with Deoband. It also enables us
to approach related issues such as the Ahl-e Sunnat use o f the term
‘W ahhabi’, and, most important, Ahl-e Sunnat prophetology. As
preceding chapters have suggested, it was the Prophet who really
held the key to the Ahl-e Sunnat perspective on what it was to be
a ‘good’ Muslim. And it was differing conceptions o f the Prophet,
as well, that lay at the heart o f Ahl-e Sunnat denunciation o f the
Deobandis.

5 Ibid., p. 35. Although Ahmad Riza docs not explicidy say this, the other side o f the
same coin is that a person who wrongly accuses another o f kufr himselfbecomes a kafir,
as in the following hadis: ‘If a Muslim charges a fellow Muslim with kufr, he is him self
a kafir, if the accusation should prove untrue’. There no discussion in this fatwa o f types
o f kufr, but see W . Bjorkman, ‘Kafir’, in E12, pp. 407-8.
6 Tamhid al-¡matt, p. 33.
7 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 310.
234 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

T he C harges o f K u fr in H u s am al- H a r a m a in

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder o f the Ahmadiyya movement, was

in a category all by himself in Husam al-Haramain. Condemned as
the Antichrist (dajjat) inspired by Satan, his kufr was believed to be
greater than that o f the other ‘ulama’ mentioned. Ahmad Riza’s
opinion was based on a number of claims made by Ghulam Ahmad,
among them the fact that he was ‘like the Messiah’ (Jesus Christ),
and that, having received revelations from Allah, he was a kind of
prophet:
In the beginning, he claimed to be ‘like the Messiah*. Allah, in this he spoke
the truth, because he is like the Antichrist, the liar. Then he began to elevate
himself still more, and claimed to have received revelation. And Allah, in this
too he is truthful, because Allah says that in the assembly o f devils there is one
among them who is inspired by Satan, whose inspiration is false and deceptive
. . . . Then he made an unambiguous claim to prophecy (nabuwwat) and
messengership (risalat), writing that Allah is He who sent His messenger to
Qadiyan, and asserted that a verse had been revealed to him that says, W e sent
him to Qadiyan, and sent him with the truth. He also asserted that he was the
Ahmad whom Jesus had predicted would come [after him as the next prophet]
. . . Then he began to say that he was better than all the other prophets and
messengers: forget about Ibn-e Maryam [Jesus], Ghulam Ahmad is better than
he.8

O f all the claims made by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (and there were
others, such as his declaration that he was the mujaddid or renewer
o f the fourteenth Hijri century9), the one that incensed Ahmad Riza
and other Indian ‘ulama’ the most was his assertion that he was a
‘shadowy’ (zillt) prophet.10This appeared to a large number o f Sunni
‘ulama’ to direcdy deny the Muslim belief that Muhammad was the
‘seal o f the prophets’ (khatam al-nabiyyin). (Much later, it was on the
basis of this alleged denial that under the terms o f a constitutional

8 Ahmad Riza Khan, Husam al-Haramain, p. 12.

9 For m ore on this and other claims advanced by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, see Friedmann,
Prophecy Continuous, pp. 107-17.
10 As Friedmann explains in Prophecy Continuous, Ghulam Ahmad’s interpretation o f
prophecy was deeply influenced by Ibn al-‘Arabi’s belief in the continuous existence o f
prophecy in the Muslim community. Ibid., pp. 7 2 -5 , and passim.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and ' Wahhabis’ 235

amendment in Pakistan in 1973 Ahmadis were declared to be

non-Muslims.)
In addition to his prophetic claim, Ghulam Ahmad had also
angered Ahmad Riza (and other ‘ulama’) by offering an interpreta­
tion ofjesus which was at variance with the Sunni mainstream. He
denied the prevailing Muslim belief that Jesus was alive in heaven
and would return to earth at the end o f days as the Mahdi to defeat
the Antichrist (dajjal), thereby inaugurating a kingdom o f justice on
earth. Against this, Ghulam Ahmad maintained that Jesus was dead,
and that it was he, Ghulam Ahmad, who had been sent by Allah and
Jesus’s spirit to restore the Muslim community to its former glory.11
For Ghulam Ahmad, to believe in Jesus’s second coming was to
acquiesce in Christianity’s claimed superiority to Islam, which it was
one of his principal aims to deny.12 Ironically, the image he evoked
to described Christianity—^the most perfect manifestation o f Satan’13—
was the same one called up by Ahmad Riza in Husam al-Haramaiti
to describe Ghulam Ahmad: the Antichrist inspired by Satan. The
fact that the Qadiyani Ahmadis were subsequendy led by the logic
o f their position to pronounce the judgment ofkufr on non-Ahmadi
Muslims was also of course the mirror opposite o f the Ahl-e Sunnat
stance in relation to those they believed to be deviating from the
‘Sunni’ path.14
Ahmad Riza’s Husam turned next to those described as ‘Wahhabis’:
four different groups of ‘Wahhabis’ were identified, each guilty of

1' Ibid., pp. 111-18. As Friedmann explains, Ghulam Ahmad’s prophetic claim and his
claim that he bore absolute affinity to Jesus were linked aspects o f his prophetology.
12 Ibid., p. 117.
13 Ibid., p. 118.
H It is fascinating that the Ahmadi interpretation oflslam thus led to a logical end point
similar to that o f the Ahl-e Sunnat. In the following passage quoted by Friedmann, the
Qadiyani Ahmadis assert that if persons ‘w ho are called Muslims’ deny ‘a person sent by
Allah to reform the world* after the Prophet Muhammad, ‘they are . . . included among
the ill [the infidels] because they do not fulfil one condition [in order to become true
believers] . . . \ This stand closely resembles Ahmad R iza’s assertion that a Muslim who
denies even one o f the ‘fundaments* o f the faith is not a Muslim. Friedmann’s remark
about the Ahmadis that ‘Faith is, thus, indivisible: even the rejection o f one essential
article places the person outside the pale* (ibid., p. 160) applies equally well to Ahmad
R iza and his followers.
236 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

denigrating Allah or His Prophet in some specific way. T he ‘Wah-

habiyya Imsaliyya’ and the ‘Wahhabiyya Khawatimiyya’ believed,
according to Ahmad Riza, that there exists a prophet like Muham­
mad in every one o f the six levels of the earth beside this o n e ,15 and
that each o f these prophets is a Last and Final Prophet as was
Muhammad. He suggested that these groups thereby denied that
Muhammad was the best prophet of all and that he was unique in
his capacity as the last prophet. Ahmad Riza then charged Maulana
Qasim Nanautawi (1833-79), a leading sufi and a founder o f the
D ar a l-‘U lum at D eoband, w ith denial o f the finality of
Muhammad’s prophethood in a recent work. Nanautawi was
quoted to the effect that although the ignorant were under the
impression that Muhammad is the last prophet in time, the discern­
ing knew that prophetic superiority (fazilat) was unrelated to being
either first or last in time.16 Ahmad Riza’s response to this was that
belief in the temporal finality o f Muhammad’s prophethood was
among the ‘fundaments’ o f belief. Consequendy, those who
belonged to this group were ‘followers o f Satan the rebel (against
God)’ (sarkash shaitan ke chele)}1
The third group o f ‘Wahhabis’ were those Ahmad Riza called

15 Debate on this particular issue, known as imkan-e nazir (the possibility o f an

equal)— or, alternatively, as imtina‘-e nazir (the impossibility o f an equal)— derived from
questions about the transcendence o f Allah, and His ability to produce an o th er prophet
equal in every respect to M uhammad. Isma'il Dehlawi (d. 1831), founder o f the Tariqa-e
M uhammadiyya (on which see below), had argued that this was within Allah’s power,
while Fazl-e Haqq Khairabadi (d. 1862) had denied that even Allah had such power.
Ahmad R iza’s father Naqi ‘Ali Khan, arguing in favour o f Fazl-e H aqq’s position, had
participated in the debate a generation later, against one Amir Ahmad Sahaswani, o f the
Ahl-e Hadis. See Rahm an ‘Ali, Tazkira-e 'Ulama’-e Hind, p. 531. T he debate as set out
by Ahmad R iza in Husam al-Haramain differs from that framed by Isma'il D ehlaw i and
Fazl-e H aqq in that Allah’s transcendence is not m entioned. Instead, the issue is seen
from the vantage point o f the Prophet alone.
16 Friedmann, in his excellent discussion o f the historical changes in the Muslim
interpretation o f the term khatam al-nabiyyin, writes ‘even in the mainstream o f Sunni
literature one can find passages that reflect a certain measure o f uneasiness caused by the
belief that M uham m ad was the last prophet and that the Muslims are the last community
to receive divine revelation’. Prophecy Continuous, p. 78. Perhaps it was in the context
o f such a concern that Nanautawi’s statement was made.
17 Husam al-Haramain, p. 14.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and ' Wahhabis’ 237

the ‘Wahhabiyya Kazzabiyya’, who believed that Allah can he.18The

leader o f this group was said to be Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (d. 1905),
a founder and patron (sarparast) of the Dar al-‘Ulum at Deoband.
Ahmad Riza alleged that he was a follower of Isma'il Dehlawi,
founder of the Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya movement. Ahmad Riza’s
argument against this group was that if one believed that Allah can
lie, one would be inclined to doubt even the first half o f the
profession o f faith (the kalima).
Ahmad Riza’s fourth group, which he called the ‘Wahhabiyya
Shaitaniyya’, were explicidy described as followers o f Satan. Led
once again by Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, this group, he said, believed
that Satan’s (Iblis’s) knowledge was more vast than that o f the
Prophet Muhammad, and that Muhammad’s knowledge o f the
unseen (‘ilm-e ghaib) was only partial. The question o f the Prophet’s
knowledge was one that interested Ahmad Riza deeply. He devoted
the greatest part o f Husam to rejection o f what he viewed as slights
on the Prophet’s knowledge, and wrote extensively in other fatawa
(one o f these, Daulat al-Makkiyya bi’l Madat al-Ghaibiyya, was
written during the same 1905-6 hajj as Husam) in defence o f his
views on the matter. Two more Deobandi ‘ulama’, Khalil Ahmad
Ambethwi19 and Ashraf ‘Ali Thaaawi,20 were singled out and
accused o f kufr for statements they had made in recent writings.

18 This too, like the imkan-e nazir debate, was ultimately about Allah’s transcendental
pow er, which, some maintained, included His ability to lie, though H e voluntarily
refrained from exercising the pow er to do so. Ahmad Riza wrote a lengthy rebuttal to
this position in Subhan al-Subuh ‘an 'Aib Kizb Maqbuh (Praise to the Glorified O ne [in
denial of] the Repulsive Blemish o f Lying), in Fatawa-e Rizuriyya, vol. 6, pp. 212-71.
Originally written in 1307/1889—90.
19 Khalil Ahmad Am bethwi was at the time principal o f the M azahir-e ‘U lum madrasa
at Saharanpur, linked to Deoband. H e was a disciple (murid) o f Maulana Rashid Ahmad
Gangohi. T he book for which Ahmad Riza attacked him in Husam al-Haramain was
Barahin-e Qati 'yya, in which he allegedly said that there was no nass (clear verse o f the
Q u r’an), to support the belief that M uhammad had ‘vast knowledge’ (wus'at-e 'ilm),
though such evidence does exist with regard to the knowledge o f Iblis (Satan).
20 Ashraf ‘Ali Thanaw i was sarparast o f the Dar al-‘U lum at Deoband for several yean,
and was a leading sufi. See Metcalf, pp. 157,203 passim. The book for which Ahmad Riza
took issue with him in Husam was H ifz al-Iman, in which Ashraf ‘Ali had purportedly
said that ‘the sort o f knowledge o f the unseen (‘ilm-e ghaib) that the Prophet has, every
child, madman, animal and four-footed creature has’. Husam al-Haramain, p. 18.
238 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Apart from the space and level o f detail entered into by Ahmad
Riza on the ‘ilm-e ghaib issue, his citation o f sources also indicates
how important it was to him to defend the Prophet on this score.
Central to his argument that Allah had gifted knowledge o f the
unseen to the Prophet21 was this verse from the Q ur’an (72:26, 27):
‘He (alone) knows the Unseen, nor does He make any one ac­
quainted with His mysteries, except an aposde whom He has chosen’
(Yusuf ‘Ali tr.). As Ahmad Riza considered the Prophet M uham ­
mad to be the most beloved o f Allah’s prophets, it followed that
Muhammad must have been one o f the messengers referred to in
these verses. He defended his view, in addition, with quotation from
works offiqh, and rejection of a hadis in which the Prophet is reported
to have said that he didn’t even know what lay behind a wall.22
It is evident from this somewhat simplified summary o f Ahmad
Riza’s takfir o f Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and the Deobandi ‘ulama’
named in Husam that the grounds for the charges related largely
(though not wholly, given the debates centred on Allah’s transcen­
dence) to the Prophet Muhammad. Specifically, Ahmad Riza interpreted
the various statements quoted to imply denial o f M uhammad’s
superiority to all other prophets, denial o f the finality of Muhammad’s
prophethood, belief in the superiority o f Satan’s knowledge to
Muhammad’s, and denial of the fact—indisputable to Ahmad Riza—
that Muhammad had been granted knowledge o f the unseen by
Allah. For these reasons, Ahmad Riza regarded the above ‘ulama’
as kafirs and apostates from Islam (murtadds), followers o f Satan
rather than o f Allah.
The satanic imputation was in fact frequent throughout the fktwa.
The words most used to describe Satan were ‘liar’, ‘false’, and

21 T he w ord ‘gifted’ (*ata) was important to Ahmad Riza, for, as he argued at length in
Daulat al-Makkiyya, it had never been his position that the Prophet had acquired it on
his own. It was failure to make this distincdon, he maintained, that led his opponents
to argue as they did.
22 T he sources cited were ‘Allama Khafaji’s Nasim al-Riyaz and Shihabuddin Ahm ad
b. Hajar M akki’s (d. 1565/66) Afzal al-Qura. T he hadis in question was apparently
m entioned in Barahin-e Qati'yya in defence o f the view denying that M uham m ad had
'ilm -e ghaib. Ahmad Riza maintained that this hadis was baseless (be-ast) and had been
declared to be so by ‘Abd ul-H aqq Muhhadis Dehlawi (d. 1642) in his Madarij
al-Nubuwwa.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and ‘Wahhabis’ 239

‘deceitful’. It comes as no surprise that such epithets should have

been used to describe Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, whom Ahmad Riza
regarded as the worst kafir then living in India.23 It does surprise
one, however, to find that Maulana Qasim Nanautawi, accused o f
denying the temporal finality o f Muhammad’s prophethood, was a
follower of Satan: ‘Satan has planted deceit in their hearts’, Ahmad
Riza wrote of those who accepted Nanautawi’s leadership.24 Mau lanas
Rashid Ahmad Gangohi and Khalil Ahmad Ambethwi were similar­
ly described, for their alleged belief that Satan’s knowledge exceeded
that of the Prophet. In fact, they were said to go so far as to associate
Iblis with Allah.25
Ahmad Riza’s portrayal of Satan as engaged in artfully luring the
believer away from obedience to Allah and His Prophet toward
disobedience and hence kufr26 appears to have been largely based
on hadis literature. As Awn explains in his study o f the Satan m otif
in Islamic literary sources, hadis literature depicts him as ‘evil,
cunning, and wily; his delight is to lead mankind astray’.27 Mankind
experiences Satan as a constant presence throughout life, for he is
‘part o f man’s very lifeblood’.28 One has therefore to be watchful at
all times, waking and sleeping, against Satan’s snares. As Ahmad Riza
saw it, the fact that the ‘ulama’ mentioned in Husam had taken the
positions they had, in alleged denigration o f Allah and the Prophet,

23 As w ith the mujaddid issue examined in the last chapter, Ahmad R iza’s condemnation
o f Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as the dajjal or Antichrist, whose arrival signals the approach
o f the Last Day, raises the interesting question as to w hether he believed the approaching
end to be locally or globally pertinent. There is no discussion o f this in the literature, to
m y knowledge. It seems fair to say, however, that since we are dealing here with the
perception o f spiritual and moral crisis, such issues are perhaps beside the point.
24 Husam al-Haramain, p. 14.
25 Ibid., p. 16.
26 Such portrayals are also to be found in the Malfuzat. In one instance, Ahmad Riza
says that if one eats or drinks w ithout saying ‘Bism’illah’, Satan will enter the food. O r
again, Satan and his followers are portrayed exchanging news with one another at the
end o f the day as to the num ber o f people they were able to lead astray that day. See
Maljuzat, vol. 2, pp. 92-3; vol. 3, pp. 22—4.
27 Peter J. Awn, Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption: Iblis in Sufi Psychology (Leiden: E .J.
Brill, 1983), p. 46.
28 Ibid., p. 47.
240 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

was proof that they had fallen victim to Satan’s wiles. A n d because
following Satan was the antithesis to following Allah and the
Prophet, they were necessarily kafirs.

T he T erm ‘W a h h a b i ’ in its I n d ia n C ontext

Before we can attempt to understand the Ahl-e Sunnat’s use o f the

term ‘W ahhabi’ in Hasam al-Haramain and other writings, it is
necessary to briefly consider the wide application o f this term to a
variety o f nineteenth-century renewal movements in India. The
term ‘Wahhabi’ had its origins, as is well known, in a m ovem ent of
the Muwahhidun led by Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703-
92) in eighteenth-century Nejd.29 W ith patronage and military
support from Muhammad ibn Sa‘ud (d. 1765), the tribal leader of
Dir'iya, the Muwahhidun were gradually able to establish territorial
control over large parts o f the Nejd.
The basic teachings o f the Muwahhidun are well known. Briefly,
as described by Voll,
Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab . . . vigorously rejected the whole structure
o f the Sufi devotional practices as being unwholesome innovations. He
proclaimed that veneration for any human, however saindy, constituted shirk
or polytheism . . . . [he] replaced the pantheistic style o f Sufi theology with a
renewed emphasis on the interpretation o f tawhid, the oneness o f God, that
stressed G od’s transcendence. In that interpretation, there was emphasis on
strict obedience to the word o f God and on the full responsibility o f the
individual believer . . . . Implicit in that position is a rejection o f the unques­
tioning acceptance o f the medieval scholarly authorities, and blind taqlid or
imitation was rejected in examining the importance o f the Q uran and the
Sunnah . . . . the Wahhabi position insisted on the right o f an informed
independent analysis o f the fundamental sources of the faith (ijtihad).30

As Rahman comments, the rejection by Muhammad ibn ‘Abd

al-Wahhab and his followers o f the authority o f the law schools and

29 For an interpretive essay on the unhelpfulness o f the uncritical use o f the term
‘W ahhabi’ to describe diverse Muslim movements, see William R . R off, ‘Islamic
Movements: O ne or Many?’ in William R . R o ff (ed.), Islam and the Political Economy of
Meaning, pp. 31-52.
30 John O bert Voll, Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modem World (Boulder,
Colorado: W estview Press, 1982), p. 61.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and 'Wahhabis' 241

even o f qiyas, the use of analogy to interpret the Q ur’an and sunna,
gave rise to two ‘diametrically opposed’ tendencies, one toward
‘ultra-conservatism and almost absolute literalism’, and the other
toward the encouragement of the exercise of independent reasoning
(ijtihad).31
Numerous nineteenth century renewal movements in India were
named ‘Wahhabi’ by rival Muslim groups. These included, in
Bengal, the Fara’idi movement of the 1820s, and, in Delhi, the
Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya as well as the Ahl-e Hadis, intellectual
heirs to Shah Wali Ullah. Indian Muslim hostility to ‘Wahhabis’ was
largely a response to the Muwahhiduns’ record o f uncompromising
opposition to popular practice, especially in connection with their
demolition o f the tomb over the Prophet’s grave at Medina. Addi­
tionally, in the aftermath of 1857, the term came to be associated in
British circles with ‘sedition’. The Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya leaders
Shah Muhammad Isma'il and Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi, whose con­
cept o f reform will be discussed shortly, began a jihad in the 1820s
which subsequent leaders had kept alive. In the climate o f suspicion
o f Muslim loyalty that dominated British thinking in the years after
1857, the Muhammadiyya leaders’ ‘continuation o f the jihad on the
frontier. . . associated them in the minds o f the British with un­
relenting Muslim discontent’.32 Through the 1860s, therefore, the
British conducted the so-called ‘Wahhabi trials’, finally convicting
certain individuals in 1871.33
The assertion by opponents that one or other group was
‘Wahhabi’ has generally been denied by the group concerned.
Unfortunately, relatively litde has been done thus far to establish
direct and substantive connections between the Muwahhidun move­
ment in Arabia and the Fara’izis, Shah Wali Ullah, the Tariqa-e
Muhammadiyya, or the Ahl-e Hadis. One contribution in this
direction is John VolTs study o f an eighteenth-century intellectual
group in M edina, centred on the scholar M uham m ad Hayya

31 Fazlur R ahm an, Islam, 2nd cd. (Chicago and London: University o f Chicago Press,
1979), p. 198.
32 Pearson,‘Islamic R eform ’, p. 213.
33 Ib id , pp. 215-20.
242 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

al- Sindi.34 An indirect intellectual link between Shah Wall Ullah

and Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab is provided by al-Sindi, a
scholar o f hadis who was in sufi terms a Naqshbandi (as was Shah
Wall Ullah). One of al-Sindi’s teachers, Ibrahim al-Kurani, is known
to have taught Shah Wali Ullah, while al-Sindi himself taught hadis
to Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, among others. W hile there is
no suggestion that Shah Wali Ullah met, or was influenced by,
Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab,35 each can be understood to have
been influenced, in his own way, by the scholarly circle o f al-Sindi.
As Voll elaborates elsewhere, however, participation in a scholar­
ly network does not imply that there was ‘some form o f either
hidden or manifest agreement in doctrine or teachings beyond the
basic common factors o f faith that unite all Muslims’.36 T o th e extent
that there was any unifying vision shared by members o f the
network, Voll suggests that it was in a common concern for
‘sociomoral reconstruction’. Yet, the direction and consequences of
the reforms of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab and Shah Wali
Ullah were clearly different, shaped by their particular local cir­
cumstances.37 Knowledge o f these circumstances is thus centrally
important, as R off points out, to our appreciation o f the under­
standing which different reformers, in historical time and place, have
brought to their chosen task.38
In addition to the connection which scholars, and some Muslim

34 John O . Voll, ‘M uhammad Hayya al-Sindi and M uhammad ibn ‘A bd al-Wahhab:

An Analysis o f an Intellectual Group in Eighteenth-Century M adina’, Bulletin of the
School of Oriental and African Studies, 38 (1975), 32-9.
35 Ibid., pp. 35, 39.
36 John O . Voll, ‘Linking Groups in the Networks o f Eighteenth-C entury Revivalist
Scholars: T he Mizjaji Family in Yem en’, in Nehem iah Levtzion and John O . Voll (eds.),
Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam (Syracuse: Syracuse U niversity Press,
1987), p. 81.
37 Ibid., pp. 7 0 ,7 1 .
38 O f the M uwahhidun, for instance, R o ff writes: ‘T he W ahhabi-Sa‘udi conquest of
Arabia was, o f course, to a considerable degree a matter o f warfare and submission, but
it was warfare invested with moral argument, that made moral claims, and carried moral
teaching . . . . How this teaching meant is likely to elude us unless we can apprehend
both the circumstantial context in which it operated and the discourse that accompanied
its contestation and acceptance’. ‘Islamic M ovements’, p. 36.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deohandis and ‘Wahhabis’ 243

renewers themselves, have assumed to obtain between the Wahhabis

and Shah Wali Ullah, they have also posited a link between the
Muwahhidun and the Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya on the one hand,
and the former and the Fara’izi movement of Bengal on the other.
Ahmad Khan, in his study of the Fara’izi movement, has discussed
the similarities and differences between each o f these movements at
some length. He concludes that while there is undoubtedly ‘a remark­
able similarity’ between the Muwahhidun emphasis on tauhid and that
o f the Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya, ‘there is no historical evidence
o f any contact [between the] Tariqah-i-Muhammadiyah w ith W ah­
habism o f Arabia in its formative stage’.39 As to the Fara’izis, the
differences in teaching between them and the Muwahhidun are
sufficiently numerous and important, in his view, as to preclude the
conclusion that the Fara’izis were an offshoot o f the Arabian
Wahhabis.40
While the historical connection between the Muwahhidun and
the above renewal movements in nineteenth century India is there­
fore dubious, or unclear at best, the term ‘Wahhabi’, as far as one
can tell, has come to stay. As Rahman writes,
W a h h a b is m ...is a k in d o f u m b rella te rm — th e ‘W a h h a b i-Id e a ’— c o v e rin g
a n a lo g o u s ra th e r th a n id entical p h e n o m e n a in th e M u slim w o rld . It m ay b e
s u m m e d u p as a reassertion o f m o n o th e is m an d eq u ality o f m e n c o m b in e d w ith
v a ry in g d egrees o f re in te rp re ta tio n o f th e actual positive legacy o f th e Islam ic
tra d itio n fo r th e re c o n s tru c tio n o f M u slim so ciety .41

It was undoubtedly in the sense o f a ‘positive legacy. . . for the

reconstruction o f Muslim society’ that Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan
regarded the term Wahhabi. He considered the Tariqa-e Muham­
madiyya leader Muhammad Isma'il ‘the founder o f Wahhabeeism
in India’, and on occasion even described himself as a ‘friend’ and
‘well-wisher’ o f ‘Wahhabeeism’.42
For the Ahl-e Sunnat, by contrast, the name ‘Wahhabi’ was
pejorative. I turn below to detailed consideration o f their use o f the

39 M u‘in-ud-D in Ahmad Khan, History of the Fara’idi Movement in Bengal, pp. xlv—xlvi.
40 Ibid., p. li.
41 R ahm an, Islam, 2nd ed., p. 199.
42 Pearson, ‘Islamic R eform ’, pp. 265, 269.
244 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

label, particulaiiy in relation to the Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya and

the Deobandi ‘ulama’.

T he A h l- e Su n n a t and ‘W a h h a b is ’

As we have seen, Ahmad Riza used the term ‘Wahhabi’ to describe

the kinds of kafirs that he believed some Deobandi ‘ulama’ to be.
He looked upon them as the latest in a line o f kafirs that w ent all
the way back to the Prophet’s and ‘Ali’s own time. W hen asked
whether Wahhabis had existed during the (golden) age o f the first
four caliphs, he responded in the affirmative, relating a number o f
hadis in support o f his view. The Kharijis who had seceded from
‘Ali’s army after he agreed to submit his batde against M u‘awiya to
arbitration (37/657) had been among the first.43 Thereafter one
group (of kafirs) followed another, generation after generation,
assuming new shape and a new name in each age. In the present
time, they were known as ‘Wahhabis’.44
Ahmad Riza depicted these and other people considered to be
kafir as superficially devout, though in fact not so: ‘You will consider
your namaz contemptible in comparison with their namaz, and so
also with your fast and your [pious] acts. They will read the Q ur’an,
but it[s words] will not go further than their throats’.45 O n another
occasion he related a story about the ‘father o f the Wahhabis’,
illustrating at the same time the Prophet’s knowledge o f future
events:
O ne day [some] Companions entered into the Prophet’s presence. A man came
and, after standing at the edge o f the group, went into the mosque. [The
Prophet] asked, ‘W hich o f you will kill that man?’ Abu Bakr got up and w ent
[toward him]. H e saw that the man was saying the namaz with great humility.
Abu Bakr’s hand did not come up, for to kill such a worshipper in the very

43 Ahmad Riza did not refer to the Kharijis by name on this occasion, though it is
evident that it was they that he meant in his recounting o f hadis. Malfuzat, vol. 1, p. 57.
44 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 56.
45 Ibid. This image o f the Q u r’an as spiritual food which is indigestible to kafirs is
interesting in view o f the sufis’ portrayal o f Iblis’s ‘presence in man [as] analogous to,
and . . . mythically symbolized by the ingestion o f food, one o f the most concrete o f
hum an processes’. Awn, Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption, p. 61. See also note 25.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and ‘Wahhabis' 245

act o f praying [seemed wrong). H e returned, and related all that had happened.
[The Prophet] asked, ‘W ho is there who will kill him?’ ‘Umar got up and the
same thing happened with him. The Prophet again asked who would kill the
man. ‘Ali rose and said, ‘O Prophet o f Allah, I shall’. He said, ‘Yes, you. If you
can find him. But you will not be able to find him ’. And so it happened. By
the time ‘Ali reached [the mosque] the man had finished his namaz and left.
T he Prophet said, ‘If you had killed him a great calamity (fitna) would have
been lifted from the community’. This was the father o f the Wahhabis, whose
external and intrinsic (ma ’anauri) heirs are making the world dirty today.46

Despite his humble demeanour, Ahmad Riza went on, in truth he

was haughty. For, while standing at the edge of the crowd of
Companions surrounding the Prophet, he had said to himself that
none among them was as good as he. This pride nullified all his pious
deeds. W ithout respect (ta‘zim) for the Prophet there could be no
faith (iman), and without faith prayer had no efficacy. ‘The true
servant of Allah ( ‘abd allah) is he who is the servant o f the Prophet
(‘abd mustafa); if not he will be the servant o f Satan (‘abd shaitan)’.47
The concept of fitna, tumult, or moral and social chaos, evoked
in conjunction with the description o f the ‘father o f the Wahhabis’
in the above passage, and in the opening paragraphs of Husam, recurs
frequently in the literature. It is seen as the result, experienced in
worldly life, of pride, deceit, and refusal to repent (to do tauba).
Ultimately of course it would lead to punishment in hell after
judgm ent on the Last Day. In the meantime, in the here and now
o f late nineteenth century British India, Muslims were witnessing
the realization of the prediction in the classical hadis recorded by
Abu Da’ud that a time would come when the community of believers
would be split into seventy-three groups, only one of which (the
jama'at or majority) would be destined for heaven (jannat).
The Ahl-e Sunnat movement itself was ultimately predicated on
this view of the world: For them, the ‘Wahhabis’ (not to mention Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad, seen as Antichrist) were Satanic and hell- bound
in contradistinction to themselves, who were true followers o f Allah
and the Prophet. Once again the similarities between the Ahl-e
Sunnat view of the world around them and the image o f Satan/Iblis

46 Maffiizat, p. 58.
47 Ibid.
246 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

in the Q ur’an and hadis literature are striking. The themes o f Satan’s
refusal to bow before Adam despite Allah’s command that he do so
(Q ur’an 2:34, 7:11), his lack o f penitence (7:12, 13), his respon­
sibility for spreading fitna among men and women (7:16, 17; 15:39),
and his ultimate punishment (17:63; 38:77, 78)48 are echoed in
Ahmad R iza’s discussion o f kafirs, Wahhabi or otherwise, acquiring
resonance and force through constant reiteration.
The Wahhabis were depicted not merely as proud and disrespect­
ful to the Prophet, as in the story related by Ahmad Riza above, but
as people who refused to repent. If a Wahhabi repents, Ahmad Riza
once said, he was not one to begin with.49Moreover, they practised
dissimulation (taqiyya) to an even greater degree than did Shi‘is, for
purposes such as raising—among the Deobandis— money for their
madrasa from supporters of the Ahl-e Sunnat.50 A terrible punish­
ment awaited them— and other alleged apostates, such as Shi‘is,
Ahmadis, and Sir Sayyid Ahmad’s followers— on the Last Day in hell:
Every kafir will be made to drink boiling water, so hot that the m outh will
melt when it touches it. And when the water reaches the stomach, it will reduce
the intestines to pieces. And they will drink this water like a camel suffering
from great thirst. They will be faint from hunger. They will be fed thorny
cactus . . . which, on reaching their stomachs, will cause them to be in a great
frenzy ju st as the boiling water did and will in no way alleviate th eir hunger
. . . . Death will come from all directions, but they will not die. N o r will there
ever be any let up in their punishment.51

48 For the Iblis them e in the hadis literature, see Awn, Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption,
pp. 33-4, 36, 38, 53-4, passim.
49 Malfuzat, vol. 3, p. 39. T he com m ent was made in the context o f the uselessness, in
Ahmad R iza’s view, o f supplicating Allah (saying du‘a) on a W ahhabi’s behalf.
T he tauba them e occurs on several occasions. In reference to Deobandis, the following
examples are o f interest: in 1906, Khalil Ahmad Ambethwi reportedly fled M ecca one
night after having requested an ‘alim to arrange for the presence o f a translator so that
he could do tauba for his book Barahin-e Qati'yya. Malfuzat, vol. 2, p. 14; in 1911,
Ahmad Riza wrote to A shraf‘Ali Thanawi inviting him to repent o f statements made
in his H ifz al-Iman in which Ashraf‘Ali had allegedly denigrated the Prophet. T h e latter
presumably did not respond. Maktubat-e Imam Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi (Lahore:
M aktaba Nabawiyya, 1986), p. 130.
50 Maktubat, vol. 2, p. 60.
51 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 78. In this instance food and drink are a means o f punishm ent, rather
than o f nourishm ent. T he contrast with the Q u r’an as spiritual food is clear. There are
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and 'Wahhabis’ 247

W hen one asks how the Ahl-e Sunnat defined a ‘Wahhabi’, and
which o f the ‘ulama’ groups o f the late nineteenth century were so
labelled, Ahmad Riza’s use o f the term initially appears confusing.
In one fatwa, he disagreed with a questioner who said that in India
there were three kinds of Muslims: Shi'is, Sunni muqallids (fol­
lowers of one of the four main Sunni law schools) and Sunni
ghair-muqallids (those who were unaffiliated with any school). His
disagreement was not with this three-fold classification, but with the
use o f the word ‘Sunni’ to describe the ghair-muqallids. He regarded
them as bid‘ati. He then went on to say that the Wahhabis were one
o f three ghair-muqallid groups (though they called themselves Ahl-e
Hadis and Muhammadi, not Wahhabi).52 The Deobandis were not
mentioned as ‘Wahhabi’ in this fatwa. This was logical in the context
o f the definition of Wahhabis as ghair-muqallids, because the
Deobandis insisted on taqlid within one o f the four Sunni schools
o f law, as did the Ahl-e Sunnat.
W e have seen, however, that certain leading Deobandi ‘ulama’
were called ‘Wahhabi’ in Ahmad Riza’s 1905-6 fatwa, Husam al-
Haramain. The explanation for this inconsistency can only be that
by this time Ahmad Riza had redefined the term in his mind, and
was now using the word ‘Wahhabi’ to describe the leaders o f the
Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya movement, notably Sayyid Ahmad Barel-
wi and Muhammad Isma‘il Dehlawi, and ‘ulama’ he considered to
be their followers, among them many Deobandis. The connection
is indicated (though not spelled out) in Husam by Ahmad Riza’s
assertion that Rashid Ahmad Gaiigohi was a follower o f Muhammad
Isma‘il, and by a derisive reference to the latter as Rashid Ahmad’s
pir-e ta'ifa (‘sufi master of musicians and dancing girls’).53 The

num erous Q u r’anic passages about the torments that transgressors will suffer from food
and drink in hell. Thus, 14:16-17: ‘ . . . and he is given, for drink, boiling fetid water.
In gulps will he sip it, but never will he be near swallowing it down his throat: Death
will come to him from every quarter, yet will he not die . . . ,N(Y usuf‘Ali tr.) Also see
17:62-5, 44:45-6, alid 56:52-5. For details on the association o f Iblis w ith food and
drink, see Awn, Satan's Tragedy and Redemption, pp. 61-3.
52 Ahmad Riza Khan, Fataxva al-Sunna li-ttjam al-Fitna, p. 3. T he ‘necharis* (Sir Sayyid
Ahm ad Khan and followers) were said to make up the rem aining group o f ghair-
muqallids.
53 R ashid Ahmad's real pir had been Haji Imdad Ullah M uhajir Makki (1815-99),
248 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

literature also offers more conclusive evidence that Ahmad Riza and
the Ahl-e Sunnat movement generally considered Deoband an
intellectual and spiritual heir of the Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya, and
that (going backwards in time) they saw an intellectual link between
the Arabian Muwahhidun o f the eighteenth century and the Tariqa-
e Muhammadiyya. Indeed, Husam al-Haramain was first written in
1902 as part of a longer commentary (sharh) on a work by Fazl-e
Rasul Badayuni (d. 1872) in which the latter had explicidy linked
the beliefs of the ‘Nejdis’ with those o f Muhammad Isma'il, both of
which he condemned.54 In a later work, Muhammad Isma‘il was
condemned by Ahmad Riza on some o f the same grounds as the
Deobandi ‘ulama’ named in Husam had been.55
The Ahl-e Sunnat thus used the term Wahhabi primarily to
indicate a perceived commonality o f views between the Tariqa-e
Muhammadiyya and some later Muslim movements in the subcon­
tinent, with the implication that the ultimate source for the opinions
they purportedly shared was the M uwahhidun movement of
eighteenth and early nineteenth century Arabia. The term as used
in the Ahl-e Sunnat literature is therefore something o f a catch-all,
in which Deobandis, Ahl-e Hadis, and sometimes Sir Sayyid Ahmad
and his followers as well, were included. As the Ahl-e Sunnat saw
it the founders of the early nineteenth century Tariqa-e M uham­
madiyya movement and their followers constituted the first wave of
Indian Wahhabis (and consequendy those most direcdy responsible
for the fitna that they, the Ahl-e Sunnat o f the late nineteenth
century, had to root out). In order to understand Ahl-e Sunnat
differences with Deoband I start therefore by examining Ahl-e
Sunnat writings on the Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya.

revered by the Ahl-e Sunnat and Deobandis alike. Ahmad R iza must have been aware
o f Rashid Ahmad's discipleship to Haji Imdad Ullah, and should be understood in this
context to be implying an intellectual affinity between Isma‘il Dehlawi’s vision o f Islam
and Rashid Ahmad's. O n Haji Imdad Ullah, sec Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 79.
54 Fazl-e Rasul's 1854 work, entided Al-MuUamad al-Muntaqid (Trustworthy Critic)
written in Arabic, dealt with ‘aqa'id (beliei). In it, the properties and characteristics of
Allah and the Prophet were discussed. Ahmad R iza’s commentary, approving this work,
was entided Al-Mu'tamad al-Mustanad (Dependable Reason). Husam al-Haramain,
published separately in 1906, had originally been a part o f this 1902 work.
55 Ahmad Riza Khan, Tamhid al-Iman ba-Ayat al-Qur*ant pp. 42-3.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and ‘Wahhabis’ 249

T he T a r iq a - e M u h a m m a d iy y a in A h l - e S u n n a t P e r spe c t iv e

The Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya movement, led by Sayyid Ahmad

Barelwi and inspired by the reformist teachings o f Shah Wali Ullah
and Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz, has been frequendy mentioned in this study.
Its purposes do not therefore need repetition. The Ahl-e Sunnat
literature dealing with the Tariqa leaders Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi and
Muhammad Isma‘il Dehlawi, referred to as ‘Wahhabi’, focuses on
certain key texts o f their movement. As was his wont when it came
to rebuttal o f those with whom he disagreed, Ahmad Riza wrote a
number of books in which he set out, point by point, what he found
objectionable in these texts. In one of these, written in 1894 (AH
1312), he enumerated seventy different grounds for the takfir of
Muhammad Isma‘il and other writers o f the Tariqa-e M uham­
madiyya, but declared at the end that in his view it was prudent to
‘stop the tongue’ (kaff-e lisan) and refrain from doing so.56 It appears
that here as in other books on the subject he chose to give the leaders
o f the Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya the benefit o f the doubt regarding
their faith, as he had said a faqih ought if possible to do. Yet in view
o f his takfir of the Deobandi ‘ulama’ named in Husam al-Haramain,
w hom he regarded as followers of the ‘Wahhabi Isma'iliyya’ (as he
called followers o f Muhammad Isma‘il), this restraint is curious.57
Among Tariqa-e Muhammadiyya writings, one work by M uham­
m ad Isma'il was particularly influential in spreading the ideas o f the
m ovement and creating a mass following. This was Taqwiyat al-Iman
(Strengthening the Faith), originally written in Arabic but soon
translated and printed in Urdu.58 Sirat al-Mustaqim (The Straight
56 Ahmad Riza Khan, Al-Kaukab al-Shihabiyyafi KttfriyatAbi al- IVahhabiyya (Brighdy-Shining
Star am ong the Blasphemies o f the Father o f the Wahhabis) (Lahore: N uri Book Depot,
1375/1955-6). Originally published in 1312/1894-5.
57 O ne can only speculate as to the reason for this. Perhaps he refrained because by this
tim e the Tariqa leaders whose books he referred to were all dead, and therefore unable
to defend themselves. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, and the Deobandi ‘ulama’ m entioned in
Husam al-Haramain, by contrast, were alive at the time o f the original takfir in 1902.
(Rashid Ahm ad Gangohi died in 1905, a year before the takfir was presented to the
‘ulam a’ o f the Haramain. H ow ever, Ahmad Riza claimed that he had refused for several
yean before his death to respond to Ahmad R iza’s questions. T he latter interpreted this
'as an admission o f guilt.)
58 Apparendy Taquriyat was translated into U rdu a bit at a time. Pearson, ‘Islamic
250 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

raight Path), written in Persian in 1818, was intended for an élite

audience and dealt with Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi’s qualities as a
leader.59 Passages from these and other books by Muhammad Isma‘il
were found objectionable by the Ahl-e Sunnat.
The central theme o f Taqwiyat al-Iman and other popular works
was that Muslims should live their lives in accordance with the
kalima or profession o f faith— ‘There is no God but God and
Muhammad is His Prophet’. The first clause o f the profession,
Muhammad Isma‘il wrote in Taqwiyat, required strict adherence to
the monotheistic belief in Allah’s unity (tauhid), and consequent
abhorrence o f polytheism or shirk. He distinguished between three
different types o f shirk, each the Subject o f an extended discussion
in the text. The second part o f the kalima, belief that Muhammad
is Allah’s prophet, called upon Muslims to act in keeping w ith the
Prophet’s sunna, as preserved in (sound) hadis, and reject bid‘a,
defined as innovations not validated by hadis.60
Muhammad Isma‘il went to great lengths in Taqwiyat al-Iman to
stress the importance above all else o f acknowledgement o f Allah’s
transcendental power, and avoidance o f shirk or associationism.
Referring to the shirk of associating others with Allah’s knowledge

R eform ', p.81, says that the second chapter o f the work was ‘not translated . . . until
1834 A.D., and, therefore, was probably less important [than the first)'. T h e first chapter
had presumably been published some time in the 1820s.
59 Ibid., pp. 79, 106. English translations o f extracts from these works, o r essays
discussing them , appeared in the first half o f the nineteenth century, a reflection no
doubt o f the importance the British attached to the perceived ‘W ahhabi' problem . See
‘N otice o f the Peculiar Tenets held by the Followers o f Syed Ahmed, taken chiefly from
the “ Sirat-ul-M ustaqim ”,' Journal o f the Asiatic Society o f Bengal (C alcutta), 1
(January-D ecem ber 1832), 4 7 9 - 9 8 ; M ir Shaham at ‘Ali, ‘T ranslation o f the
Takwiyat-ul-Im an, Preceded by a N otice o f the Author, Maulavi Isma‘il H ajji', Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society, 13 (1852), 310-72.
60 T he foregoing is based on Pearson, pp. 80-1. In the following pages, I focus on
M uham m ad Isma‘iTs views on shirk rather than bid‘a. T he bid‘a he indicates in Taqwiyat
al-Iman and Sirat al-Mustaqim overlap considerably with the types o f shirk to be discussed
below, thereby making it unnecessary to go into the m atter separately. It may be noted,
briefly, that he indicated three distinct sources o f bid'a: practices arising from association
with people w ho appeared to be sufis, b u t were not; practices arising from association
with Shi‘is; and practices arising from the imitation o f corrupt usages generally. For
greater detail, sec ‘N otice o f the Tenets held by the Followers o f Syed A hm ed', 488-93.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and ‘Wahhabis’ 251

(iishrakfi’l ‘ilm), the first of the three, he denied that anyone but Allah
had ‘ilm-e ghaib, or knowledge of the unseen:
the prophets, angels, pirs, martyrs, imams, devils, or fairies, are not endowed
with power to discover the concealed things that God has been pleased to hide
from them; but He occasionally discloses any such thing to any one o f His
servants, in a twinkling; yet this is done with His free will, and not at their
supplication, as we are led to believe. It has often happened that the Prophet
himself several times desired to know things, the truth o f which he could not
discover until voluntarily apprised o f them by God.61

Notwithstanding this admission o f the possibility that Allah some­

times apprised the Prophet Muhammad o f things he had not known,
Muhammad Isma‘il went on to argue that the Prophet definitely did
not have knowledge of the ‘five things’ mentioned in Sura Luq-
man.62 Anyone who maintained that the Prophet had been told
about them by Allah but had abstained from revealing it was a liar.
As the discussion earlier in this chapter suggests, Ahmad Riza’s
position on this issue was diametrically opposed to that set out here
by Muhammad Isma‘il. In a work devoted exclusively to the subject
o f the Prophet’s knowledge, to be discussed below, he argued that
knowledge of these five things had been gifted by Allah not only to
the Prophet but also to the seven aqtab (pi. o f qutb), the pivots o f
the world o f whom there is only one in existence at any given time.63
In Taqwiyat al-Iman, Muhammad Isma‘il proceeded to attack a
second kind o f shirk, that of associating others with Allah’s power
(ishrak j i ’l tasarruf) His concern here was with the dangers o f
intercession:
It is customary for many, in the time o f difficulty, to call for aid on the pirs
religious guides, apostles [prophets], imams, martyrs, angels, and fairies, and
beg them to comply with their wishes; and to propitiate them, vows and

61 Taqwiyat al-Iman (Mir Shahamat ‘Ali tr.), p. 331.

62 Q u r’an 31:34, ‘Verily the knowledge o f the H our is with G od (alone). It is H e who
sends dow n rain, and H e w ho knows w hat is in the wombs. N o r does any one know
w hat it is that he will earn on the morrow. N o r does any one know in what land he is
to die. Verily with G od is full knowledge and He is acquainted (with all things)’. (Yusuf
‘Ali tr.)
63 O n Ahmad R iza’s description o f the hierarchy o f saints culminating in the cfutb, see
C hapter V.
252 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

offerings are made in their names. Moreover, children are nam ed after them;
for instance, ‘A bd-un-nabi (servant o f the apostle), ‘Ali B akhsh (granted
by ‘Ah) . . . Further, many perform other similar rites for their respective saints
. . . : one keeps a . . . lock o f hair on his head: others w e a r. . . w oven thread
round their necks . . . , and others again invoke the saints . . . and take oaths
in their names. In short, what the Hindus do towards their idols, the
Mussulmans do for them, and yet they call themselves Muhammadans!64
N

In reality, Muhammad Isma'il argued,

. . . it is evident that there is none, either in heaven or in earth, w ho can be
mediator with God, or by invoking whom any profit or hurt can be produced.
Nay, the aposdes and saints can only intercede with God, by His permission.
So there is no advantage in invoking them.65

Muhammad Isma‘il went on to say that ‘both angels and m en were

equally [Allah’s] servants’, and that Allah had not delegated any
power to one other than Himself.
Intercession was to be understood, Muhammad Isma‘il wrote, as
nothing more than ‘recommendation’ (sifarish). Comparing Allah
to a ‘King of kings’, Muhammad was said to be like a minister whose
intercession was acceptable to Allah only because it was undertaken
‘to please his master, and with his tacit permission’. Allah’s power
was so great that
in a twinkling, solely by pronouncing the word ‘Be!’ he can, if he like[s], create
crores [tens o f millions] o f aposdes, saints, genii, and angels, o f similar ranks
with Gabriel and Muhammad, or can produce a total subversion o f the whole
universe, and supply its place with new creations.66

Here, then, embedded in an argument on Allah’s transcendental

power was the statement which was to give rise to subsequent debate
as to whether or not denial of the finality of Muhammad’s prophethood
was implied. Some seventy years after this was written, Ahmad Riza,
in his fatwa Husam al-Haramain, was to argue that there could not be
another prophet like Muhammad in any of the six levels o f the earth
believed to exist beside this one, and that it was kufr to hold otherwise.67

64 Taqwiyat al-lman (Mir Shahamat ‘Ali tr.), pp. 319-20.

65 Ibid., p. 320.
66 Ibid., p. 339.
67 As noted previously, in his treatment o f this issue (known as im kan-e nazir, the
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and ‘Wahhabis’ 253

In addition to disagreement with Muhammad Isma‘il on this

issue, Ahmad Riza and the Ahl-e Sunnat could not accept his general
attitude to intercession. In their view, to say, for instance, that ‘none
. . . can be mediator with God’, or have the power to profit or hurt
anyone, went much too far in denying Muhammad’s and other
prophets’ powers of intercession. In a work devoted to rebutting
Muhammad Isma‘il, Ahmad Riza argued that occasionally he con­
tradicted the very word of Allah, thereby making Allah Himself
appear to be a mushrik, or polytheist:
In . . . the Taqwiyat al-Iman is written that the giving of health, o f well-being,
fulfillment o f desires, etc. are all part o f Allah’s glory. It is not in the pow er o f
any prophet or wali (saint) to fulfill someone’s wishes, or to help th e m If
someone asks for help from any o f these he is a mushrik, whether he believes
that they have this power in and o f themselves or whether [he believes] they
have received it from Allah. This statement is tantamount to accusing everyone
o f shirk, including Allah, because the Q ur’an says Allah and Allah’s prophet
have made you prosperous out o f their bounty (tumhen daulatmand kar diya allah
aur allah lee rasul ne a p n e fa zl se). N o one, neither the saints nor the prophets,
n o r Allah Himself, would be devoid o f shirk in Isma'il Dehlawi’s [Muhammad
Isma'il’s] interpretation. Another verse would also become shirk: (3:49) ‘I
[Jesus] heal those bom blind, and the lepers, and I quicken the dead, by G od’s
leave’. [Yusuf‘Ali].68

In other words, prophets intercede with Allah on behalf o f human

beings, and have in addition an independent God-given ability to
change human destinies for good or ill by performing miracles.
Muhammad Isma‘il had not in fact denied that prophets can inter­
cede with Allah’s ‘permission’ (izn ). But he had clearly discouraged
the practice, arguing that there was ‘no advantage’ in invoking the
help o f saints and prophets. This merely encouraged people to
worship them and make them their patrons, thereby distancing
themselves from Allah rather than getting close to Him.
Muhammad Isma‘il also objected to a third kind o f shirk, which
he called ishrak J i’l (ibada, or association in worship. This included
practices such as

possibility that M uham m ad could have an equal), there was no discussion o f Allah’s
transcendental pow er, solely o f belief in the finality o f M uham m ad’s prophethood.
68 Ahmad Riza Khan, Al-Kaukab al-Shihabiyya, pp. 40-1.
254 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

prostration [to a tomb, or another person], bowing down, standing with folded
arms, spending money in the name of an individual, fasting out o f respect to
his memory, proceeding to a distant shrine in the peculiar dress o f a pilgrim,
and calling aloud his name while going along . . . Also, to avoid slaying catde
purposely while on pilgrimage, to go round the shrine,. . . to make vows, to
cover the grave with a sh e et. . . as well as on leaving the shrine to walk
backwards, with the face towards it, and hold the jungle around in respect,
refraining from slaying any animals found therein . . . or from cutting trees or
grass situated there. God hath ordained alT these ceremonies o f worship to be
performed by His servants for Himself alone. Should any one in any way
observe these or other similar honors towards aposdes [prophets], he shall
certainly be guilty o f associating them with God.69

The practices Muhammad Isma'il criticized here were associated

with the veneration of shrines, including the annual ‘urs o f saints
centred on their tombs. As this study o f the Ahl-e Sunnat has shown,
respect for such tombs or graves, in which several o f the practices
listed above were carried out, was part o f Ahl-e Sunnat ritual. This
followed from their belief, based on the classical hadis, ‘Allah, the
exalted, has prohibited the earth from consuming the bodies o f
[p]rophets’,70 that the bodies o f prophets, saints, and martyrs
remained in a state of perfect preservation after death. The afterlife
o f such persons being both corporeal and spiritual, veneration o f
their tombs was a sign o f the respect they were due.71 As for the area
surrounding the Prophet’s tomb, Ahmad Riza cited a hadis from
al-Bukhari in which the Prophet is reported to have said that he
would make the land between Medina’s two mountains haram
(sacred), just as Abraham had made Mecca haram.72 From the Ahl-e
Sunnat point of view, thus, to say as Muhammad Isma'il did that it
was shirk to venerate Muhammad’s tomb was yet another sign o f
his lack o f respect toward Muhammad, and consequendy o f kufr.73

69 Taqwiyat al-Iman (Mir Shahamat ‘Ali tr.), pp. 323-4.

70 Ahmad Hasan, Sunan Abu Dawud, vol. 1, p. 269; also Annemarie Schimmel, A nd
Muhammad b His Messenger, p. 284, n. 56.
71 Ahmad Riza Khan, Ihlak al- Wahhabiyyin 'ala Tauhin Qubur al-Muslimin (R uin to the
W ahhabis for Disrespect toward Muslim Graves), 1322/1904-5, pp. 2-7.
72 Ahmad Riza Khan, Al-Kaukab al-Shihabiyya, p. 42.
73 Though, as noted above, Ahmad Riza refrained from making a formal charge to this
effect.
 • The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and 'Wahhabis’ 255

It thus comes as no surprise that Muhammad Isma‘il’s image o f

the Prophet Muhammad was radically different from that o f the
Ahl-e Sunnat. Muhammad Isma'il’s prophet was a perfect but
essentially human model for behaviour, while the Ahl-e Sunnat’s
prophet was— and is— not. Muhammad Isma‘il spoke o f the
prophets, imams, pirs, and martyrs as ‘brothers’ who ought to be
honoured as ‘human beings, not as God’.74 In the same vein, he
wrote that the Prophet had discouraged his followers from seeing
him as more than a ‘servant’ o f Allah who ‘one day . . . would die,
and return to the dust; and [who] could not therefore be worthy o f
worship’.75As the following section on prophetology will underline,
this egalitarian portrayal of the prophet and other purveyors o f
religious authority was at odds with the Ahl-e Sunnat view.
W hatever Muhammad was, he was not an ‘elder brother’, nor an
ordinary person whose body would disintegrate after death. To
suggest otherwise was, once again, to show extreme disrespect.

A hl- e Su n n a t P roph eto log y

M uch has already been said herein about the Ahl-e Sunnat concept of
the Prophet I now wish to pull the pieces together in order to present
a coherent picture of Ahl-e Sunnat prophetology. Insofar as Ahl-e
Sunnat beliefs about the Prophet were in line with the standard Sunni
view, such as belief in the finality of Muhammad’s prophethood, this
does not tell us a great deal about the Ahl-e Sunnat But there was
much in their prophetology that was distinctive: belief that the Prophet
had knowledge of the unseen; that he was made o f light and had no
shadow; that Allah can only be approached through the intermediacy
o f Muhammad and none other; and that because the Prophet lives on
in corporeal as well as spiritual form in his grave at Medina, he continues
to ‘exist’ and to be. In prayer ritual, Ahmad Riza defended the distinctive
practice of kissing the thumbs of both hands and touching them to the
eyes at designated moments when the Prophet was mentioned.76
74 Taqwiyat al-lman (Mir Shahamat ‘Ali tr.), p. 362.
75 Ibid., pp. 362-3.
76 These moments were: during the azan (call to prayer) when the words ‘ashhadu anna
Muhammadan rasulAllah\ ‘I testify that M uhamm ad is the apostle o f Allah’, during iqamat
256 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

The most important element o f Ahl-e Sunnat prophetology,

around which everything else seems to revolve, was the belief in
Muhammad’s intercessionary role with Allah on behalf o f mankind.
In Daulat al-Makkiyya, a work devoted primarily to defence o f the
Prophet’s knowledge o f the unseen, Ahmad Riza wrote as follows
on the Prophet’s intercessionary powers:
O u r Prophet received the gift o f intercession. The Prophet says in the Sahih
Muslim, ‘I have been given the gift o f intercession’. The ‘Wahhabis’ say that
the Prophet hasn’t yet been given this ability, that he will receive it only on
the day o f the resurrection. They say this so as to dissuade people from seeking
the Prophet’s help in times o f distress. . . . N ot only is it true that the Prophet’s
intercession is best in Allah’s regard, but furthermore, no one can approach
Allah w ithout the Prophet’s intermediacy. All have to approach the Prophet,
for he alone can intercede for them with Allah. The Prophet said, ‘I am the
ow ner (malik) o f the intercession o f all the prophets’.77

In this passage, Ahmad Riza alluded to several characteristics

believed by the Ahl-e Sunnat to inhere in the Prophet as
intercessor: his ability to intercede was a gift from Allah; it was not
a gift held in abeyance until the day o f the resurrection, but was
exercised in the present time in the interests o f those who supplicated
him for help; his intercessionary powers were superior to those o f
all other prophets, also believed to possess such influence w ith
Allah (through the Prophet Muhammad, who alone had direct
access to Him).
The Prophet’s intercessionary role, in addition, was believed to
have existed from the very beginning o f his prophetic calling. This
is illustrated by a story, recounted below, which was based, Ahmad
Riza said, on sahih (sound) hadis recorded in al-Nasa’i, al-Tirmidhi,
and Ibn Maja. In this hadis, importantly, the Prophet himself was
reported to have taught someone o f the efficacy o f his intercession
with Allah:

(the second call to prayer at the beginning o f the namaz, w hen everyone stands up), and
every time the Prophet’s name is m entioned. Ashraf ‘Ali Thanawi w rote a fatwa
disapproving o f the practice, while Ahmad Riza wrote a contrary opinion. Ahmad Riza
Khan, Fatawa-e Rizwiyya (Muradabad: Maktaba N a‘imiyya), vol. 2, pp. 517-648.
77 Ahmad Riza Khan, Daulat al-Makkiyya hi’I Madat al-Ghaibiyya (The Bounty o f Mecca
on T hat which is Hidden), (Karachi: Maktaba-e Rizwiyya, n.d.), p. 137.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and 4Wahhabis’ 257

T he Prophet taught a blind n u n a du‘a (supplication) to be said after the namaz

which w ent as follows: ‘Allah! I ask you and turn toward you through the
intermediacy (ba-wasile) o f your prophet Muhammad who is a compassionate
(mehrban) prophet. O Prophet o f Allah (ya rasul allah)l By means o f the prophet
I turn toward my lord in my need that my need may be fulfilled. Allah, accept
his intercession in my favour’.78

The man was cured of his blindness immediately after saying the
prayer as instructed by the Prophet.79
This hadis was cited in defence o f the argument that it is
permissible to address the Prophet direcdy by saying ‘Ya rasul allah’,
‘Muhammad ya mansur’ (O Muhammad, Victorious One), or
words to that effect, and ask for his help. The expression ‘Ya rasul
allah’ was in fact so closely associated with the Ahl-e Sunnat that it
came to be thought of as a sort o f emblem o f identification.80 As
seen above, Ahmad Riza said that one could address the Prophet in
this way in the form o f a du‘a after the namaz, or at any other time.
As in the case o f the blind man cited above, such supplication was
considered to have immediate effect.
N ot only did Allah gift the Prophet the power o f intercession
from the very beginning of his prophethood, the Ahl-e Sunnat
believed, but this power continued after death. This is an important
dimension of Ahl-e Sunnat prophetology, for it meant in effect that
the Prophet is a continuous presence in the lives o f Muslims at all
times, intervening when called upon. It is for this reason that Ahmad
Riza always spoke, and wrote, o f the Prophet in the present tense.
H e was believed to be hazir o nazir, present and hearing.
This presence could be either spiritual or physical, and was
unlimited in terms of space or time. The Prophet could go anywhere
any time. His spiritual presence and therefore grace (baraka) were
likely to be particularly strong on particular occasions such as the
78 Ahmad Riza Khan, Anwar al-Intibah f i Hill Nida Ya Rasul Allah (The Lights o f
Vigilance Concerning the Permissibility o f the Call ‘Ya Rasul Allah’), (Karachi: Bazm-e
Qasimi Barkati, 1986), p. 7. Originally written in 1304/1886-7.
79 Ibid., pp. 7-40. This hadis, and a refutation o f the Ahl-e Sunnat argument just noted,
were discussed in Ibn Taimiyya’s Kitab Iqtida’ as-Sirat al-Mustaqim Mukhalafat Ashab
al-Jahim. See M uhamad U m ar M em on, Ibn Taimiya’s Struggle Against Popular Religion
(The Hague, Paris: M outon, 1976), pp. 308 and 371, n. 415.
80 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 301.
258 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

celebration o f his birth anniversary (majlis-e milad). It was a mark

o f respect to his presumed spiritual (and perhaps even physical)
presence to stand up at the end o f the ceremony when the salat o
salam (prayer calling down Allah’s blessings on him) was read.81 No
one could know whether the Prophet was physically present at such
a time: the decision to be so or not was in his hands, a matter of
choice (ikhtiyar) on his part.82
Baraka or grace was particularly associated, in the Ahl-e Sunnat
view, with the graves which marked the last earthly home o f exalted
spiritual beings, whether it be Muhammad, the best o f all created
beings, or other prophets, or saints. This was because prophets and
other spiritually eminent persons inhabit their graves in a state of
perfect physical preservation, and lead afterlives devoted to prayer.
The Ahl-Sunnat insisted therefore that graves are places worthy of
the greatest respect. In a fatwa discussing the impermissibility of
demolishing a grave and building some other structure over it,
Ahmad Riza wrote:
It is not permitted to any Muslim to break up and demolish another Muslim’s
grave and put up a building on that spot. As far as the Ahl-e Sunnat are
concerned, the prophets (anbiya), saints (auliya), and martyrs (shuhada) are
alive. They have sense perception (ihsas). Although an ordinary person’s body
decays after a few months or years o f burial, the bodies o f prophets, saints and
martyrs don’t decay. They remain in a state c f perfect preservation, because
Allah made it haram for any decay to take place.

He quoted approvingly a work in which the prophets’ afterlives

were said to take place on both a material and a spiritual plane.
Another writer was quoted as saying that the spirits o f the saints
became so powerful after their deaths that they acquired bodies
(jism) which roamed the earth and the sky. Inside their graves, in
addition, they read the namaz, and performed devotional exercises
(zikr and tilawat).84 Ahmad Riza’s Malfuzat, likewise, contains

81 Ahmad Riza Khan, Iqamat al-Qiyama (Karachi: Barkad Publishers, 1986), pp. 17-29.
Originally w ritten in 1299/1881-2.
82 Ahmad Riza Khan, Fatawa-e Rizwiyya (Mubarakpur, Azamgarh: Sunni Dar al-
Isha'at, 1981), vol. 6, p. 147. In U rdu, tashrif awari huzur ke ikhtiyar hai.
83 Ahmad Riza Khan, Ihlak al-Wahhabiyyitt, p. 3.
84 Ibid., p. 4.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and ‘Wahhabis’ 259

references to the ability of saints to be physically present in several

places at the same time.85
If prophets and saints shared in some respects in the Prophet
Muhammad’s qualities, they were in no way his equal. Ahmad Riza
and other Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ tirelessly and repeatedly taught that
the Prophet Muhammad was the most exalted being o f all creation,
to whom Allah had gifted unimaginable powers. The reason this
was so, Ahmad Riza frequendy explained, was that Muhammad was
Allah’s beloved (habib). So beloved was he, in fact, that Allah had
created the world for him. As we saw in Chapter VII, Muhammad
was believed to have been both the first and the last prophet to be
created; his ancestry was of the purest, never having been tainted by
the existence of any kafiis in his genealogical history; and, finally,
he transmitted and was a part of Allah’s own light.
In Ahl-e Sunnat interpretation, therefore, the Prophet was a
being exalted by Allah above imagining, because o f Allah’s love for
him. Nonetheless, all the qualities he possessed had been gifted him
by Allah. Herein lay the crucial difference between Allah and His
Prophet: Allah was unconditional, uncreated, necessary (wajib),
while the Prophet was a created, contingent (mumkin), and limited
being. Ahl-e Sunnat prophetology is characterized by this duality,
in which the Prophet is at once very close to Allah, such that there
can be no true faith if the believer has no ‘love’ for him, and yet is
distinct from Allah and subject to Him. All that he knows and has
power over, is a gift from Allah. The issue o f Muhammad’s knowledge
was for Ahmad Riza a perfect illustration o f this central fact.
Ahmad Riza’s interpretation, as presented in Daulat al-Makkiyya,
was that there are some verses in the Q ur’an denying that he had
knowledge o f the unseen, and others affirming that he did. It was
therefore necessary to recognize that both are true, and to under­
stand the underlying sense o f the Qur'anic references.
Ahmad Riza made a distinction between two basically different
kinds of knowledge:
O ne is the masdar or source, from where knowledge emanates, and the other
is dependent upon it. In the first case, knowledge is zati, that is, it is complete

85 E.g., Malfuzat, vol. 1, p. 101.

260 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

and independent in itself, not dependent on any outside source. In the second
case, it is ‘ata’i, that is, ‘gifted’ by an outside source. Z a d knowledge is
exclusively Allah’s; it would be absurd to claim it for anyone else. Whoever
attaches such knowledge in no matter how small a degree to anyone on earth,
is a mushrik. The second kind is peculiar to Allah’s creatures. It is not for
Allah.86

Further on, Ahmad Riza made the following distinctions between

Allah’s knowledge and that of created beings:
Allah’s knowledge is intrinsic while man’s is gifted; Allah’s knowledge is
necessary (wajib) while man’s is contingent (mumkin); Allah’s knowledge is
pre-existent, everlasting, ancient and true, while man’s knowledge is recent
(hadis) since all created beings are themselves rec en t. . . . Allah’s knowledge
is uncreated, while man’s knowledge is created. Allah’s knowledge is om­
nipotent, while man’s is in Allah’s power and subject to Him. W hile Allah’s
knowledge has to be perpetual, man’s could be extinguished. W hile Allah’s
knowledge never changes in any way, man’s is changing all the time. Given
these differences, there can be no suspicion o f equality.87

W ithin the ambit o f the limitations spelled out above, the

knowledge possessed in Ahmad Riza’s view by man and by the
prophets was nevertheless vast. To begin with, some knowledge of
the unseen is possessed even by ordinary people, Ahmad Riza
argued. This was proved by the fact that Muslims believe in the
resurrection, heaven, hell, and other unseen things commanded by
Allah. This belief was itself a confirmation of the existence o f these
and other things.88 As for the knowledge o f prophets,
[it] is [but] a small part o f Allah’s knowledge; yet it is like an ocean beyond
counting, for the prophets know, and can see, everything from the First Day
(roz-e awwat) until the Last Day (roz-e akhir), all that has been and all that will
be.89

Muhammad’s knowledge, though, was even greater than that of

other prophets because ‘the Q ur’an was revealed to him, in which

86 Ahmad R iza Khan, Daulat al-Makkiyya, pp. 15, 17, 19.

87 Ibid., pp. 45, 47.
88 As he argued, ‘O u r faith is confirmation [that heaven, hell, etc.] exist, and
confirmation is knowledge. If someone doesn’t know the unseen, how can he confirm
it? And if he can’t confirm it, how can he believe in it?’ Ibid., p. 39.
89 Ibid., pp. 57, 59.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and ‘Wahhabis' 261

everything was explained’. Because the Q ur’an was revealed bit by

bit, the Prophet’s knowledge kept growing over time until, at the
end o f the revelation, it was complete. Q ur’anic verses which speak
o f the Prophet’s lack of knowledge about something refer to the
time when the revelation, and consequendy his knowledge, was still
incomplete. By the end o f the period of revelation, the Prophet’s
knowledge went beyond the Last Day,
to the tumult o f the resurrection (hashr o nashr), the accounting (hisab o kitab)
and the reward and punishment (sawab o iqab). So much so that he will see
everyone arriving at their proper places, whether heaven (jannat), or hell
(dozakh), or whatever else Allah may tell him. Undoubtedly, the Prophet
knows this much, thanks to Allah, and Allah alone knows how much besides.
W hen H e has given his beloved (mustafa) so much, then it is apparent that
knowledge o f everything in the past and the future, which is recorded in the
Tablet (lauh-e mahfuz) is but a part of his knowledge as a whole.90

T he Prophet also had knowledge o f people’s internal mental states:

In the view o f the Ahl-e Sunnat, every single thing that exists is . . . known to
the Prophet: all that exists between the sky and the earth, from East to West,
everything pertaining to people’s selves, their states, their movements, their
moments o f rest. H e knows the movement and glance o f the eyelid, the fears
and intentions o f the heart, and whatever else exists.91

Finally, Ahmad Riza addressed himself to the ‘five things’ referred

to in 31:34, which were widely interpreted as known to Allah
alone.92 Ahmad Riza argued that contrary to Deobandi interpreta­
tion, these were but minor things in the vast store o f the Prophet
M uhammad’s knowledge. W ith the exception o f the resurrection,
they were not very important in themselves, compared to the nature
and attributes o f Allah, hell, heaven, and such matters. They had
merely been singled out by Allah because the age in which M uham­
mad lived was the age of the kahins, the soothsayers, who believed
they could predict these things. Allah wanted them to know that

90 Ibid., p. 77. See pp. 5 9,72 for reference to the Q ur'an being revealed to M uhamm ad
bit by bit, and his knowledge growing accordingly.
91 Ibid., p. 93.
92 These were: knowledge o f the H our o f resurrection, o f w hen it would rain, o f the
sex o f a y et unborn child, o f w hat one w ould earn on the m orrow, and o f the land
w here o n e w ould die.
262 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

without His telling someone about the ‘hidden’ (al-ghaib), none

could know it. The Prophet was favoured with knowledge o f these
things, including the Hour, but was commanded not to reveal it.93
All this, Ahmad Riza wrote in a variety o f contexts, was gifted
to Muhammad by Allah because o f Allah’s love for him. This
concept o f the love between Allah and the Prophet as the ultimate
cause for creation has a distincdy sufi flavour. So does the argument
that Muhammad, being made o f light, had no shadow. It is impor­
tant, therefore, to note that such arguments were defended in
Ahmad Riza’s writings largely, indeed overwhelmingly, by citation
o f works o f hadis and fiqh.94 Asked whether Muhammad had a
shadow, for instance, Ahmad Riza replied:
Undoubtedly the Prophet did not have a shadow. This is clear from hadis,
from the words o f the ‘ulama’, o f the ai’ma [founders o f the four main Sunni
law schools], and juzala (learned m e n ) . . . ‘Allama Ibn-e Saba’, Imam Qazi
‘Iyaz, Imam ‘Arif Bi’llah,. . . ‘Allama Jalal al-Din Suyuti, Imam Ibn-e Ja u z i,.
. . Imam Ahmad bin Muhammad Qastallani, Muhammad Zarqani Maliki,
Shaikh Muhaqqiq Dehlawi, Shaikh Mujaddid-e Alf-e Sani,. . . Shah ‘Abd
ul-'Aziz Dehlawi, etc. Today’s unsound claimants [‘Wahhabis’] claim to be
their pupils, but they don’t understand the words o f the masters.9*

Ahmad Riza cited numerous hadis illustrating the luminous quality

o f Muhammad’s face and body, including accounts o f the light that
was shed on cities far and wide at his birth. In another fatwa,

93 Daulat al-Makkiyya, pp. 119-35, 175—91.

94 This is not to say, however, that sufi sources are entirely absent. A m ong sufi authors
encountered in Ahmad Riza’s works are Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (‘M ujaddid-e Alf-e
Sani’), and al-Ghazzali, Sirhindi being comparatively frequent.
95 Ahmad Riza Khan, Nafy ei-Fay’ 'Amman Anam bi-Nurihi KuOa Shay' (Negation o f
the Shadow from him w ho Illuminated Everything by his Light), in Majmua'-e Rasa'il:
Mas’ala Nur aur Soya, pp. 51—2.
I have not been able to identify all the writer* m entioned in this quotation here.
Some o f them are: Qazi ‘Iyaz (d. 1149), a Maliki theologian and judge in Ceuta and
Granada, whose Kitab al-Shifa ‘ is one o f the most frequendy used handbooks on the
Prophet; Jalal al-Din al-Suyub (d. 1505), scholar o f M amluk Egypt; Ibn al-Jawzi (d.
1256), famous preacher and historian in Damascus; al-Qastallani (d. 1517), authority on
tradition and theology in Cairo; ‘Abd ul-H aqq Dehlawi (d. 1642), authority on hadis
in M ughal India; Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1624), the Naqshbandi shaikh w ho was
imprisoned by Em peror Jahangir for heresy; and Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz Dehlawi (A 1824),
Shah W ali Ullah’s eldest son and w ell-known hadis scholar.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and ' Wahhabis' 263

al-Suyud was cited to the effect that flies did not settle on the
Prophet’s body, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi was cited as saying that
mosquitoes didn’t suck his blood, and al-Suyud, again, was reported
to have written that once the Prophet had ridden on an animal, that
animal never aged any further. One hadis, acknowledged to be weak
but nevertheless accepted, was quoted to prove that the Prophet
could see in the dark.96
. Such views were by no means new, or unknown at the time. As
Schimmel indicates, there was a whole genre o f popular literature
based on hadis in Sindhi, among other languages, the object o f which
was to venerate the Prophet down to the smallest details o f his life.97
Ahmad Riza himself contributed to this shama’il and faza’il literature,
in praise of the Prophet’s lofty qualities and outward beauty, with
his Urdu poems. In addition, it was his distinctive contribution to
give this existing popular veneration authority by defending such an
image of the Prophet in erudite fatawa, and making it acceptable to
some sections of the ‘ulama’.
In short, Ahl-e Sunnat prophetology inclined toward a view o f
Muhammad as a miraculous, extra-human being the like o f whom
could not be equalled, nor imagined. Allah had created an unparal­
lelled individual in Muhammad, due to His love for him. There
could never, even hypothetically, be another like Muhammad.
The crowning event in Muhammad’s life, which bore witness to
his unique place in Allah’s sight, was Allah’s revelation o f Himself
to Muhammad on the occasion o f the mi’raj or night ascension.
Ahmad Riza wrote that this event was both spiritual and physical
(ruh ma ‘a al-jasad).9S As he put it in a memorable verse:
H ow could anything whatsoever be hidden from you
W hen Khuda Himself did not conceal himself from you
O n you be thousands o f blessings!99

96 Ibid., pp. 62-5; Ahmad R iza Khan, Qamar al-TamamJi Nafi al-Zill 'an Sayyid al-Anam
(T he Full M oon o f Denial of a Shadow for the Leader o f M ankind), pp. 79-84.
A cknow ledging that some o f the hadis cited were weak, Ahmad Riza challenged
w ould-be opponents o f these views to produce p ro o f bearing on a contrary position.
97 Schimmel, A nd Muhammad Is His Messenger, pp. 32-5.
98 Maljuzat, vol. 4, p. 23; vol. 3, p. 51. Also see Fatawa-e Rizwiyya, vol. 6, p. 170.
99 Ahmad Riza Khan, Hada'iq-e Bakhshish (Karachi: M edina Publishing Company,
264 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

This was the ultimate act oflove, not given even to the angel Gabriel.
Schimmel writes that the stories o f Muhammad’s miracles and
accounts o f his natural beauty have been recounted by generations
o f Muslims, who find ‘nothing . . . wonderful and beautiful enough
to give an adequate impression o f the personality o f the beloved
Prophet’.100 So it was with Ahmad Riza, who called him self‘Abd
al-Mustafa and taught that faith and belief could only be true if it
placed devotion to the Prophet above all human ties.

C o n c l u s io n

Friedmann, in his study o f Ahmadi religious thought, has shown the

difficulty experienced by certain Muslim thinkers with the dogma
o f khatam al-nubuwwa, cessation o f prophecy. To Ibn al-‘Arabi, he
writes, ‘the idea implies that the link between man and the object
ofhis worship has been put asunder; this is the most bitter experience
to which a devout Muslim can be subjected’.101 Ibn al-‘Arabi found
compensation for the spiritual loss represented by the Prophet’s
death in the transmission o f Q ur’an and hadis scholarship, and in the
idea that prophecy never ceases, though it takes on new forms. As
Friedmann explains, Ahmadi prophetology is indebted to Ibn al-
‘Arabi’s concepts o f prophecy.
While the Ahl-e Sunnat denied, o f course, the possibility that
there could be any prophet after Muhammad (even one with a
mission to enforce the law instituted by Muhammad), in a sense they
too have grappled with the problem o f the spiritual loss to the
Muslim community caused by the Prophet’s death. Their answer is
that Muhammad continues to ‘be’, that he continues to intervene
in human affairs, and to guide those who seek to follow him.

n.d.), p. 425. T h e reference to G od revealing Himself to the Prophet is o f course to

M uham m ad’s night ascension. (I was also told orally by Maulana Yasin Akhtar Misbahi,
a contem porary authority on the Ahl-e Sunnat, that there are hadis in which it is recorded
that w hen the Prophet arrived at Allah’s threshold, he saw the other prophets w ho had
preceded him seated around Allah’s throne, and taught them the namaz. This would
not have been possible, Maulana Yasin Akhtar pointed out, if they had n o t had bodies.)
100 Schimmel, A nd Muhammad Is His Messenger; p. 76.
101 Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous, p. 72.
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and ' Wahhabis’ 265

Muhammad’s intercessionary role, therefore, is crucial. W ithout it,

the community would be thought to be bereft. Ahmad Riza’s denial
o f the belief that Muhammad intercedes for his community only
on the day o f the resurrection confirms this. Prophetic intercession
is a constant process: ultimately, it is man’s link with Allah. The
hierarchy o f saints, the appearance o f the mujaddid (renewer) once
in a hundred years, and the presence o f ‘ulama’ who keep the
Prophet’s sunna alive— all these are further links in the ‘rope o f God’.
The concept ofhierarchy is inseparable from this view o f the Prophet
Muhammad and other spiritually exalted persons. The measure is
‘closeness to Allah’: the Prophet Muhammad, Allah’s beloved who saw
Him face to face and for whose sake Allah created the world, is o f
course the closest to Him. Then follow the ghaus, pivot o f the world,
the auliya or saints, and ultimately the ‘ulama’. Although much
further from Him, the latter are securely linked as long as they follow
the Prophet. The believer’s proper response, in turn, is to humbly
respect and obey, which means that he or she should strive at all
times to follow the Prophet’s sunna, as enunciated by the ‘ulama’.
But if obedience is called for, it is loving obedience. All through
his writings, and in the living out o f his own life, Ahmad Riza
stressed both respect and love for the Prophet to an equal degree.
For the Prophet, like Allah Himself, is ultimately a source o f
forgiveness. Ahmad Riza frequendy pointed out to his opponents that
if they repented their lack of respect and love for the Prophet, all would
be forgiven and they could start out afresh with a clean slate. Thus the
notions ofhierarchy and love, seemingly contradictory, co-exist har­
moniously in Ahl-e Sunnat prophetology, reinforcing one another to
create an attitude of religious devotion that is quite consistent.
For the Ahl-e Sunnat, it followed that if one loved the Prophet,
one must hate his enemies and do all one could to rebut them.
Ahmad Riza regarded it as one o f his most important tasks as an
‘alim to devote every effort in this direction. He once said that he
was happy that people attacked his writings as frequendy as they did
because in the process they forgot to denigrate Allah and the
Prophet.102 Consequendy, Ahl-e Sunnat leaders wrote voluminous

102 Malfuzat, vol. 2, p. 50.

266 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

fatawa, risalas, poetry, and posters against the perceived insults,

misinterpretations, or false beließ o f these and other ‘enemies of the
Prophet’. Thanks to the easy availability o f printing presses in north
India at the time, the message got around quickly and loudly that
the Prophet was being insulted by Deobandis, ‘Wahhabis’, and
others, and that the Prophet’s sunna, correcdy interpreted, indicated
a different course of action. Ahl-e Sunnat writings, guided by
Ahmad Riza, were marked by a remarkable tone o f certainty
throughout, regardless o f which group o f Muslims was being
rebutted.
The literary sources for Ahl-e Sunnat prophetology, as we have
seen, were interpretation o f Q ur’an, hadis, and fiqh w orks for the
most part. In hadis, weak traditions were not rejected if they elevated
the Prophet’s stature, for nothing that did this was considered
unacceptable, and authorities could be cited in their d e fe n c e just as
easily as they could for rejecting them. In addition, there was a large
corpus o f medieval fiqh scholarship to draw on, which Ahmad Riza
did with skill.
These arguments mirrored popular conceptions o f the Prophet
as reflected in poetry, oral tradition and legend throughout the
Islamic world. As examined in this study, the Ahl-e Sunnat also had
a strong sufi dimension, in affiliation particularly with the Qadiriyya
order. Many of the leading lights o f the Ahl-e Sunnat leadership in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were caretakers of
sufi shrines, and belonged to a world in which the intercessionary
power o f saints and family ancestors was taken for granted. Ahmad
Riza’s conceptions about the Prophet’s role as mediator w ith Allah
and his miraculous achievements were in line with sufi concepts of
spiritual authority and power.
Finally, it must be noted that the deep-rooted sense o f hierarchy
implicit in Ahl-e Sunnat prophetology, as well as the underlying
spirit o f devotion noted above, were in harmony w ith social and
religious conceptions held by South Asians who were not Muslim.
Ahl-e Sunnat sources seldom refer to the Hindus amidst whom they
lived, and when they do, the purpose is to distance themselves from
the beliefs and customs of these ‘polytheists’. This is as one would
expect from the followers o f a movement which wanted to stress its
 The Ahl-e Sunnat on Deobandis and ‘Wahhabis’ 267

universalistic Sunni roots and ties to the umma (religious com­

munity) beyond South Asia. Nevertheless, it would not be out o f
place, nor in contradiction of the larger Islamic roots o f the Ahl-e
Sunnat movement, to note that the simultaneous emphasis on
hierarchy and intimacy (religious ‘love’) is not alien to South Asian
(that is to say, chiefly Hindu) religious conceptions as expressed in,
for instance, the devotionalism o f bhakti saints or in Hindu religious
poetry.
There was, one might say, a similarity o f‘religious styles’ between
aspects o f Ahl-e Sunnat belief and ritual and that o f other South
Asian religious traditions which made the Ahl-e Sunnat movement
seem so distinctly subcontinental. Indirecdy, the Ahl-e Sunnat
literature itself indicates an awareness o f this, though the suggestion
is rejected because it comes from hostile detractors. Thus, the
Deobandis compared the rituals surrounding the Prophet’s birth
anniversary (majlis-e milad) to Hindu celebrations o f the birth o f
Lord Krishna (‘Kanhaiyya’). Muhammad Isma‘il had likewise com­
pared Muslim devotions and ritual surrounding saints’ tombs with
H indu idol worship. The point here is not that the Ahl-e Sunnat
‘resembled’ Hindus in any way— they certainly denied any such
similarity— but that the spirit ofreverential devotion with which they
regarded the Prophet, their manner o f expressing this love through
poetry, and their use o f rose water, incense and so on on ritual
occasions, would have been familiar and comprehensible to the
Hindus among whom they lived.
The Ahl-e Sunnat themselves, however, were no more com­
promising toward their Hindu neighbours than they were toward
their fellow Muslims. In the 1920s, the focus o f debate began to shift
away from internal questions toward definition o f boundaries with
non-Muslims. At first there was concern over the conversion o f
Muslims to Hinduism, resulting from the Shuddhi movement
launched by the Arya Samaj. But soon political questions loomed:
should Muslims participate with Hindus in the Khilafat movement?
A nd what should be their attitude to the British Indian government?
In the chapters ahead, I turn to Ahl-e Sunnat debate and perspective
on these issues.
 Chapter IX

Perspectives on the Khilafat, H ijrat and

Non-Cooperation M ovements

Indian Muslims were deeply affected by political events after 1910.

These were years o f enormous political change in the world, and in
British India specifically. Abroad, the Ottoman empire collapsed
after W orld W ar I, various European nations claiming parts o f its
territory. In India, the nationalist movement gained m om entum in
reaction to unpopular British policies, becoming more broadbased
particularly after Gandhi’s return from South Africa. In 1919-20,
Muslims took their stand on the Khilafat and Hijrat movements.
Despite the crowded political landscape o f the period, from the
Indian Muslim perspective the issues at stake were at bottom quite
small in number. One problem, called into question after decades
o f acceptance o f the status quo, was the religious status o f India
under British rule. The early twentieth century saw a revival of
debate among the ‘ulama’ on whether British India was dar al-harb
(the land of war) or dar al-islam (the land o f Islam, and o f peace).
Although the Khilafat movement o f 1919-20 arose out o f a different
concern— the role and significance to twentieth century Muslims in
the subcontinent of a pan-Islamic caliph— the two questions were,
at least to some Indian Muslims, related. The connection is apparent
from the fact that the Hijrat movement of 1920, in the course of
which thousands o f Indian Muslims emigrated to Afghanistan,
followed immediately on the heels of the Khilafat movement.
Evidendy some ‘ulama’, looking upon British India as dar al-harb at
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 269

this time, gave the call for migration (hijra) in accordance with
classical Islamic theory and in pursuance of the historical precedent
o f the Prophet’s migration from Mecca to Medina.
A third issue, also related to the status o f British India and to the
structure o f Muslim political relations, was what kind o f relationship
Indian Muslims should seek with Hindus. While for some ‘ulama’
the current political situation seemed to call for Muslims joining
w ith Hindus in common cause against the British, others looked
upon Hindus as harbis (those with whom one was at war), co-operation
w ith whom could have no legal Islamic (shari) sanction. Both sides,
it should be said, argued as they did on the basis o f shari'a and the
historical model o f the Prophet’s example.
In what follows, I shall try to elucidate Ahl-e Sunnat views on
the issues oudined above, seeking connections to the extent possible
between these and the more theologically oriented debates dealt
with earlier in this study. Ahmad Riza’s writings will again be my
main guide, though I shall also note dissenting voices within Ahl-e
Sunnat circles. Ahmad Riza’s death in October 1921 (Safer 1340)
occurred soon after the collapse of the Hijrat movement (in 1920).
T h e Khilafat movement collapsed in 1923-4. The disarray within
the Indian Muslim political leadership that followed upon these
events coincided with a period o f profound change in the Ahl-e
Sunnat movement, which split into opposing camps in the 1930s
and 1940s under new leadership. These events and the debates that
they generated form part of a new phase in the movement’s history,
dealt with briefly in the Epilogue.

D eb a t e o n t h e R e l ig io u s S tatu s of B r it is h I n d ia

T h e ambivalence o f the ‘ulama’ in the United Provinces toward the

British, across the entire ‘reformist’ spectrum, was illustrated in the
course of the nineteenth century by the debate that had started in
the early 1800s about whether British India was dar al-harb or dar
al-islam. The question was raised not once but several times.
T hroughout the nineteenth century, most ‘ulama’ appear to have
agreed, albeit with reservations, that British India was dar al-islam.
The debate began immediately after the British conquered Delhi
270 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

from the Marathas in 1803 (in the Third Maratha War). Shah ‘Abd
ul-‘Aziz Dehlawi wrote a fatwa, the first on the subject as far as one
can tell, that has been widely interpreted as an unequivocal decla­
ration o f British India as dar al-harb, implying a call for jihad or
hijrat.1According to this interpretation, the jihad movement led by
Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi against the Panjab kingdom o f R anjit Singh
was a direct outcome o f Shah ‘Abd ^ - ‘Aziz’s earlier fatwa.2
However, several scholars have challenged this interpretation.3
Mushir ul-Haqq’s detailed analysis o f Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz’s fatawa
on this issue was perhaps the first to do so.4 He argues that although
in his 1803 fatwa Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz did say that British India was
dar al-harb, this was not intended as a call for either jihad or hijrat.
There was no move in either o f these directions after the issuing of
this fatwa, nor any significant discussion in the literature o f these
courses o f action.5 Indeed, Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz defended his decision
not to emigrate from British India, and advised ‘Abd ul-Hayy, his

1 See, e.g., M. Mujeeb, The Indian Muslims (Lahore: Mustafa Waheed, n .d ), pp. 390-1;
I. H. Qure*hi, The Muslim Community of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent (Karachi: Ma'aref,
1977), pp. 220-3. W hich option is chosen (jihad or hijrat) depends on the likelihood
o f success against the opponent. In the classical theory, jihad may only be undertaken if
it is deem ed likely to succeed. A notew orthy study o f the doctrine o f jihad is in Rudolph
Peters, Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modem History (The Hague: M outon,
1979), particularly C hapter 2.
2 Ibid. For example, Qureshi writes (p. 223): ‘It seems legitimate to d r a w . . . the
conclusion that Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz had played an im portant role in preparing the Saiyid
for the leadership o f the new [jihad] m ovem ent’. Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture
in the Indian Environment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), p. 215, is not as categorical
in making this connecdon, but nevertheless writes that Shah ‘Abd u l-‘Aziz ‘encouraged
Muslims to migrate to other Muslim lands’.
3 A m ong them: Peanon, ‘Islamic R eform ’, p. 97; Metcalf, Islamic Revival, pp. 46, 50-1;
Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous, p. 169. All these interpretations accept the arguments
o f M ushir ul-H aqq, discussed below.
4 M ushir ul-H aqq, ‘Unniswin Sadi ke Hindustan ki Hai'at Shar‘i: Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz
ke Fatawa-e D ar al-Harb ka Ek ‘Ilmi Tajzi’a’ (The Shar'i C ondition o f N ineteenth-
C entury India: A Scholarly Examination o f Shah ‘Abd u l-‘Aziz’s Fatawa [on the issue
of) Dar al-Harb), Burhan, 63:4 (O ctober 1969), 221-44.
5 Ibid., p. 222, and passim. Mushir ul-H aqq points out that this fatwa was d tc d by early
tw entieth century Muslim nationalists in defence o f their ow n struggle against the British.
It suited them , according to him, to make the argument that Shah ‘Abd u l-‘Aziz’s fatwa
proved that jihad against the British was a shar'i duty.
 The Khilafat, Hijrat Und Non-Cooperation Movements 271

nephew and son-in-law, to accept an offer o f employment by the

East India Company.6
Mushir ul-Haqq demonstrates convincingly that Shah ‘Abd ul-
‘Aziz’s fatawa must be viewed in the context o f the economic
conditions of Muslims o f the time, not political considerations. He
argues that the controversial 1803 fatawa had been written in
response to a set of questions about the shar'i injunction relating to
the giving and taking of interest (sud, Ar. riba) on loans in a land that
had been adjudged to be dar al-harb.7 He believes that Shah ‘Abd
u l-‘Aziz, well aware o f the economic problems and contraints o f his
fellow Muslims, issued a fatwa that rendered their economic ac­
tivities legally acceptable, while refraining from drawing any politi­
cal implications therefrom.8 If this interpretation o f Shah ‘Abd
u l-‘Aziz’s fatwa is correct, it is unlikely that he would have looked
upon the jihad movement o f the Mujahidin favourably.9 As he died
in 1824, shortly after Sayyid Ahmad and his followers returned from
hajj prior to launching their jihad, he may not have been in
sufficiendy fit condition to pass judgment on the issue.10
In Bengal, another movement arose under the leadership o f Haji
Shari‘at Ullah (d. 1840), which interpreted British occupation of

6 Ibid., pp. 235, 237.

7 In view o f Muslims’ right to engage in interest-bearing loans in such a situation, it
was im portant for those Muslims already weighed down by debt, M ushir ul-H aqq argues,
to know w hether their new subjection to the British had rendered their land a dar
al-harb. If so, they could draw some comfort in the knowledge that their involvement
in interest-paying loans, forbidden in a dar al-islam but entered into by them with other
Muslims nevertheless (a practice regarded particularly negatively in a dar al-islam), due
to adverse circumstances, now had shar‘i sanction. In short, the question showed an
interest in Muslim ‘rights* rather than ‘duties1in the new situation. Ibid., pp. 228,231-3.
8 Barbara M etcalf summarizes the position cogendy: ‘Abdu1-‘Aziz thus appears to have
w anted Muslims to behave politically as if the situation were dam'l-islam, for he gave no
call to military action, yet he wanted them to recognize that the organization o f the state
was no longer in Muslim hands'. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 51.
9 M etcalf suggests that Shah ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz may have been opposed to die jihad. See
ibid., p. 55.
10 For details on the jihad, see Pearson, ‘Islamic R eform ’, pp. 4 9 -5 3 . Apparendy,
despite his initiation o f the jihad m ovem ent, Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi ‘indicated that
British territory was not dar al-harb but was temporarily occupied and needed to be
liberated1. Ibid., p. 49, n. 3. Also see Peters, Islam and Colonialism, pp. 44—9.
272 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

India as transformation ofa dar al-islam into a dar al-harb.11 R eturn­

ing to Bengal in 1821 after more than twenty years in the Haramain,
Haji Shari'at Ullah forbade the performance o f the ju m ’a (Friday
congregational) prayer and the ‘id (holiday) prayers in the absence
o f duly functioning qazis and amirs (governors) in towns and villages.
In a situation o f extreme economic distress caused by the destruction
o f local industry by indigo planters and others, he concentrated his
efforts on religious reform and economic uplift among Bengal
peasants, rather than a call for jihad.12
The popular uprising o f 1857 was the last occasion in the
nineteenth century when the banner o f jihad was raised.13 In the
aftermath o f this cataclysmic event, W. W . H unter’s book The Indian
Mussalmans: Are They Bound in Conscience to Rebel Against the Queen?
(published in 1871) provoked an outpouring against his thesis that
‘the fanatical masses’ o f Muslim peasants and artisans were bound by
their faith to rebel against British rule.14 Muslim thinkers such as
Maulawi Karamat ‘AH o f Jaunpur (1800-73), Sir Sayyid Ahmad
Khan (1817-98), Chiragh ‘All (1844—95), Maulawi Nazir Ahmad
(1833—1912), and others, responded with counterarguments o f their
own. Some, such as Karamat ‘AH, argued that British India was dar
al-islam because ‘the three conditions laid down by Abu Hanifa for
the conversion o f a dar al-islam into a dar al-harb were not
satisfied’.15 The fact that Muslim law was in force in matters such as
n Peter Hardy, The Muslims of British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1972), pp. 55—7. T h e m ost comprehensive study o f the Fara’izi m ovem ent is
M uin-ud-din Ahm ad Khan, History o f the Fara'idi Movement in Bengal (1818-1906)
(Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society, 1965).
12 Hardy, pp. 55-7.
13 See, e.g., Eric Stokes, The Peasant Armed: The Indian Rebellion of 1857, ed. C. A. BayJy
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 86-7. Although Bahadur Shah Zafar, the Mughal
Em peror, refused to turn ‘the rebellion into a predom inandy Islamic crusade’ against
‘w hite kaffir rule’, some local leaders such as Bakht Khan saw the fight as a jihad and
raised local support on that basis. A nother w ell-know n figure, R ahm at Allah Kairanawi
(1818-90), ‘endorsed the jihad against English rule and escaped to Mecca w ith a price
on his head following the collapse o f the M utiny’. M artin Kramer, Islam Assembled: The
Advent of the Muslim Congresses (N ew York: Colum bia University Press, 1986), p. 5.
14 For a discussion o f H unter’s book, see David Lclyveld, Aligarh’s First Generation, pp.
10- 12.
15 Hardy, Muslims of British India, p. 111. T he three conditions were: ‘(1) the law ofthe
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 273

marriage, divorce, and inheritance, and that Muslims enjoyed com­

plete freedom o f worship, Karamat ‘AH said, made it unlawful to
declare British India to be dar al-harb. Others, including Sir Sayyid
Ahmad Khan and Chiragh ‘Ali, argued that British India was neither
dar al-Islam nor dar al-harb ‘but something o f both’ (in Sir Sayyid’s
words), or ‘simply British India’ (in Chiragh ‘Ali’s).16
It is in this context o f post-1857 debates about the shar'i status o f
British India amid increasing changes under colonial rule, that fatawa
on the dar al-harb question by north Indian ‘ulama such as Ahmad
Riza must be seen. Asked in 1880-81 whether British India was dar
al-harb or dar al-Islam, and whether the Jews and Christians o f the
time should be regarded as kitabi ([people] of the book), Ahmad
Riza’s reply (to the first question) was essentially in agreement with
the views o f Karamat ‘Ali and others, who had maintained that there
was no basis in Hanafi law for declaring British India to be dar al-
harb.17As to the second question, he cited conflicting opinions from
fiqh literature on whether belief that Jesus was God rendered a
person a mushrik (polytheist) and thus deprived him or her o f the
privileged status o f a kitabi; then advised that in view o f the lack o f
consensus it was best for a Muslim not to eat meat slaughtered by a
Jew or Christian, or marry among them.18
O n the dar al-islam issue, Ahmad Riza cited disagreement within
the Hanafi school on whether fulfillment o f all three conditions was
required for a dar al-islam to become dar al-harb, or whether

unbelievers replaces that o f Islam; (2) the country in question directly adjoins the dar
al-harb; (3) Muslims and their non-M uslim dhimmis no longer enjoy any protection
th e re . T he first o f these conditions is the most important'. A. Abel, ‘Dar al-H arb’, in
E12. T here is disagreement within the Hanafi school as to whether all three condi dons
h a v e to be m et to render a place dar al-haib, or w hether the existence o f even one o f
th ese conditions is sufficient to do so.
16 H ardy, Muslims o f British India, pp. 112-13.
17 A hm ad Riza Khan, ITam al-A 1am bi-anna Hindustan Dar al- Islam (Notification o f the
N otables that Hindustan is Dar al-Islam), (Bareilly: Hasani Press, 1306/1888-89), 20
p p . R eprinted in Do Ahamm Fatwe (Lahore: Maktaba Qadiriyya, 1977).
18 This opinion was significant in light o f the later charge (on which, see below) that
A hm ad R iza had pro-British sympathies. His defenders never cited this part o f the fatwa,
how ever.
274 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

fulfillment o f the first alone was sufficient to do so.19 His own

judgm ent was as follows:
In Hindustan . . . Muslims arc free to openly (‘ala al-a'lan) observe the two ‘ids,
the azan [call to prayer], iqamat [standing up at start o f the prayer], namaz
ba-jama'at [congregational prayer] . . . which are the signs o f the shan a, without
opposition. Also the fara’iz [religious duties], nikah [marriage ceremony], razct
[fosterage], . . . There are many suchroatters among Muslims . . . on which
. . . the British government also finds it necessary to seek fatawa from the
‘ulama’ and act accordingly, whether they [the rulers] be Zoroastrian or
Christian . . . . In short, there is no doubt that Hindustan is dar al-islam.20

In his judgment, the first condition was the decisive one. Because
Muslims were free to fulfill their religious dudes, and to conduct
their personal lives in accordance with Muslim law, British India
was dar al-islam. Ahmad Riza charged that anyone who ruled
differendy was doing so merely in order to permit Muslims to engage
in interest-bearing debt (an analysis, one might note in passing,
substantially similar to Mushir ul-Haqq’s interpretation of Shah ‘Abd
ul-‘Aziz’s fatwa o f 1803). They had no intention o f either waging
jihad, or doing hijrat, Ahmad Riza said, as they ought to do if they
were sincere in holding India to be dar al-harb.21
The opinion that British India was dar al-islam was, as noted
above, in agreement with the generally prevailing view at this
time among leading Muslim thinkers. The same judgm ent was
delivered by Deobandi ‘ulama’ such as Ashraf ‘Ah Thanawi and
Rashid Ahmad Gangohi,22 and by Maulana ‘Abd ul-Hayy o f Firangi

19 O n these three conditions, sec note 15 above.

20 Ahmad Riza Khan, 11am al-A 1am, p. 2.
21 This may or may not have been a charge against a hypothetical opinion contrary to
Ahmad Roza’s. T he only ‘alim w ho expressed a contrary opinion at this tim e was
M uham m ad Qasim Nanautawi, o f Deoband, w ho, according to A shraf‘Ali Thanawi,
‘gave preference to {tarjih) [British India being] dar al-harb’. Do Ahamm Fatwe, p. 55.
22 See Do Ahamm Fatwe, pp. 3 8 -5 5 for A shraf‘Ali’s fatwa, entided Tahzir al-lkhwan
(W arning to [our] Brothers). Unlike the istifta (question) addressed to Ahmad Riza, in
which the question about British India’s religious status was followed by questions about
the status ofjew s and Christians, and w hether Shi'is were innovators (mubtadi*) o r not,
the questions asked o f A shraf‘Ali related to the use o f bank promissory notes, and the
giving and taking o f interest. Ashraf ‘Ali said that although there was disagreement
w ithin the Hanafi school as to the precise conditions under which a dar al-islam becomes
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 275

Mahal, Lucknow.23
However, after about 1910 the political climate in north India
changed dramatically from that o f the 1880s, turning progressively
anti-British. Although it would be an oversimplification o f a com­
plex political process to assign a single date or event to this ongoing
change, the partition o f Bengal in 1905 is generally acknowledged
to have been a significant turning point for both Hindus and
Muslims.24 For Muslims, events in the international arena were
equally important in changing their attitude: their single greatest
cause for discontent was the European dismemberment o f the
O ttom an empire, a process that began in the last decades o f the
nineteenth century, and was renewed in 1911—12.25 By 1912—13,
influential Urdu journals such as Al-Hilal owned by Abu’l Kalam
Azad (1888-1958) and English language papers such as Maulana
M uhammad ‘AH’s (1878-1931) Comrade were advocating helping
the Turks. The British rightly interpreted these and other signs o f
pro-O ttom an feeling as evidence o f a growing pan-Islamic move­
m ent.26
It was in this climate o f growing Muslim opposition to the British

dar al-hatb, he considered it impermissible to give or take interest-bearing loans in India,

even from Hindus w ho had been zim mh (people for whose security one was responsible,
zimme-dar) since M ughal times. Ibid., p. 45. Gangohi’s reply also appears to clearly imply
th at British India was dar al-islam. Judging by this fatwa, Hardy’s statement that R ashid
A hm ad Gangohi ‘refused to give a clear answer when blundy asked for a fatwa’ seems
m istaken. See Hardy, Muslims of British India, pp. 115,174.
23 Hardy, Muslims of British India, p. 114. O n p. 174, however, Hardy suggests that ‘Abd
ul-H ayy left it to his audience to decide w hether British India was dar al-harb or dar
al-islam. According to Hardy, he merely set out Abu Hanifa’s conditions in his fatwa,
b u t did not address the question o f w hether those conditions obtained in India.
24 T hough, for Muslims, it was the 1911 revocation o f the partition, not the 1905 act
o f partition, that they objected to. For a general survey o f the political events o f early
tw entieth-century British India, see, e.g., Stanley W olpert, A New History of India (N ew
Y ork: O xford University Press, 1982), 2nd ed., Chapters 19-21. For a specifically
M uslim perspective on these events, see Hardy, particulariy Chapters 6-7.
25 See Hardy, Muslims of British India, pp. 176, 182.
26 Ibid., pp. 175, 177. For British fears o f a pan-Islamic m ovem ent in Southeast Asia,
see A nthony R eid, ‘N ineteenth-C entury Pan-Islam in Indonesia and Malaysia’, Journal
o f Asian Studies, XX VI:2 (1967), 267-83. For discussion o f the pan-Islamic character o f
the Khilafat m ovem ent, see below.
276 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Indian government that in 1914 the azan debate was sparked offby
Ahmad Riza’s attempt to change an aspect o f the ritual practice of
the congregational prayer. As noted in Chapter VI above, by 1916
the debate had become unusually acrimonious and public when a
follower o f Maulana ‘Abd ul-Muqtadir Badayuni charged Ahmad
Riza with libel. Although Ahmad Riza was vindicated by the court
in 1917, the events surrounding the case reveal important fissures
within the Ahl-e Sunnat movement. It is significant that ‘Abd
ul-Majid Badayuni,27a close disciple o f‘Abd ul-M uqtadir Badayuni,
opposed Ahmad Riza’s position in court despite his family’s long­
standing friendship with Ahmad Riza and his family. Following
Benedict Anderson’s analysis, one might say that by 1916-17 a
younger generation o f Ahl-e Sunnat leaders was emerging, shaped
by the availability o f ‘print capitalism’ and the development of mass
communications generally. This leadership no longer defined the
‘religious’ realm as an internal, apolitical one, but as one w hich was
infused with political meaning, which meaning could appropriately
be negotiated in a public arena (such as a British Indian courtroom).
Thus, while Ahmad Riza defined issues such as the azan debate in
narrowly ‘religious’ terms (which were private and outside the
purview o f the state), by 1916 Ahl-e Sunnat leaders such as ‘Abd
ul-Majid were enlarging the scope of such issues. This also led ‘Abd
ul-Majid into a range o f political activities and alliances on the wider
stage o f Indian Muslim concerns related to the Khilafat movement.
In 1919, a large number o f ‘ulama’ lent their support to leaders
such as Azad and Muhammad ‘Ali in creating an organization called
the Jam'iyyat al-‘Ulama’-e Hind. Its declared purposes were:
to protect the Hijaz and the Arabian peninsula [from non-M uslim encroach­
ment] and to defend Islamic nationality (qaumiyyat) from all ills; to obtain and
protect the religious and patriotic (watani, i.e. relating to their homeland India)
rights and interests o f Muslims; to bring the ‘ulama together at one centre; to

27 T hough earlier associated w ith the Ahl-e Sunnat leadership, ‘Abd ul-Majid’s
(1886/7-1931) career represents a d e a r break from the path advocated by Ahmad Rio
and other Ahl-e Sunnat leaden. Following the leadership o f his pir, Shah ‘Abd
ul-M uqtadir Badayuni (1866/7-1915/16), he played a leading role in the KhiU&t
m ovem ent and Congress politics. See M ahm ud Ahmad Qadiri, Tazkira-e ‘U la m a ’-* Aki-<
Sunnat (Muzaffarpur, B ih a r Khanqah-e Qadiriyya Ashrafiyya, 1391/1971), pp. 146-9-
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 277

organize the Muslim community (millat) on a shari'a footing and to establish

shari'a courts; to bring about [the] complete freedom o f the country (mulk) in
accordance with shari'a objectives; to seek the religious, educational, moral,
social and economic welfare o f Muslims and to propagate Islam inside India so
far as they are able in terms o f Islam; to strengthen the bonds o f brotherhood
and unity with the Muslims o f other lands; and to establish in conformity with
the mandates o f the shari'a co-operative and comradely relations with their
non-M uslim brothers living in their common homeland (watan).

Among the leaders o f this new organization were Maulanas ‘Abd

ul-Bari Firangi Mahali, AbuT Kalam Azad, ‘Abd ul-Majid Badayuni,
and Shabbir Ahmad ‘Usmani o f Deoband. In outlining the am­
bitious list o f objectives above— particularly in the declaration that
they would seek to bring about the complete freedom of the
country— the ‘ulama’ ofthejam'iyyat sent out a clear signal that they
w ere no longer inclined to acquiesce in British rule or issue fatawa
declaring British India to be dar al-islam. Indeed, they were prepared,
as their declaration o f objectives shows, to co-operate with non-
Muslims in this endeavour.
The names o f Ahmad Riza and other important leaders o f the
Ahl-e Sunnat movement, such as N a‘im ud-D in Muradabadi and
Muhammad Miyan Aulad-e Rasul Marahrawi, were however con­
spicuously absent from the list o f supporters o f the Jam‘iyyat al-
‘Ulama’.29 In the late summer o f 1920, some leaders of the Jam‘iyyat
(notably Maulanas ‘Abd ul-Bari Firangi Mahali and Abu’l Kalam
Azad) launched the Hijrat movement. Shortly thereafter, in October
1920, a fatwa by Ahmad Riza was published in Dabdaha-e Sikandari,
Ram pur, on the dar al-islam/dar al-harb issue.30 It was the same

Peter Hardy, Partners in Freedom— and True Muslims: The Political Thought o f Some
Muslim Scholars in British India 1912-1947 (Lund: Scandinavian Institute o f Asian
Studies, 1971), pp. 31-2.
29 O th er w ell-known ‘ulama* also stood apart, among them Ashraf ‘Ali Thanawi o f
D eoband. After 1921, however, the Jam ‘iyyat appears to have come under Deobandi
dom ination. See Gail M inault, The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbolism and Political
Mobilization in India (N ew York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 80; G. R .
T hursby, Hindu-Muslim Relations in British India, p. 154.
30 Dabdaha-e Sikandari, 57:5 (O ctober 18,1920), 4 - 6 . O nly the first part o f the fatwa,
dealing specifically with the question as to w hether British India was dar al-harb or dar
al-islam, was published.
278 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

fatwa that had been written in 1880-81. It made clear his refusal to
declare British India dar al-harb, and his condemnation o f the Hijrat
movement.
The publication o f this fatwa evidendy raised an outcry among
fellow Muslims, for in January 1921 the Dabdaba-e Sikandari pub­
lished a lengthy rebuttal o f charges that Ahmad Riza had pro-British
sympathies.31 The paper reported that Ahmad Riza had been ac­
cused (possibly by the Jam‘iyyat’s United Provinces wing32) of
opposing assistance to the Ottoman sultan, and o f not considering
it necessary to protect the holy places (Mecca and Medina) from
European occupation. Moreover, it was said that he had met the
Lieutenant-Governor o f the United Provinces (Sir James Meston)
while on retreat in the hill station o f Naini Tal,33that he wrote fatawa
on lines pleasing to the government, and that he was in its pay. The
article reported a conversation between Ahmad Riza, Maulana
Muhammad Miyan o f Marahra and one Ahmad Mukhtar Siddiqi of
Bombay, in which Ahmad Riza verbally answered each charge.

D ebate on How Best to H elp the T urks, 1912-1920

Several scholars of twentieth-century subcontinental history have

noted the important effect that loss o f territory by the Ottoman
empire to European countries such as Britain, France, and Italy had
on the politicization o f the Indian Muslim intelligentsia and literate

31 Ibid., 57:20 (January 31, 1921), 4-6.

32 M aulanas N isar A hm ad K anpuri and R iyasat ‘Ali Khan Shahjahanpuri,
representatives o f the U .P. branch o f the Jam'iyyat, had sought Ahmad Riza’s
participation in a forthcom ing meeting. (No date is indicated for this meeting.) He told
them that if they agreed to give up unity (ittihad) with Hindus, and n o t associate
Deobandis and ‘Wahhabis* with it, he w ould consider him self a khidmatgar (servitor)
o f the Jam ‘iyyat and send a paper (tahrir) to be read at the meeting. Illness and weakness
prevented him from attending personally, he said. Although they reportedly agreed to
these conditions, the Jam 'iyyat’s stand on participation w ith H indus, am ong other
things, undoubtedly did not change. See ibid., p. 5.
35 For the last tw o or three years o f his life (from 1918—19 to 1921, the year ofhis death),
Ahmad Riza had been going to Bhawali, near Naini Tal, to observe the Ram azan fast
there. His poor health made it difficult for him to fast in the heat o f the plains, while in
the foot-hills o f the Himalaya at Bhawali it was relatively easy to do so. Hasnain Riza
Khan, Sirat-e A la Hazrat, pp. 123-4.
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 279

public.34 As they note, internal events such as revocation o f the

partition o f Bengal in 1911, which many Muslims interpreted as a
setback to their economic interests in terms o f competition with
Hindus, and the government’s refusal to grant the Muhammadan
Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh university status in 1912, added to
anti-British feeling caused by developments in the international arena.35
Even the pro-government Muslim League, founded in 1906, had
become anti-British a decade later as a result o f these and other events.
The role o f the press was most important in creating across-
the-board awareness o f these matters and widening the range o f
discontent. As noted above, Muslim journalists such as Muhammad
‘Ali and Abu’l Kalam Azad advocated through their respective
papers measures against European encroachment on Ottoman ter­
ritory. In Panjab, Zafar ‘Ali Khan, like Muhammad ‘AH an alumnus
o f M AO college, Aligarh, was equally influential in Urdu-speaking
circles through his paper, Zamindar. These men were influential not
only among élite Western-educated Muslims (MAO college alum­
ni, for the most part) but also among the ‘ulama’. This was particular­
ly the case with Muhammad ‘Ah and his brother Shaukat ‘Ali
(1873-1938) who became disciples ofMaulana ‘Abd ul-Bari Firangi
Mahali sometime after 1913.36 ‘Abd ul-Bari had been independendy
involved in efforts to raise money for Turkish relief prior to his
meeting with the brothers in December 1912. At this meeting, he
proposed the setting up o f an association ‘dedicated to the cause o f
preserving the holy places [Mecca and Medina] from harm’, to be
called the Anjuman-e Khuddam-e Ka‘ba (Society o f the Servants of
the Ka‘ba).37The brothers approved the idea, and actively supported

34 See, e.g., Hardy, Muslims o f British India, pp. 175- 82; I. H. Qureshi, Ulema in Polities:
A Study Relating to the Political Activities o f the Ulema in the South-Asian Subcontinentfrom
1556 to } 9 4 7 (Karachi: Ma'aref, 1974), 2nd ed., pp. 229-32; M inault, The Khilafat
Movement, pp. 22-4.
35 See, e.g., Minault, The Khilafat Movement, pp. 10, 22-3.
36 M inault, relates the circumstances in which the brothers met Maulana ‘Abd ul-Bari,
in ibid., pp. 34-5.
37 Organization of assistance to Mecca and M edina o f course also signalled support o f
the O ttom ans, who controlled Arabia until 1916.
280 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

‘Abd ul-Bari and other ‘ulama’ in their efforts.M

During 1913 ‘Abd ul-Bari was busy recruiting members and
seeking funds for the Anjuman.39 Over eight thousand Muslims
were enrolled in the course o f the year as a result o f extensive tours,
public meetings, and circulation o f leaflets.40 Ahmad Riza was
prominent among those whose patronage was sought. The two
‘ulama’ exchanged a series o f letters on the subject in the course of
which Ahmad Riza expressed his objection to the Anjuman on two
major grounds: first, the language o f the Anjuman’s constitution
(dastur-e amal) which might, he felt, lead to ‘impermissible opposition’
(na-ja’iz mukhalafat) to the government, for such opposition was
not beneficial but harmful to the Muslims.41 The reference was
(apparently) to a suggestion that jihad might (in the future) be
undertaken against the British government. Ahmad Riza wanted
these words to be changed. As we saw earlier, his stand on the
religious status o f British India was that it was dar al-islam. He had
not changed his mind on this despite the spate of international and
domestic events that had so angered fellow ‘ulama’, and could not
therefore countenance the idea o f jihad.
His second objection was to the presence of Deobandis and bad-
mazhabis (those whose faith he thought to be wanting) in leadership
roles in the Anjuman, and their taking on teaching and preaching.

38 Co-operation in Anjuman affairs between W estern-trained Muslims and ‘ulama’ was

apparendy quite wide-ranging. Am ong others, prom inent ‘traditional’ Muslims included
Hakim Ajmal Khan (1863-1928), son o f an old family o f tabibs (Yunani medical
practitioners) in Delhi, w ho later rose high in the ranks o f the Indian National Congress.
Dr. M. A. Ansari (1880-1936), also a ‘nationalist Muslim’ (i.e., one who supported
Congress rather than Muslim League policies), had a European education but belonged
to a family in which tw o brothers practised tibb. O ne o f these was for a time a disciple
o f Maulana Rashid Ahmad Gangohi o f Deoband. See M inault, pp. 30, 36.
39 This was also the year o f the ‘Cawnpore M osque Affair’, as Muslim agitation over
destruction by municipal authorities o f a washing area attached to the Machhli Bazaar
M osque in Kanpur was know n. ‘Abd ul-Bari and the ‘All brothers were involved in
anti-governm ent protests over this incident as well. For details on the event, see Freitag,
‘Ambiguous Public Arenas’, in Ewing, ed., Shari ‘at and Ambiguity in South Asian Islam,
pp. 143-53; See also M inault, The Khilafat Movement, pp. 46-8, for ‘Abd ul-Bari and
the ‘Ali brothers’ role in the affair.
40 See ibid., pp. 36-8.
41 Dabdaba-t Sikandari, 49:35 (August 11, 1913), 5-6.
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 281

‘Their islam is not islam in our regard, and their introduction as

teachers o f din will be extremely harmful’.42 He proposed that the
Anjuman have a small select leadership, such that its inner ‘circle is
confined to the Ahl-e Sunnat’— meaning, in this instance, not only
those ‘ulama’ who were part o f his close circle o f followers, but also
‘ulama’ such as ‘Abd ul-Bari himself, whom he regarded as a good
but currendy misled, ‘Sunni’. Subject to these conditions, he would
gladly become a member and patron.43
As with Ahmad Riza’s previous correspondence with Maulana
Muhammad ‘Ali Mungeri, who had played a leading role in found­
ing the Nadwat al-‘Ulama’ in Lucknow in the 1890s,44 the outcome
o f this exchange was a stalemate. O n Ahmad Riza’s part, there was
consistency in his arguments on these two occasions, particularly in
his insistence that the ‘ulama’ o f the Ahl-e Sunnat could not join
w ith ‘ulama’ he considered bad-mazhab on a common platform in
defence o f any religious cause, no matter how laudable. To do so,
Ahmad Riza argued, was to be responsible for the ruin o f din itself.
Refusal to join the Anjuman-e Khuddam-e Ka‘ba did not how­
ever mean that he opposed helping the Ottomans. Asked, in
February 1913, what (Indian) Muslims should do in their present
circumstances, and how they could help, Ahmad Riza gave a fatwa
outlining a plan for internal reform, to be undertaken by Indian
Muslims in their own communities, as well as assistance to the
Turks.45 Expressing his sympathy for the plight o f the Turkish
people, Ahmad Riza’s central message was encapsulated in Q ur’an
13:11, quoted at the beginning o f his fatwa: ‘Verily never will God

42 Ibid., p. 6.
43 Ibid.
44 For discussion o f this correspondence, and Ahl-e Sunnat arguments in that
connection, see Chapter VII above.
45 Ahm ad Riza Khan, Tadbir-r Falah wa Najat wa Islah (Means o f Prosperity, Salvation,
and Reform ), (Bareilly: Hasani Press, 1331/1913), 15 pp. T he question was posed by
M unshi La’l Khan Madrasi, a khalifa o f Ahmad Riza w ho lived in Calcutta. H e was a
w ealthy m erchant (personal comm unication with Maulana Yasin Akhtar Misbahi, o f
D elhi), and was active in directing important Ahl-e Sunnat activities in the early
tw entieth century.
It should be noted that both the question and the fatwa given in response refer to the
T urks rather than the Ottomans.
282 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

change the condition o f a people until they change it themselves

(with their own souls)’ (Yusuf‘AH tr.).46Essentially, b o th Turks and
Indian Muslims must help themselves, rather than w ait to be helped.
However, the Indian Muslims could help the T u rk s as well as
themselves if they would but ‘open their eyes’.
Indian Muslims did not have the resources to enable them to
leave their homes, possessions, and families, and travel thousands of
miles to help their Turkish brethren on the battlefield, Ahmad Riza
wrote. But they could help by giving money (mal). I f every Muslim
wage-eamer donated a m onth’s salary, living for tw elve months on
eleven months’ income, tens o f thousands o f pounds could be
gathered for Turkish relief without causing excessive hardship.47
W hat had been achieved so far in assistance was but a pittance of
what was needed.
Ahmad Riza was highly critical o f the manner in which the
Muslim leadership, both ‘ulama’ and W estern-educated Muslims,
had gone about the task o f Turkish relief. In his view they had
merely frittered m oney away in meaningless activities:
T h e M u slim s th e re [in T u rk e y ] are g o in g th ro u g h grave h a rd s h ip . B u t here
th e re are th e sam e m ee tin g s, th e sam e c o lo u r, th e sam e th e a tre , th e same
e n te rta in in g p e rfo rm a n c es (tamashe), th e sam e forgetfulness (ghajlaten), the same
useless ex p en se. N o th in g is lacking. J u s t th e o th e r day a m a n d o n a te d fifty
th o u sa n d rupees to s o m e w o rld ly cause . . . . W h e n it c o m e s to h e lp in g the
p o o r o f Islam , th e e n th u sia sm expressed is sky h ig h ; [but] th e a c tio n s which
a c c o m p a n y it are at flo o r lev el.48

In passages such as this throughout the fatwa, Ahmad R iza indicated

his disdain for the populist efforts o f ‘Abd ul-Bari and others then
active in Muslim public affairs. None o f their meetings, associations,
or colleges accomplished anything for the welfare o f Muslims, in his
view. It was all a waste o f money.49

46 Ibid., p. 3.
47 Ibid., p. 14.
48 Ibid., pp. 5 -6 .
49 In 1921, answering the Jam'iyyat al-‘Ulama’-e H ind’s charge that he had done
nothing to help either the Turks or the holy places, Ahmad Riza countered by saying
that they had accomplished nothing in that direction either. In fact, he said, they had
taken m oney from ordinary Muslims and spent it on their travels, meetings, and
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 283

Ahmad Riza’s answer to the related question o f what should be

done by Indian Muslims in the midst o f prevailing anti-British
sentiment, was to propose a four-fold course o f action. Dismissing
a proposal by other ‘ulama’ for a boycott o f European goods as
impractical on account o f a widespread love by Indians o f foreign
goods, he suggested instead that Muslims seek means to be legally
and economically self-sufficient, dependent on help from neither
the British nor the Hindus. First, excepting those limited matters on
which the government had the right to intervene, Muslims should
refrain from taking their disputes to the courts.50 They should make
their own judgments, thereby saving large sums o f money on stamp
duties and legal fees. Second, Muslims should buy whatever they
needed from other Muslims, thus keeping money within the com­
munity, giving a fillip to Muslim traders, and being self-reliant.
Third, wealthy Muslims in large cities such as Bombay, Haidarabad,
and elsewhere should open interest-free banks for their fellow
Muslims. This would benefit the Muslim bankers in the long run if
not immediately, as well as their brethren. Moreover, the wealth
currendy being lost to Baniyas would remain in Muslim hands.
Finally, the most important thing that Muslims had was their din.
They had neglected it in pursuit of other goals, and reduced it to its
current weak state. They should go back to acquiring ‘ilm-e din,
knowledge o f their faith, and act on it.51
This is one o f the few fatawa known to me in which Ahmad Riza
proposed a course o f action to address current Muslim problems,
rather than purely theological concerns. Its interest lies both in what
it does and does not say. Focusing chiefly on economic reform to
be carried out individually and collectively by Muslims themselves,
it is silent on the need for political action. The problem, Ahmad

festivities. See Dabdaba-e Sikandari, 57:20 (January 31, 1921), 4.

50 This suggestion was by no means novel, o f course. T he Deobandi ‘ulama’ had been
discouraging Muslims from using the British-run courts since the late nineteenth
century, even setting up a court o f their ow n under Maulana Qasim Nanautawi. See
Metcalf, Islamic Revival, pp. 146-7. For his part, Ahmad Riza had followed this policy
o f avoiding the courts in his ow n life, refusing in 1917 to answer a court summons. For
details, see Chapter VI.
51 Tadbir-e Falah, pp. 6-8.
284 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Riza argued, was internal to the Muslim com m unity— the Muslims
were so engrossed in mutual quarrels, the pursuit o f pleasure, and
the quest for a university education so as to get governm ent jobs
that they had neglected din and allowed the non-M uslim s to get
ahead o f them in worldly affairs as well. Ahmad R iza’s criticism of
the Muslim leadership, on grounds that it was wasting time and
money on selfish and self-promotional activities (including meet­
ings, associations, and educational programmes), is indicative o f his
distance and isolation from the leading ‘ulama’ and Muslim intellec­
tuals o f his day on issues o f public concern. His vision o f reform
remained an internal one, as that o f many other ‘ulama’ had been in
the late nineteenth century. But while others had begun to explore
new alliances and organizational avenues for improving the political
situation o f the Muslims vis-A-vis the British and the Hindus, Ahmad
Riza’s position that British India was a dar al-islam, coupled as we
shall see with his objections to a Muslim-Hindu political alliance,
caused him to be resolutely opposed to the course advocated by the
Jam‘iyyat leadership.
O n the Turkish question, however, Ahl-e Sunnat leaders did
more than advise fellow-Muslims to donate a m onth’s salary to help
the Turks. Several years later, in Sha‘ban 1339/April—M arch 1921,
shortly before Ahmad Riza’s death, they created their ow n associa­
tion called the ‘Ansar al-Islam’52 one of the main purposes o f which
was to help the Turkish state and the holy places.53 Resolutions were
adopted to this end, as also to promote the economic reforms
proposed by Ahmad Riza in his 1913 fatwa. Ahmad R iza’s closest
folio w en were in the forefront o f the leadership: M uhammad Miyan
Marahrawi, Zafar ud-D in Bihari, Na‘im ud-Din Muradabadi, Didar
‘Ali Alwari, and others. However, the new organization could not
escape the accusation that it had been appointed by the British and

52 In choosing the word ‘Ansar’, Helpers, they were undoubtedly invoking the
Prophet’s ow n lifetime, w hen the Ansar o f Medina gave M uhamm ad shelter from his
enemies in Mecca and enabled him and his fellow companions (the M uhajin, or
Emigrants) to set up the first state run in accordance with Muslim prescriptions. See
Chapter III for m ore detailed treatment o f the Ansar al-Islam.
53 Al-Sawad al-A'zam (Muradabad), 2, 5 (Sha'ban 1339/April-M ay 1921), 2-8.
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 285

was a ‘government meeting’. Opposition to it was apparently strong,

coming this time from supporters o f the Khilafat movement.

A hl- e Sunnat O p p o s it io n t o t h e K h il a fa t M o vem ent, 1 9 1 9 -2 0

T he Jam'iyyat al-‘Ulama’-e Hind, formed in November 1919 in

response to a strong tide o f anti-British feeling, was the first ‘political’
party o f ‘ulama’ in British India. Its decision to co-operate with the
Hindu-dominated Indian National Congress, made on the basis o f
shar‘i interpretation,54 coincided with an agreement forged between
the purely political parties o f the Muslim League and Congress in
1916, under the terms o f the famous Lucknow Pact.55 The Khilafat
movement arose in 1919 in the context of this internal political
climate o f anti-British feeling, Hindu-Muslim unity,56 and post-
W orld War I events abroad.
The Indian movement must also be seen in light o f a broader
trend, namely pan-Islamic sentiment centred around loyalty to the
O ttom an ruler who became, for many Muslims, a rallying point
against European colonial expansion in the nineteenth century. As
Kramer points out, threat o f ‘an expanding West’ had made many
Muslims ‘anxious to exchange professions o f allegiance for whatever
military, diplomatic, or moral aid the Ottomans could spare them’.57
For his part, the sultan-caliph ‘Abd al-Hamid II (r. 1876—1909), no
longer able to defend the empire against European encroachment,
54 For an analysis o f the Jam'iyyat’s attitude to the Indian nationalist movement down
to 1947, the year o f India’s independence and Pakistan's creation, see Yohanan
Friedm ann, ‘T he Attitude o f the Jam ‘iyyat-i ‘Ulama’-i H ind to the Indian National
M ovem ent and the Establishment o f Pakistan’, Asian and African Studies, 7 (1971),
157-80. Also see Hardy, Partners in Freedom.
55 These events are well-documented in the scholarly literature. Judith M. Brown,
Gandhi’s Rise to Power: Indian Politics 1915-922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1972), gives a vivid account from the point o f view o f Gandhi’s political role
during this period. For a Muslim perspective, see Hardy, Muslims of British Indian, Stanley
W olpert, Jinnah of Pakistan (New York: O xford University Press, 1984).
56 M inault argues in The Khilafat Movement, pp. 1—3, that it is primarily in this context
o f Indian nationalist interest— what she calls a quest by Indian Muslims for a ‘pan-Indian
Islam’— that the Khilafat m ovem ent should be viewed, not in terms o f pan-Islamic
sentim ent (discussed below).
57 Kramer, blam Assembled, p. 5.
286 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

was in need o f outside sources o f support himself58W hen war broke

out in 1914, the then Sultan, M ehmet V Resad, declared a holy war
against Russia, France, and England, and asked all Muslims
worldwide to rally to the Turkish cause.59
W hether Khilafatists came to the movement primarily out of
sympathy for pan-Islamic ideals, or whether they did so in order to
‘reconcile Islamic identity with Indian nationality’,60 there can be
no doubt that they all opposed British rule in India. This was true
o f all the Khilafat leaders, whether ‘ulama’ or ‘modernist’ intellec­
tuals. Leaden as diverse as Abu’l Kalam Azad, the Deobandi ‘ulama’
‘Ubaid Ullah Sindhi and Mahmud al-Hasan, Shi‘is such as Chiragh
‘Ali, and other Muslim scholars, shared in the primary goal of
opposing British rule.61 In this respect, they may be said to have
been the heirs ofjamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-97), seen by many
as the first to have spread and popularized pan-Islamic ideas in India,
who had himself been fiercely anti-British.62
Before we move on to Ahmad Riza’s views on the Khilafat
question and related issues, it is worth noting that Sir Sayyid Ahmad
Khan, standing apart from most o f his late nineteenth-century
contemporaries—both in India and in other parts o f the Muslim
world—had been hostile to the idea o f a universal Muslim caliphate.
Aziz Ahmad suggests that the determining factor in his attitude was

58 Ibid., p. 6. Indeed, H ourani writes that ‘Abd al-Ham id prom oted the concept o f the
O ttom an caliphate with an eye paiticulaiiy to gaining the support o f Muslims outside
the O ttom an empire against the colonial powers. See Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in
the Liberal Age, 1798-1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), reprint,
pp. 106-7.
59 Kramer, Islam Assembled, p. 55. O n this, also see Peters, Islam and Colonialism, pp.
90-4.
60 M inault, The Khilafat Movement, p. 2.
61 Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Llamic Culture in the Indian Environment, pp. 6 2 - 5; Kramer,
Islam Assembled, pp. 59-61, on ‘Ubaid Ullah Sindhi; Ian Henderson Douglas, Abul Kalam
Azad: A n Intellectual and Religious Biography, ed. Gail M inault and Christian W . Troll
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 176-8; Hardy, Partners in Freedom, pp. 22-3,
32, 38, and passim.
62 For al-Afghani’s influence on Indian Muslims in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, see Aziz Ahmad, ‘Afghani’s Indian Contacts’.Journal o f the American Oriental
Society, 89, 3 (1969), 476-504. Aziz Ahmad points out that Afghani was not in fact the
first to have popularized pan-Islamic ideas in India.
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 287

his loyalty to the British, rather than theoretical concern about the
institution of the caliphate:
In 1870 Sayyid Ahmad Khan had been as pro-Turkish as any other educated
Muslim . . . . he had complimented Sultan ‘Abdul-*Aziz as one ‘who graces
and defends the throne o f the Caliph’. H e had praised the tanzimat and the
subsequent Turkish reforms . . . . In fact everything was perfect as long as the
British, to whom he had pledged his own and his community’s loyalty, and
the Turks, towards w hom his community felt an emotional attachment were
on good terms.63

W hen, in the 1890s, British and Turkish interests clashed, however,

Sayyid Ahmad declared that the Indian Muslims were ‘devoted and
loyal subjects o f the British governm ent. . . W e are not the subjects
o f Sultan ‘Abdul Hamid I I ; . . . He neither had, nor can have any
spiritual jurisdiction over us as Khalifa’.64
Ahmad Riza, contrary to Sayyid Ahmad Khan, refused to make
a connection between support for the Turkish ruler and opposition
to British rule in India. In a 1920 fatwa dealing specifically with his
views on the caliphate in light o f shar'i considerations, he criticized
the Khilafat leaders for using the issue o f the caliphate as an ‘excuse
for working toward their real goal o f freedom [from the British]’.65
In another fatwa, he criticized ‘Abd ul-Bari for saying that he
considered the fight for Indian independence to be an ‘Islamic duty’
(farz islami).66 The political goal o f freedom from British rule was
for Ahmad Riza an entirely separate matter from support of a shar‘i
institution.
Ahmad Riza’s conception o f the caliphate, as set out in his 1920
fatwa Dawarn al- ‘Aish , corresponds to Islamic theory as formulated
by medieval jurists, particularly Mawardi (d. 1058), a famous jurist

63 Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture, p. 60.

64 Ibid., p. 64.
65 Ahmad Riza Khan, Dawam al-'Aish f i ’l Ummat min Quraish (Permanence o f the
Quraish C om m unity’s W ay o f Life), (Lahore: Maktaba Rizwiyya, 1980), p. 95.
Originally written in 1339/1920.
66 Ahmad Riza Khan, Al-Mahajyat al-Mu’tamana Ji Ayat al-Mumtahana (The Trusted
W ay w ith Regard to the Ayat al-M umtahana), 1339/1920, in Rasa’il-e Rizwiyya, vol.
2 (Lahore: Maktaba Hamidiyya, 1976), p. 155.
288 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

in Baghdad at the end o f the ‘Abbasid era.67 T h e arguments,

supported by illustrative examples from Muslim history, are, briefly,
that the caliph is the Prophet’s deputy (na’ib) and is therefore owed
absolute obedience by the Muslim community. Furtherm ore, there
can only be one caliph at any one time, though there may be several
sultans or kings (badshah). The caliph’s authority over these sultans
has frequendy been unrelated to his command over physical resour­
ces or power (for the sultans have often been more powerful than
he), yet has been acknowledged to be superior to theirs. T he reason
for this, Ahmad Riza wrote, is that the caliph has always been
required to be— and has historically been—a member o f the Quraish
tribe, and therefore a descendant o f the Prophet himself. Accord­
ingly, ‘Among the Ahl-e Sunnat it is a condition o f the shar‘i
caliphate that the caliph be a Quraish’.68 The genealogy o f ‘worldly’
rulers such as sultans was immaterial to their exercise o f power.69
The institution of the caliphate had ceased to exist after 132/749
(the beginning of the ‘Abbasid caliphate), and all Muslim rulers since
then had been, and presently were, rulers or sultans, but n o t caliphs.
The next caliph would be the Mahdi.70
The theological basis for the above theory of the caliphate is the
hadis literature.71 Ahmad Riza cited several hadis in his fatwa,

67 See Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, Chapter I, on M aw ardi’s, as wefl as
later thinkers’ theoretical writings on the khilafat and the Islamic state m ore generally.
Also see M ahm ud O . Haddad, ‘Rashid R ida and the Theory o f the Caliphate: Medieval
Them es and M odem C oncerns’, Ph.D . dissertation, Columbia University, 1989, pp.
42-8. Ahmad Riza did not m ention Mawardi as a source, though he quoted later works
such asjalal al-Din al-Suyud’s (1445-1505) Tarikh al-Khulafa’ and Husn al-Muhadarah,
a biographical work. See, e.g., Dawam al-‘Aish, pp. 51, 52.
68 Dawam al-'Aish, p. 46.
69 Ibid., pp. 47-56. T he requirem ent o f Quraish ancestry was not the only o ne, Ahmad
Riza w ent on to say. T here w ere seven requirements in all: T hat he be M uslim, fret
(hurriyai), male (zukurat), intelligent (‘aqt), mature (bulugh), and powerful (qudrat) were
the other six. Ibid., pp. 46, 50. This is similar to (though differs in some respects from)
M awardi’s list, for which see Thomas W . Arnold, The Caliphate, reprint (Lahore: Oxford
University Press, 1966), pp. 71-2.
70 This argument is based on a hadis in which the Prophet is reported to have said that
after the caliphate had come to the Bani ‘Abbas, it would not be given to anyone until
the appearance o f the Mahdi. Dawam al- ‘Aish, p. 74.
71 See W ensinck, Handbook o f Early Tradition, entTy ‘Imam’, p. 109, for a hadis from al-
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 289

including some from al-Bukhari and Muslim, all bearing on the

requirement that the caliph be o f Quraish descent.72 Responding to
an argument by ‘Abd ul-Bari Firangi Mahali on the view o f Ibn
Khaldun (d. 1406) that Quraish descent was not a necessary condi­
tion for a caliph, Ahmad Riza said that Ibn Khaldun, a historian
rather than an ‘alim, was outnumbered by the authorities he (Ahmad
Riza) had cited. Ibn Khaldun’s importance had been exaggerated;
furthermore, he ‘smelled o f one who was a Mu'tazila, and some­
times o f a ‘Nechari’.73
Ahmad Riza’s fatwa was simultaneously an exposition o f a theory
o f the caliphate and an attack on the views o f ‘Abd ul-Bari Firangi
Mahali and Abu’l Kalam Azad. At the time, the latter were actively
engaged in promoting the cause of the Khilafat movement in British
India, through political association with the Indian National C on­
gress and their journalistic writings. O f the numerous arguments
Ahmad Riza made in Datvam al- ‘A ish and elsewhere against their
views, I would like to turn in particular to two specific points.
First, Ahmad Riza referred to Abu’l Kalam’s argument that
limiting the choice o f caliph to a member o f the Quraish tribe
contravened the principle o f equality that it had been Islam’s original
purpose to uphold, and that such a rule did not in fact exist.74Ahmad

Tayalisi’s Musnad (Haidarabad, 1321) which indicates that the imam m ust be o f Quraysh
descent. Arnold, The Caliphate, cites variant versions o f the same hadis on p. 47. Also
see M alcolm H. Kerr, Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories o f Muhammad *Abduh
and Rashid Rida (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1966), for an extended
discussion o f the issue, particularly w ith reference to Rashid Rida.
72 Datvam al-'Aish, pp. 65 -8 .
73 Ibid., pp. 78-80. Arnold, The Caliphate, discusses Ibn Khaldun's theory o f the caliphate
on pp. 74-6. Arnold writes that Ibn Khaldun defended the principle o f Quraish descent
being a necessary condition for a caliph. Also see Hourani, Arabic Thought, pp. 22-4.
O n Ibn Khaldun’s views on the caliphate, see Kerr, Islamic Reform, pp. 45-6, 174-5.
74 Hardy writes o f Azad’s argument: ‘H e [Azad] rejects the classical ijma‘ that the caliph
m ust be chosen from am ong the male members o f the Prophet’s clan, the Quraysh, with
the rhetorical question w hether it was likely that Islam the religion o f equality and human
brotherhood would have perm itted the caliphate to become the preserve o f any one
kin-group, w ith the claim that reports in favour o f the Quraysh qualification in Tradition
are advisory rather than mandatory and with a denial that there had been an ijma‘ o f the
Com panions o f the Prophet that the caliph m ust be Quraysh*. Hardy, Partners in Freedom,
pp. 2 6 -7 .
290 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Riza, in his fatwa, explicitly repudiated the claim that equality was
a principle o f din. In one instance, he wrote, the Mamluk king
Baybars I (r. 1260-77) installed the uncle o f the last ‘Abbasid king
as caliph, despite the fact that he, Baybars, enjoyed great power while
the caliph, al-Mustansir (d. 1261), did not. Ahmad Riza argued that
this showed that Baybars considered the ascribed status o f Quraish
descent more important than his own achievements.75 Elsewhere in
the fatwa, Ahmad Riza again affirmed his acceptance o f the in­
equalities caused by high birth:
The Ahl-e Sunnat argued [against the Kharijis, who had favoured the principle
o f equality] that kinship definitely had some bearing on the matter, for when
Muslims know that the ruler belong? to the Prophet’s family, they will pay greater
attention And there is none to equal the Quraish in nobility (sharif) . . . .
A nd in marriage (nikah) everyone must know, even the ignorant. . . what
the place of equality (kafa’a) is in the shar‘i view. All the books o f fiqh are full
o f it, and there are also ahadis on the matter [defending the principle that
marriages not take place between people o f distinct social class.]76

These sentiments, defended on the authority o f fiqh and the hadis

literature, confirm the importance to the Ahl-e Sunnat worldview
o f the principle o f hierarchy based on genealogical descent, to which
earlier chapters have alluded. W e also see that Ahmad Riza high­
lights the fact that the Quraish, as kin o f the Prophet, are by virtue
o f this alone superior to all other people. This argument is o f course
consistent with Ahmad Riza’s Prophet-centred vision o f the faith.
Another significant, and decisive, difference between Ahmad
Riza’s position and that of Abu‘l Kalam Azad and ‘Abd ul-Bari in
the course o f the Khilafat movement— but also in other areas— was
his view that Muslims may not seek the help o f kafirs in pursuit of
shar‘i goals.77 Ahmad Riza’s criticism o f these two ‘ulama’ and of
Jam ‘iyyat al-‘Ulama’-e Hind leaders generally for their leadership of

75 Dawam al-'Aish, p. 51. T he fact that the Mamluks treated the caliphs w ith scant
regard, seeing them merely as a means o f legitimizing their ow n rule, does n o t invalidate
Ahmad R iza’s argument.
76 Ibid., pp. 96-7.
77 T he fatwa Dawattt al- ‘A ish does not deal with this aspect o f Ahmad Riza's differences
with Khilafat leaders. H e discussed it at length in his Al-Mahajjat al-Mu’tamanat also
dating to 1920, which was written in the context o f the N on-C ooperation m ovem ent
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 291

the Khilafat movement (which, as we saw, had in his view nothing

at all to do with protection o f the shar‘i caliphate), was based in part
on the fact that they had welcomed the co-operation o f Hindus in
the movement. At one level, this can be viewed simply as objection
to certain tactical aspects o f the movement; but Ahmad Riza’s use
o f the term harbi (those with whom one is at war) to describe the
Hindus o f his day indicates that his objection went much deeper.
To understand what was at issue here we need now to broaden
the discussion. For this related but nevertheless distinct debate on
Hindu-Muslim relations took place in the context o f other major
political events such as the Hijrat and Non-Cooperation movements
as well as the Khilafat movement. Additionally, o f course, arguments
between the ‘ulama’ about relations between Hindus and Muslims
were simultaneously arguments about Muslims’ relations with the
British. In the remaining section o f this chapter, I shall try to
delineate Ahmad Riza’s, and thereby the Ahl-e Sunnat’s, perspective
on the Muslim-Hindu-British relationship, such that we may find
coherence in the wide range o f arguments examined thus far.

M u s l im , H in d u , B r it is h : A h l - e S u n n a t P er spe c t iv e s

It is well known that when the Khilafat movement began to lose

m om entum in 1920 in response to the publication o f the Peace
Treaty o f Sevres,78 some prominent Muslim leaders raised the cry
o f hijrat, and encouraged the migration to Afghanistan o f several
thousands o f Indian Muslims on the grounds that British India was

78 ‘U nder its terms the Sultan would keep Constantinople as the capital o f the Turkish
s a te , b u t w ould lose Eastern Thrace to Greece, while Armenia, Syria, Mesopotamia
and Palestine were to becom e independent states. This m eant that tw o o f the three
claims m ade by Indian Khilafat leaders were not granted: the Jazirat-ul-Arab [Arabian
peninsula] w ould not remain under Muslim sovereignty, and the Khalifah would not
rem ain w arden o f the Muslim sanctuaries’. Brown, Gandhi’s Rise to Power, p. 217. T he
only claim to have been recognized was that'the ‘personal centre o f Islam, the Khalifah,
should retain his empire with sufficient temporal pow er to defend the faith’. Ibid., p.
192. Even this, o f course, was to becom e a part o f history w hen the caliphate was
abolished altogether in 1924 by Turkish nationalists.
In saying, on p. 217, that the ‘J azirat-ul-Arab would not remain under Muslim
sovereignty’, Judith Brown seems to overlook the fact that the Arabian Peninsula,
although no longpi under O ttom an rule, was under the authority o f the Sharif o f Mecca.
292 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

dar al-harb. ‘Abd ul-Bari and Abu’l Kalam Azad were am ong those
who spoke in favour ofhijrat, while Ahmad Riza, predictably, spoke
against.79He said that in a place that was dar al-islam it was prohibited
(haram) for Muslims to do hijrat and go elsewhere.80
Although the Hijrat movement still awaits careful scholarly
study,81 there are indications that among those who responded to
the call for hijrat were peasants suffering economic hardship in parts
o f the United Provinces, Sind, and the N orth-W est Frontier
Province.82 Attracted by the promise o f land in Afghanistan by the
Amir o f that country, several thousands gave up their possessions in
British India only to find on arrival that the situation in Afghanistan
was even worse than the one they had left behind.83 W hile Ahmad
Riza and other opponents o f the movement blamed fellow ‘ulama’
for having encouraged people to migrate, one returnee to British
India also blamed the Urdu press for having magnified the scale of
the economic help promised on the other side x>f the border.84
In 1920, leaders o f the Jam‘iyyat such as ‘Abd ul-Bari and Abu’l
Kalam Azad were engaged in anti-British activities on yet another
79 Details o f statements made by these and other ‘ulama’ at various meetings or in their
writings, as reported in the U rdu press o f the time, may be found in R aja Rashid
M ahm ud, Tahrik-e Hijrat (1920) Ek Tarikh, E k Tajziya (Lahore: M aktaba ‘Aliyya, 1986).
80 H ow ever, if a particular individual was unable for one reason or another to perform
his ritual duties in his current place o f residence, it was his duty to m igrate elsewhere,
w hether this m eant m oving to a different house, neighbourhood, o r tow n. The
distinction between the tw o situations was that betw een the general (‘amrn) and the
particular (khass), the latter being unrelated to the larger quesdon o f a politically
delimited area being dar al-islam or dar al-harb. Ahmad R iza Khan, Fatawa-e Rizwiyye
(Azamgarh: Sunni Dar al-lsha‘at, 1981), vol. 6, p. 2. Also reprinted in R aja Rashid
M ahm ud, Tahrik-e Hijrat, p. 72.
81 In addition to brief references to it in larger histories, there exist only a handful of
articles in English, among them : F. S. Briggs, ‘T he Indian Hijrat o f 1920’, Muslim World,
20, II (April 1930), 164-68; M . Naeem Qureshi, ‘T he ‘Ulama o f British India and the
Hijrat o f 1920’, Modem Asian Studies, 13,1 (Cambridge, 1979), 41-59; Lai Baha, T h e
Hijrat M ovem ent in the N orth-W est Frontier Province’, Islamic Studies, XVIII, 3
(Autumn 1979), 231—42. Interesting parallels and differences, yet to b e investigated,
must exist betw een the internal debates that occurred during this hijrat and th e one that
led to the creation o f Pakistan in 1947.
82 Qureshi, ‘The ‘Ulama o f British India’, p. 52.
83 Raja Rashid M ahm ud, Tahrik-e Hijrat, pp. 9 0 -2 .
84 Ibid., p. 90.
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 293

front, the Gandhi-led Non-Cooperation movement. This move­

m ent, which grew out o f the Khilafat movement,85 adopted a plan
o f progressively escalating non-violent non-cooperation with the
government, starting with the return o f tides previously awarded
and accepted.86 Gandhi believed that independence could be
achieved by these means, provided the movement remained faithful
to his ideal o f non- violence.87
Throughout the second decade o f the twentieth century, then,
w e see large sections o f the Muslim leadership, both ‘ulama’ and
‘modernist’, engaging in a series o f anti-British initiatives in concert
w ith the Indian National Congress (the Muslim League being at this
tim e still a fledgling organization). This culminated in August 1920
in the issuing o f a fatwa by the Jam'iyyat al-‘Ulama’-e Hind
supporting the Congress-proposed boycott o f courts, legislative
councils, schools and foreign goods, among other things.88
Ahmad Riza, looking at this alliance o f Hindus and Muslims
against the British in shar‘i terms rather than ‘nationalist’ or ‘political’
ones, could see no justification for it. His fatwa, Al-Mahajjat al-
M u ’tamana, written in 1920, makes a strong and clear argument for
the view that the Muslim leadership had lost its sense o f balance
between relations with the British, which it wanted to cut off
completely, and those with Hindus, which it wanted to be o f the
closest. In shar'i terms, it had pronounced that which was mubah
(indifferent) to be harim, and that which was haram to be farz qati'
(an absolute duty).89 Moreover, he argued that even from a political
standpoint, far from throwing offthe yoke of dependence, the Muslims
had merely allowed themselves to become more dependent—for

85 See Brown, Gandhi’s Rise to Pourn, pp. 216-18, and passim.

86 This was to be followed by: ‘(2) Resignation from government service; (3)
R esignation from the police and the military; and (4) N onpaym ent o f taxes’. M inault,
The Khilafat Movement, p. 98. Gandhi visualized the last two stages, which constituted
acts o f civil disobedience and not merely o f non-co-operation, as distant goals.
87 In fact he called it off abrupdy in February 1922 after violence at Chauri Chaura,
U .P . T h e m ovem ent was into its civil disobedience phase in some parts o f the country
at the time. See Brown, Gandhi’s Rise to Power, pp. 319-28.
88 Qureshi, Ulema in Politics, p. 269.
89 Al-Mahajjat al-Mu’tamana, p. 197.
294 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

unlike the British, who had refrained from interfering in the

Muslims’ ritual observances, the Hindus were beginning to do that
as well.90
Criticizing the Muslim leadership bitterly for its pro-Hindu
stance, he wrote:
W hat din is this which goes from its [previously] incomplete subservience to
the Christians to completely shunning them, and immerses itself wholly in
following the mushriks [i.e., Hindus]? They [the Muslims] are running from
the rain only to enter a drainpipe.91

Ahmad Riza described the Hindus as muharib bi’l j i ’l (active

belligerents), and as qatilin zalimin kafirin (killers, oppressors, in­
fidels).92 He reminded his fellow Muslims o f recent H indu atrocities
committed against them:
D id they [the Hindus] n o t fight with us over din? Has their extremely
oppressive viciousness (sakht zedinuma fasad) [already] grown old? Have the
impure and terrifying tyrannies o f Katarpur, Arrah and elsewhere, still fresh [in
the mind], been obliterated from the heart? Innocent Muslims w ere sacrificed
with great cruelty. They were set alight with petroleum. Those im pure people
demolished our pure masjids and tore and burnt the pure pages o f [our] Q ur’an,
and did other things the m ention o f which makes one sick.93

Responding to the Non-Cooperation leaders’ argum ent that

responsibility for violence of this sort by with only a few individuals
rather than with Hindus as a whole, he argued that on the contrary
this was a case o f the Hindu qaum (community) fighting the
Muslims. The individual aggressors had acted as representatives of
the Hindu community. For even if only a few committed the actual

90 A reference to the friction betw een Hindus and Muslims over the M uslims’ right to
slaughter cows during Baqr-e ‘Id. See below for details,
91 Al-Mahajjat al M u ’tamana, p. 94.
92 Ibid., p. 136 and passim.
93 Ibid., p. 116. Also on p. 137, and passim. The reference to K atarpur in this passage
is to a riot that occurred in Katarpur village, Saharanpur district. O f its approximately
800 residents a third were Muslim. The riot originated from the H indus’ ‘unwillingness
to settle for anything less than a total ban’ on the sacrifice o f cows during the ‘Id festivities.
It left thirty or m ore Muslims dead (burned alive in many cases), and several houses and
a mosque demolished. G. R . Thursby, Hittdu-Muslim Relations in British India, p. 82.
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 295

deed, others helped behind the scenes with money, or by their

writings, or in other ways. At tne very least, they acquiesced in it.94
.As for the British, social relations (mu‘amalat) with them were
permitted (ja’iz) under the shari'a as tang as kufr was not promoted
thereby, nor any disobedience to theshar* involved. Here, Ahmad
Riza was arguing particularly in the context o f a speech made in
October 1920 by Abu’l Kalam Azad at Lahore, in which he had said
that the local Islamiyya College must cease to accept government
grants-in-aid, and disaffiliate itselffrom Panjab University.95 Ahmad
Riza, however, maintained that these steps should only be taken if
shari reasons so warranted. He jwondered, further, why Muslim
leaders advocating steps such as these continued to use facilities like
the railways, the telegraph, and the postal system, all o f which
benefitted the government revenues:
Are these not also mu'amalat? T he difference is that in taking aid [from the
British] one is taking wealth in, while in using [the services they provide] one
is giving it away. H ow strange that in [this] boycott (muqata'a) it is halal to
give m oney away but haram to take it in . . . . W hat remedy is there for this
inverted logic? But then what is one to say o f this qaum which has not only
turned shari‘a on its head but the essence (nafs) o f Islam as well?96

The argument between the two sides revolved, essentially, around

the definition o f non-cooperation itself,97 as well as the conditions
in w hich different degrees of friendship between Muslims and non-
Muslims were permitted. Ahmad Riza maintained that his op­
ponents had failed to make a vital distinction between two completely
different sorts o f relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims:

94 Al-M ahajjat al-Mu’tamana, p. 117. H e w ent on to say, furthermore, that if one

accepted th e N on-C ooperation m ovem ent’s argument that only a small num ber o f
H indus w e re aggressing against the Muslims, then one must also argue, on the same
principle, th at only a certain limited num ber o f Englishmen had aggressed against the
T urks o r against the Indian Muslims. Ibid., p. 118.
95 Ibid., p p . 80, 96-7. Azad’s speech must o f course be seen in the context o f the
N o n -C o o p e ra tio n m ovem ent’s program me under which Indians were to refuse to
participate in governm ent-run institutions.
96 Ibid., p p . 85-6.
97 In U rd u , the term non-cooperation is generally translated as tark-t muwalat, ‘the giving
u p o f friendly relations’. See Qureshi, Ulema in Politics, pp. 268-71, for m ore on this
debate.
296 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

those o f ‘mere human relations’ (mujarrad mu ‘amalat) which were

permitted with all non-Muslims under the shari‘a (though forbidden
with a murtadd or apostate), and those o f friendship or intimacy
(muwalat), which Muslims may enter into only w ith other Mus­
lims.98 He believed that the relationship between Hindus and
Muslims being advocated by the non-cooperators was one o f love,
intimacy, even unity, all o f which, being forms o f muwalat, were
forbidden; while, on the other hand, worldly or social relations with
the British were being forbidden although they had shar‘i approval
Both sides based their respective cases on quotation from the
Q ur’an. The non-cooperators cited two verses o f the Q ur’an
(60:8,9), in which Muslims were told that they might enter into
friendly relations with non-Muslims so long as the latter w ere not
warring against them ." Ahmad Riza countered by saying that these
verses had been abrogated by a historically later (though sequentially
earlier) one (9:73) which advocated taking stem measures against
‘unbelievers’ and ‘hypocrites’.100
As Qureshi says, however, Muslim public opinion was so over­
whelmingly anti-British at the time that dissenting voices such as
Ahmad Riza’s were not heard, regardless o f the merits o f their
argument.101 Indeed, Ahmad Riza’s views on the Khilafat and
Non-Cooperation movements were not unanimously accepted
even within the Ahl-e Sunnat leadership. The rift occurred, inter­
estingly, along the same lines as those o f the internal controversy
98 Al-Mahajjat al-Mu’tamana, p. 95.
99 T he tide o f Ahmad R iza’s fatwa contains the name o f this sura, al-Mumtahana. The
verses are (Y usuf‘Ali tr.): ‘8. God forbids you not, with regard to those w h o fight you
not for (your) faith nor drive you out o f your homes, from dealing kindly and jusdy
w ith them: For G od loveth those w ho are just.
9. God only forbids you, with regard to those who fight you for (your) faith, and
drive you out o f your hom es, and support (others) in driving you out, from turning to
them (for friendship and protection). It is such as turn to them (in these circumstances)
that do w rong’.
100 Verse 73 o f this sura, called al-Taubah or al-Bara’at, reads (Y usuf‘Ali tr.): ‘O Prophet!
Strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be firm against diem . Their
abode is hell, an evil refuge indeed’.
101 Ahmad Riza and other Ahl-e Sunnat leaders were not the only opponents to
N on-C ooperation. Apparendy Maulana Aahraf ‘Ah Thanawi o f D eoband also wrote a
long fatwa along similar lines o f argument. See Qureshi, Ulema in Politics, p. 270.
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 297

within Ahl-e Sunnat circles over the azan debate in 1914-16, which
had reached the British courts as a suit for libel. As noted earlier in
this chapter, one o f the founding members o f the Jam‘iyyat al-
‘Ulama’-e Hind was Maulana ‘Abd ul-Majid Badayuni. His pir ‘Abd
ul-M uqtadir Badayuni (d. 1915) had been supportive some years
earlier o f ‘Abd ul-Bari’s efforts through the Anjuman-e Khuddam-e
Ka‘ba to protect the Hijaz from Western encroachment. He had
encouraged ‘Abd ul-Majid to involve himselfin its affairs.102In 1916,
the libel case against Ahmad Riza had been initiated by another o f
‘Abd ul-Muqtadir’s disciples, and had centred around a work by
‘Abd ul- Muqtadir, then recendy deceased. Opposition by Badayuni
‘ulama’ to Ahmad Riza on the Khilafat and other issues appears
therefore to have stemmed in part from their refusal to accept his
leadership o f the Ahl-e Sunnat movement. Given the political
situation in the 1920s, they disagreed with him in his insistence that
the movement continue to define itself in narrowly ‘religious’ and
apolitical terms as before.

A hmad R iz a : P r o - B r it is h , A n t i - H in d u ?

T h e accusation that he was pro-British was frequendy levelled at

Ahmad Riza. Indeed, the positions he took on major national issues
facing Indian Muslims in the period 1910-21, such as the Khilafat,
the Hijrat, and the Non-Cooperation movements, were all consis-
tendy opposed to the anti-British positions o f the Jam'iyyat al-
‘Ulama’-e Hind. While this proves that he opposed the Jam'iyyat,
it does not, in and o f itself, prove that he was ‘pro-British’.
I would argue that Ahmad Riza was uninterested in the nationalist
m ovement and the question o f political self-determination as long
as Muslims were free to practise their faith unhindered. Freedom to
fulfill the dictates (ahkam) o f the shari‘a was, to Ahmad Riza, what
made British India dar al-islam. His concern as an ‘alim lay in guiding
and teaching the Muslims around him as to how (in his view, which
he believed to be the only ‘correct’ view) the shari‘a should be
interpreted and practised. For this reason, he was deeply interested

102 M ahm ud Ahm ad Qadiri, Tazkira- e 'Ulama’-e Ahl-e Sunnat, p. 147.

298 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

in— and often critical of—what other Muslims in India and elsewhere
were saying, writing, and doing. He acquiesced in the British presence.
He did not actively oppose it, choosing instead to distance himselffrom
it, and to carve out an identity removed from its concerns.
Ahmad Riza indicated his distance from the British Indian state
in a number o f small but nonetheless significant ways. H e himself
cited some o f these. He had written anti-British poems, he said, in
some works he named; he had spoken out against the Nadwa, which
enjoyed British support; he had opposed ‘Abd ul-Bari’s fatwa on the
Kanpur mosque affair o f 1913, in which ‘Abd ul-Bari had said that
the demolition (by the British civil authorities) was permissible as it
had taken place outside the mosque proper, and so on.103 W hen
mailing a postcard he would deliberately affix the stamp (which had
a picture o f Queen Victoria on it) upside down as a mark of
disrespect to the Q ueen.104 M ore importandy, his refusal to attend
a British-run court in 1916 showed that he did not acknowledge its
authority over himself. But he never made the British a target o f his
writings— as he did numerous contemporary Muslim movements
and even, to some extent, Hindus— because they did not really
matter to him. Had the British had an active anti-Muslim policy in
terms of interference in ‘religious’ affairs, however, Ahmad Riza
would undoubtedly have become very anti-British.
Ahmad Riza’s distance from political concerns is also apparent in
some o f his conversations with his followers, as recorded in the
biographical literature. Typically, the questions asked of him related
to matters o f ritual and belief or to social relations with one’s
fellows.105 In the context o f Muslim political concerns in the 1920s,
however, he was occasionally asked about the shape o f things to
come rather than a currently existing situation. O ne such discussion,
reported by a close follower (khalifa) o f his, is o f great interest, and
is pertinent to my argument here.

103 See Al-Mahajjat al-Mu’tamana, pp. 1 42-4.

104 I am grateful to Professor M uhammad M as'ud Ahm ed for showing m e samples of
postcards on which this had been done.
105 It was a source o f pride to Ahmad Riza that he never allowed a question to go
unanswered. His followers were also proud o f his ability to give an immediate response,
including quotations (from memory) o f Q u r’an, hadis, and fiqh, on any question.
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 299

Burhan ul-Haqq Jabalpuri, a khalifa o f Ahmad Riza, related that

in 1921, shortly after a Khilafat Committee meeting held at Bareilly,
Ahmad Riza was asked at his home in Bareilly whether India would
ever gain its freedom from British domination, and if so how did he
expect the appointment o f a qazi-e shar‘ (judge o f Islamic law) and
a mufti-e shar‘ (jurisconsult) to take place on the basis o f popular
demand?106 In response to the first part o f the question, Ahmad Riza
said that yes, India would surely become independent some day. But
he needed time to think about the second half o f the question. Some
days later,
[he] started making some special seating arrangements in the morning in the
sitting area (baithak). The takht (elevated platform meant for sitting on) was set
apart with three especially adorned chairs next to it. And, departing from usual
practice, the Imam-e Ahl-e Sunnat [Ahmad Riza] himself sat down on a
separate chair facing the takht. W hen the daily audience o f people had
assembled in the hall (darbar) the Sarkar-e A‘la Hazrat [Ahmad Riza] said:
‘T he country will definitely become free o f English domination. The
governm ent o f this country will be established on a popular basis (jamhuri
buttyad). But there will be great difficulty in appointing (taqarrur) a qazi-e shar‘
and a mufti-e shar* on the basis o f Islamic shari'a law.
Because in the country’s fundamental laws [constitution] there will be no
clear [course of] action on the basis o f which the qazi-e shar' and the mufti-e
shar* may be appointed in the correct manner, I am today laying the foundations
for this [process] so that this . . . may continue and no difficulty be experienced
after independence’. Then he said, ‘Today, I am appointing. . . Maulana
Amjad ‘Ali A'zami the qazi-e shar' for the entire Indian nation’ . . . . And,
accompanied with supplications for [him], he seated him on the chair singled
out for the qazi-e shar*.107

In this way, Ahmad Riza also appointed two mufti-e shar* to assist
the qazi, seating each one on either side o f him. One o f these was
his younger son, Mustafa Riza Khan, the other Burhan ul-Haqq, in
whose biography this incident is related.
This passage is striking for several reasons. First, one sees an echo
o f the elective process o f the first ‘righdy guided’ caliphs, one that
was not institutionalized but nevertheless stamped by the consensual

106 M uham m ad Ramazan ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz Rizwi, Tazldra-e Hazrat Burhan-e Millat
(Jabalpur: Astana ‘Aliyya Rizwiyya Salamiyya Burhaniyya, 1985), pp. 20-1.
107 Ibid., pp. 21-2.
300 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

approval (ijma‘) o f the community. Elements o fb o th d irect appoint­

ment and election were therefore present. O ne imagines that Ahmad
Riza’s choice was approved by all those present. T h e qazi-e shar
and his two assistant muftis were also, it is important to note, being
appointed for all o f India: they were to adjudicate, thus, between
Muslims o f all schools o f thought, not just the Ahl-e Sunnat. This
was in keeping, one supposes, with the latters’ claim to be repre­
sentative o f the Ahl-e Sunnat throughout the Muslim world, rather
than a merely local school o f thought. And finally, one must note
the ad hoc nature o f the solution (which too, o f course, has
precedents in early Islamic history). Did the solution ever cany
practical weight, even within the Ahl-e Sunnat movement? Given
that there is no further mention o f this ‘election’ in the A hl-e Sunnat
literature, I doubt that it did.
W hat this incident tells us, I believe, is that Ahmad R iza did not
look at the world in which he lived in political terms. T his was a
challenge that his followers had to face. Contrary to w hat later
followers have chosen to read into his works, he himself seems to
have offered no clear answer to the political dilemmas o f early
twentieth century Muslims. His scholarly output, enorm ous as it
was, concentrated largely on matters o f belief and practice at the
individual level.
The question o f Ahmad Riza’s attitude to the Hindus remains to
be discussed. If the British were not important to him, the Hindus
were for the most part not a significant concern either. H e wrote
about them only toward the end of his life, in the context o f social
conflicts generated by the Arya Samaj conversion o f Muslims to
Hinduism in the course of the so-called Shuddhi m ovem ent— the
Muslims called it irtidad (apostacy)— and the cow slaughter issue.
Additionally, Ahmad Riza opposed the political union o f Hindus
and Muslims in the various early twentieth century movements
already examined.
As with the British, he thought about the Hindus only when
circumstances forced this upon him, often in a conflict situation. A
passage from his Malfuzat gives us a glimpse o f his deep-rooted sense
o f distance from the Hindus amidst whom he lived. They were
kafirs, and were to be regarded with enmity for that reason.
 The Khilafat, Hijrat and Non-Cooperation Movements 301

Paradoxically, his characterization o f the Hindu (a Brahman, no less)

that he met on the occasion referred to as ‘unclean’, and his revulsion
toward even the slightest physical contact with him, mirrors exactly
Hindu concepts o f ritual purity and impurity:
Praise be to Allah, ever since I gained consciousness I have found only strong
dislike for the enemies o f Allah in my heart. Once I had gone to my village
(apne dehat ko). Some rural courtcase arose and our servants (mulazim) from all
four directions had to go to Badayun [to appear in court]. I was left all alone.
This was a time when I suffered from severe colic pain. That day the pain
started from the time o f zuhr (m id-day). . . I couldn’t stand up for the namaz
(prayer). [Ahmad Riza then relates that he supplicated Allah and the Prophet
for help, this plea was heard, and he was able to offer the namaz. But the pain
returned just as severely as before, and he decided to lie down. While he was
lying there,] a Brahman from the village passed by in front o f me. (The wretch
himself professed something close to tauhid and deceitfiilly inclined toward
the Muslims in order to please me.) The gate was open. Seeing me he came
in. And putting his hand on my stomach he asked, 'Is this where it hurts?’
Feeling his impure (najis) hand touching my body I felt such revulsion (karahat,
najrat) that I forgot my pain. And I began to experience a pain even greater
than this, [knowing that] a kafir’s hand was on my stomach. This is the kind
of enmity ( ‘adawat) that one should [cultivate toward kafirs].108

In answer to the question, ‘Ahmad Riza: pro-British, anti-Hindu?’,

I would say that, while he did not oppose the British presence in
India because Indian Muslims were free to live their lives in
accordance with the shari‘a without hindrance, he did not accept
the jurisdiction o f the British Indian government over himself as an
Indian Muslim, or over the Muslim community in general either.
His refusal to appear in a Badayun court in 1916 seems to me to be
a clear demonstration of his belief that the Muslim community
could— and should—be internally self-governing under the British
Indian state. As for his stand on joint action with Hindus, he opposed
this consistently through the course o f the Khilafat and N on-
Cooperation movements. For Ahmad Riza, direct political action
against the British in co-operation with non-Muslims, and even
with Muslims o f whom he disapproved on shar'i grounds, was to
sacrifice principle for tactical gain.

108 A hm ad Riza Khan, Malfuzat, vol. 2,.pp. 78-9.

 EPILOGUE

Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan

In the previous chapter I considered the reasons why the Ahl-e

Sunnat movement did not support the nation-wide Khilafat move­
ment in 1919-20, nor join with the Jam ‘iyyat-e ‘Ulama’-e H ind in
its endeavour to launch an anti-British struggle in a Hindu—Muslim
partnership. I would like now to indicate some o f the directions in
which Ahmad Riza’s followers led the movement after his death in
1921, particularly in relation to the Pakistan question. In order to
do this as concisely and as clearly as possible, I have chosen to focus
on the contributions o f three men. All personally close to Ahmad
Riza, each took a different stand in the 1940s on Pakistan and the
Muslim League.

N a 'im u d - D in M u r a d a b a d i

Bom in 1882 in Muradabad, N a'im ud-Din was a precocious

student. He had memorized the Q ur’an by the age o f eight, and
then learned Persian, Arabic, tibb (Yunani medicine), and a good
part o f the dars-e nizami syllabus1 under the personal direction of
his father and other teachers. At the age o f fourteen or thereabouts,
he joined Muradabad’s Madrasa Imdadiyya, where he was taught

1 T h e sources (for which see note 2 below) say ‘up to Mulla Hasan’. According to Sufi’s
Al-Minhaj, in which he gives the titles o f all the books taught at D eoband’s D ar al-‘Ulum,
this book was taught in the third o f an eight-year course. I assume the curricula o f most
madrasas in the late nineteenth century were similar. Sufi, Al-Minhaj, p. 130.
 Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 303

logic, philosophy, and hadis by one Sayyid Shah Gul Muhammad,

the school’s muhtamim (manager).2 N a‘im ud-Din completed the
dars-e nizami syllabus by the time he was nineteen, then stayed on
at the madrasa another year to study the art o f fatwa-writing. He
graduated in 1902, aged twenty. Shortly thereafter, he sought and
received discipleship (bai‘a) from his erstwhile teacher, Sayyid Gul
Muhammad.3
The Madrasa Imdadiyya where Na‘im ud-Din studied is said to
have been located near another madrasa, the Madrasa-e Shahi. This
latter had been personally founded by Maulana Muhammad Qasim
Nanautawi (d. 1877), and was organized on principles similar to
those operative at the Dar al-‘Ulum at Deoband.4 During his lifetime
Muhammad Qasim had occasionally taught there, though that was
o f course before N a‘im ud-D in’s time. What impact this proximity
to a Deobandi school may have had on the young N a‘im ud-Din is
unknown.
Although the biography is uninterested in chronology, which
would have helped us map Na'im ud-Din’s intellectual develop­
ment, however roughly, a few details mentioned therein suggest that
his loyalty to the Ahl-Sunnat cause may have developed only
gradually. His father M u'in ud-Din had been a disciple (murid) of
Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi. According to the biography, it was

2 M ahm ud Ahmad Qadiri, Tazkira-e ‘Ulama’-e Ahl-e Sunnat, pp. 252-3; Ghulam M u‘in
ud-D in N a'im i, ‘Tazkira al-Ma‘ru f Hayat-e Sadr al-Afazil. Tajdar-e Ahl-e Sunnat Sultan
al-‘U lum Sadar al-Afazil Ustad al-‘Ulama’ Hazrat Maulana Sayyid M uhamm ad N a'im
ud-D in Muradabadi ke Zindagi ke Halat Tayyiba ke Sath Musalmanon ki Dini o Siyasi
R ahnum a’i’, in Sau/ad-e A 'zam , vol. 2 (Lahore: N a'im i Dawakhana, 12-19 Z i’l Hijja
1378/19-26 June 1959), pp. 5 -6 . M u‘in ud-D in’s biography is hereafter cited as
‘Hayat-e Sadr al-Afazil’. 1 should note that although it is ascribed to a single author, it
consists in fact o f articles by m ore than one person. T he longest m em oir is that o f Ghulam
M u ‘in ud-D in ‘N a'im i, w ho is named the author o f the Tazkira.
3 H e had travelled to Pilibhit in search o f a well-known pir there, Shah Ji M uhammad
Sher M iyan o f Pilibhit; but the latter advised him to go back to Muradabad and become
Sayyid Gul M uham m ad’s murid. ‘Hayat-e Sadr al-Afazil’, p. 6.
4 T hat is to say, financially dependent on personal contributions from supporters rather
than on landownership or other forms o f fixed income. See Metcalf, Islamic Revival, pp.
127-8. Some additional information on the Madrasa-e Shahi is also available in
Z iyaud-D in A. Desai, Centres of Islamic Learning in India, pp. 35-6. Unfortunately I have
no inform ation on the Madrasa Imdadiyya which N a'im ud-D in attended.
304 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

not until the early twentieth century, long after M uhammad Qasim’s
death, that M u‘in ud-Din learned the ‘truth’ about his dead pir:
Maulana M u‘in ud-Din took bai'a at the hands o f M uhammad Qasim
Nanautawi. At this time, the Wahhabi used to hide his Wahhabism well. Thus,
Maulawi Qasim permitted Maulana M u'in ud-Din to attend milad sharif, do
qiyam at the salat o salam [stand up when praying for benediction for the
Prophet], and taught him ways full ofbaraka. W hen others told Maulana Mu'in
ud-D in that Muhammad Qasim was a Wahhabi, he replied, ‘H ow can I accept
this? He himself told me about the baraka o f milad sharif . . . and gave me
permission to do this’. But when he was shown the fatwa Husam al-Haramaiti
[by Ahmad Riza Khan] and T ahzir al-Nas by Maulawi Qasim Nanautawi, in
which [the latter] had denied the finality o f [Muhammad’s] prophethood, and
the contents o f H usam al-Haramain were compared with those o f T a h z ir al-Nas,
he dissolved his tie o f discipleship to Qasim Nanautawi, and became A‘la
Hazrat’s [Ahmad Riza Khan’s] disciple.3

This extraordinary event receives no further comment in the biog­

raphy. Yet given the fact that a disciple’s tie to his sufi master is
believed to be for life, and indeed to persist even after the pir’s death,
and given the considerable animosity that characterized the Ahl-e
Sunnat’s relations with Deoband, this decision by N a‘im ud-D in’s
father must surely have been provoked by some prior event, and
accompanied by considerable debate and argument. At any rate, it
seems clear that Na‘im ud-D in’s father had ties with the Deobandi
‘ulama’ and that N a‘im ud-Din grew up in a household which was
sympathetic to Deobandi perspectives on din. If so, he must have
broken away as a young man at some indeterminate— but crucial—
point from his father, and to have persuaded him to sever his
Deobandi ties accordingly.6
Another indication that Na‘im ud-Din was not as a young man
committed to the Ahl-Sunnat vision o f din lies in the report that he
contributed ‘resolute’ (mustaqill) articles published in Abu’l Kalam

5 ‘Hayat-e Sadr al-Afazil’, p. 5.

6 All this is, o f course, conjecture, and one wonders why M u‘in ud-D in did not send
his son to the Deobandi Madrasa-e Shahi in the first place. The fact that A hm ad R k a ’s
Htisam al-Haramain is m entioned in the text causes me to place this ‘conversion’ by
M u'in ud-D in in the early tw entieth century, for Husam was w ritten in 1905-6. On
the other hand, the biographer, writing after the event, may well have added these details
himself.
 Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 305

Azad’s Calcutta-based Al-Hilal and Al-Balagh7 in order to establish

his place in the literary field and preach din through the written
word. This information (like M u‘in ud-Din’s transfer o f discipleship)
is intriguing, for the Ahl-e Sunnat and Abu’l Kalam Azad had little
in common concerning Islam or politics.8 In fact the Ahl-e Sunnat
were in sympathy with the point o f view represented by Azad’s
father Khair ud-Din (1831-1908), who believed strongly in the
doctrine o f taqlid and had written extensively against the Indian
‘Wahhabis’.9 Abu’l Kalam disagreed with his father on all o f the
above.
W e do not know what caused N a‘im ud-Din to change his views
(if indeed this occurred as conjectured). To confuse matters further,
the biography reports that simultaneously with his writing for
Al-Balagh and Al-Hilal N a‘im ud-Din was engaged in writing a
book in defence o f the Prophet’s knowledge of the unseen (‘ilm-e
ghaib).10 According to one account, someone showed this book to
Ahmad Riza who liked it and asked to meet the author. However,
another story, also related in the biography, has it that N a‘im ud-Din
came to Ahmad Riza’s attention because he had written a series o f

7 This detail n related in both the biographical sketches available to me: M ahm ud
Ahm ad Qadiri, Tazkira-e ‘Ulama*-e Ahl-e Sunnat, p. 253, where the word used is
‘mustaqilT; and ‘Hayat-e Sadr al-Afazil\ p. 18.
Al-Hilal appeared from July 1912 to December 1914, and again from June to December
1927. Al-Balagh appeared betw een N ovem ber 1915 and March 1916. See Douglas, Abul
Kalam A za d , p. 98, n. 3.
8 As Douglas writes o f Al-Hilal, 4As a religious journal, al-Hilal challenged traditional
taqlid and offered Azad’s fresh interpretation o f Islam related to contem porary life.
Politically, it challenged the position o f loyalty to the British represented by Aligarh".
Douglas, Abul Kalam A zad , p. 100. O n both counts, as earlier chapters have shown, the
A hl-e Sunnat position was at odds w ith Azad’s.
9 Ibid., pp. 33-5, 42-3. Khair ud-D in was also an important pir in his time in Calcutta.
Azad rejected the institution o fpiri-muridi (the honour and devotion o f disciples for their
masters) w ith the same vehemence as he did his father’s views on taqlid and ‘W ahhabis’.
See ibid., pp. 49-51.
10 'H ayat-e Sadr al-Afazil’, p. 18. T he tide o f the book was Al-Kalimat at-4UHyya li-Vla*
4ala *llm al-Mustafa (The Sublime Speech Elevating the Prophet's Knowledge). M ahm ud
Ahm ad Qadiri adds that it was written in rebuttal o f Maulana Salamat Ullah R am puri’s
riatnal-Azkiya’ (Notification o f the Wise . . . ).Tazkira-e ‘Ulama*-e Ahl-e Sunnat, p. 253.
Ahm ad R iza also addressed himself to questions arising from this book by Salamat Ullah
R am puri (d. 1813-14) in his Daulat al-Makkiyya, Part II.
306 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

articles published in a paper called Nizam ul-Mulk attacking the

views o f a ‘Wahhabi’ from Jodhpur.11
The broad outlines of Na'im ud-D in’s subsequent career seem
quite clear. Based in Muradabad, he devoted himself to defence of
the Ahl-e Sunnat cause through his writings,12 as well as debates
with Deobandis, Ahl-e Hadis, Shi‘is, Christians, and Aryas. He is
said, for instance, to have persuaded an Arya o f the falsity o f the
Hindu doctrine o f transmigration o f souls, and to have worsted
another in debate when a Deobandi failed to do so.13 Ahmad Riza
is reported to have had such high regard for N a'im ud-D in’s skill at
debate that on important occasions, when the opponent was well
known, he frequendy appointed him the Ahl-e Sunnat repre­
sentative (wakil) and sent him across the country at short notice.14
Ahmad Riza’s trust in his abilities was again evident in 1920-21
when he sent Na'im ud-Din at the head o f a team o f emissaries to
Lucknow to accept ‘Abd ul-Bari’s tauba-nama (statement o f repen­
tance) for public comments made by the latter in the course o f the
Khilafat movement.15 Some years later, according to N a‘im ud-
D in’s biography, Muhammad ‘Ali, one o f the principal leaden of
the Khilafat movement, personally came to Muradabad and did
tauba in Na'im ud-D in’s presence.16

11 ‘Hayat-e Sadr al-Afazil’, pp. 6 -7 , 18.

12 These included works defending the Prophet’s knowledge o f the unseen, works about
isal-e sawab (transfer o f merit), rebuttal o f M uhamm ad Isma‘il’s Taqwiyyat al-lman, and
others. Ibid., p. 20.
13 ‘Hayat-e Sadr al-Afazil’, pp. 7-8.
14 Ibid., pp. 10-11, and passim.
15 N a‘im ud-Din was one o f a small num ber o f intermediaries in the protracted
correspondence that took place betw een Ahmad Riza and ‘Abd ul-Bari on this occasion.
Ahmad Riza had listed 101 statements made by ‘Abd ul-Bari for which he w anted the
latter to do tauba, on grounds that these were alternatively kufr (expressive o f unbelief),
zalal (dishonourable), or haram (unlawful, forbidden). After a lengthy correspondence
‘Abd ul-Bari is said to have done tauba, though he later refused to sign a docum ent to
that effect drawn up by Ahm ad Riza. N a‘im ud-D in was a witness, together w ith eleven
others representing Ahmad Riza, to the tauba-nama. See Mustafa Riza Khan (compiler),
Al-Tari al-Dari li-Hafawat 'Abd ul-Bari (Unexpected Correspondence [?] R egarding ‘Abd
ul-Bari’s Errors), (Bareilly: Sunni Press, 1339/1921), pp. 3-2 7 , 55.
16 N o date is given for this event, though we are told that it occurred three months
before his death. As M uham m ad ‘Ali died in London in January 1931 (where he had
 Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 307

Attendant on N a‘im ud-D in’s skills as a persuader and debater

were his organizational abilities. Unlike Ahmad Riza, whose style
was essentially scholarly and solitary, N a‘im ud-Din excelled at
creating and managing institutions. Among his many achievements
were the founding, around 1920, of a madrasa which subsequendy
expanded to become the Jam'iyya N a‘imiyya, and leadership o f the
anti-Shuddhi organization ‘Jama‘at-e Riza-e Mustafa’ which sent
members to Agra, Ajmer, and to villages in neighbouring districts
to convert former Muslims (the Malkana Rajputs) back to Islam in
the 1920s.17 In 1924, he created and edited (with the assistance of
his pupil, Muhammad ‘Umar N a‘imi) a monthly journal, A l-Saw ad
al-A ‘zam (literally ‘the great [that is to say, Sunni] majority’). In 1925
he also created a new body o f Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’, called the
All-India Sunni Conference. The very name o f the new organiza­
tion indicates that it was intended to reach the Ahl-e Sunnat
nation-wide. In fact it was the Ahl-e Sunnat answer to the Jam‘iyyat
al-‘Ulama’-e Hind and the Khilafat Committee, then the main
‘ulama’ organizations at the national level.
According to N a‘im ud-D in’s biography, the All-India Sunni
Conference grew out of Na‘im ud-D in’s awareness o f an increas­
ingly anti-Muslim attitude among Hindus, exemplified not only in
the Arya Samaj-led Shuddhi movement referred to above but also
in Hindu assertiveness over the cow slaughter issue:
A fte r [th e S h u d d h i m o v e m e n t] th e H in d u s . . . started th e G u ru G o k u l m o v e ­
m e n t, b y w h ic h th e y h o p e d to establish gaushalas, (shelters fo r cow s), colleges,
bhauans (schools) . . . w h e re y o u n g p e o p le w o u ld b e a d m itte d a n d g iven
tra in in g w h ic h w o u ld resu lt in th e ir b e c o m in g severely a n ti-M u slim . [N a ‘im
u d - D in ] said th a t o u tw a rd ly , this m o v e m e n t seeks to sp read lea rn in g b u t th e
r e s u lt w ill b e th a t tw e n ty o r tw e n ty -fiv e years d o w n , su ch p e o p le w i l l . . . play
H o li (H in d u spring festival c e le b ra te d w id i w ater) w ith b lo o d . . . . C o n s e -
q u e n d y h e ro u se d e v e ry S u n n i ‘a lim a n d m ade [th e ‘u lam a ’] aw are o f these
n e w dangers. H e to ld th e m , ‘I f y o u have n o t b e c o m e co n scio u s [o f th e
situ a tio n ] y e t , . . . p rep a re yourselves fo r th a t w h ic h is to h a p p e n ’. H e in v ite d
all th e ‘u la m a ’ an d m ash a’ik h (pirs) o f th e A h l-e S u n n a t, fro m all parts o f th e

g one to attend the R ound Table Conference), this places the event in September or
O c to b e r 1930. ‘Hayat-e Sadr al-Afa2il’, p. 74.
17 For details, see Chapter III. For the Shuddhi movement, see Thursby, Hindt4-Mttslim
Relations in British India, pp. 136-58, and passim.
308 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

country, to Muradabad. For four days they gathered together and deliberated.
At the end, the All-India Sunni Conference was established.18

Records o f the 1925 meeting bear the biography out on the

expression of anti-Hindu sentiment at the All-India Sunni Con­
ference.19 In line with arguments made by Ahmad Riza against the
Jam'iyyat al-‘Ulama’-e Hind and Khilafat leadership a few years
previously, the All-India Sunni Conference rejected the principle
of Hindu-Muslim unity as a means of achieving freedom.20 Indeed,
in his welcome address Hamid Riza Khan (Ahmad Riza’s eldest son)
rejected the goal of freedom itself, saying that since Swaraj would
amount to Hindu raj he prayed that the Hindus would not succeed
in their goal.21 Instead, he and others spoke o f the need to w ork for
the education and economic uplift o f Muslims, and for social issues
on a national scale.
New to the Ahl-e Sunnat movement thus far was the projected
sweep o f the All-India Sunni Conference’s influence. From the very
beginning the organizers spoke o f the need to set up branch affiliates
at the state, district, and tahsil levels. In his address Hamid Riza Khan
outlined a range o f activities which the Conference would under­
take. Important among these was tabligh (preaching), both against
the Shuddhi movement, and against the ‘false’ teachings o f other
Muslim schools o f thought. Tabligh would be carried out from
madrasas to be set up throughout the country. ‘The purpose o f every
madrasa is tabligh’, he said. Students were to be trained in the
principles o f tabligh, and a select number of students as well as all

18 ‘Hayat-e Sadr al-Afazil’, pp. 23-4.

19 Muhammad Jalal ud-Din Qadiri (ed.), Khutbat-e All-India Sunni Conference 1925—1947
(Gujarat, Pakistan: Maktaba Rizwiyya, 1978), pp. 122-230. T here arc several references
to the distress caused to Muslims by the Arya-led Shuddhi movem ent. See, e.g., pp.
143-5, 175-6 (on the related Sangathan m ovem ent), 205-9.
20 This position was also taken in the context o f heightened Hindu-M uslim conflict
during the 1920s. Thursby points out that as in earlier periods w hen an upsurge o f violent
conflict had been noted, this one ‘correlated w ith steps in the devolution o f political
pow er’ along the lines o f the M ontagu R eform Bill o f 1918, and w ith ‘the coincidence
o f the major religious festivals’ o f the tw o groups. Thursby, Hindu-Muslim Relations in
British India, p. 72.
21 Khutbat-e AU-India Sunni Conference, p. 177.
 Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 309

teachers would be required to spend two days a week actively

preaching.22
Hamid Riza also outlined a detailed hierarchy o f madrasas to be
set up throughout the country, affiliated to a Jam‘iyyat-e ‘Aliyya at
the national level and going all the way down to the village level.23
The madrasas would teach Q ur’an, diniyat (religious subjects,* not
specified) using Amjad ‘Ali A'zami’s Bahar-e Shari'at,24 arithmetic,
and perhaps Persian and Arabic. Girls’ schools were also to be set
up, teaching diniyat, needlework and housekeeping. There were to
be separate madrasas for Muslim boys attending English-language
schools, in which religious instruction would be given for an hour
each day. All madrasas would have a Dar al-Ifta, though important
fatawa would have to be approved by the Jam‘iyyat-e ‘Aliyya before
being issued. Muballighs (preachers), teachers, and debaters would
also be trained under the aegis o f the Jam ‘iyyat-e ‘Aliyya, among
other things.25
Finally, Hamid Riza suggested ways by which Indian Muslims
could promote their economic welfare: instead o f working under
H indu employers as servants, they should start businesses, no matter
how small.26 They should put aside some o f their earnings to buy
land at the earliest opportunity. Even if a man had inherited land,
he should earn enough to buy himself some more. He advised
everyone to put money aside for their children from birth. A paisa

22 Ibid., p. 150. This emphasis on tabligh should be seen in the context o f the rise o f
the Tablighi Jama'at around this time in Delhi. Led by Maulana M uhamm ad Ilyas
(1885-1944), w ho studied at Deoband under Maulana M ahmud Hasan, the Tablighi
Jam a‘at was the first organization o fln d ian ‘ulama’ to attempt to educate the mass o f
po o r Muslims in the countryside. It started w ork among the Mewatis in Delhi. See
N adw i, Life and Mission of Maulana Mohammad Ilyas; Anwarul-Haq, The Faith Movement
o f Mawlana Muhammad Ilyas.
23 Khutbat-e All-India Sunni Conference, pp. 143-50.
24 A collection o f fatawa, written by one o f Ahmad Riza’s close followers (khalifas),
the Bahar-e Shari *at (currently available in 18 volumes) is widely used am ong the Ahl-e
Sunnat. Its language is m uch simpler than Ahmad R iza’s Fatawa-e Riziviyya but follows
the latter in argument and thinking.
25 Khutbat-e All-India Sunni Conference, pp. 146, 148-50.
26 Ibid., pp. 179-80.
310 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

a day, he said, would add up to a lot in fifteen years.27 And they

should cut down on their expenses, avoiding lavish wedding feasts.
Better still, a man should not marry his child into a family that
wanted to have a feast that would involve borrowing money.28
The 1925 meeting o f the All-India Sunni Conference was at­
tended, it is reported, by over two hundred and fifty learned men
from all over the country.29An important supporter o f the organiza­
tion was Pir Jama'at ‘AH Shah from Panjab.30 In his khutba he
expressed strong support for the anti-Hindu, anti-Jam‘iyyat-e
‘Ulama’-e Hind stand o f the leaders o f the Conference.31 H e said
that unity should not be sought with Hindus, or with ‘free-thinking’
Muslims such as the Ahmadis or Ahl-e Hadis. Unity already existed
among the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama'at, who represented the vast
majority of Muslims in India. The task before them was to carry out
internal reform: to strengthen iman (faith), root out social evils like
smoking and drinking, build more madrasas, and continue the work
o f tabligh.
In 1935 the All-India Sunni Conference met again at Badayun;
and for a third time in April 1946, at Banaras. I turn to this 1946
meeting directly for its discussion o f the Pakistan issue. It is said to
have been attended by five hundred sufi shaikhs, seven thousand
‘ulama’, as well as two hundred thousand other ‘Sunnis’.32 Among

27 Ibid., p. 181.
28 Hamid Riza went into great detail in this speech on the problem ofindebtedness. Among
other remedies, he suggested the creation o f a bait al-ttud or treasury. Ibid., pp. 183-90.
29 Al-Sawad al-A'zam, 4, 12 (Muradabad: R abi‘ al-Akhir 1347/September 1928), 2.
30 Gilmartin writes o f Pir Jama'at ‘Ali Shah (1841 ?—1951) that he came from a line of
Qadiri pirs in Sialkot district, but was active in the reformist Naqshbandi order. ‘Pir
Jamaat Ali Shah’s most burning religious concern was work in tabligh . . . H e made
extensive tours ofPunjab and much o f India, stressing the importance o f the performance
o f religious duties according to shari‘at and establishing mosques in towns and villages.
This w ork gready expanded his influence and led to contacts w ith powerful Muslims
whose wealth he u p p ed for religious causes. By the opening o f the twentieth century,
Pir Jamaat Ali Shah could claim an extensive following, both in rural northern Punjab
and am ong powerful Muslims elsewhere, w hich made his political influence comparable
to that o f any Chishti revival pirs'. Gilmartin, Empire and Islam, p. 60.
31 T he khutba is reproduced in Khutbat-e All-India Sunni Conference, pp. 195-217, from
Sayyid M unawwar Husain Shah, Malfuzat-e AmiraUMillat (Lahore: 1976), pp. 171—203.
32 Khutbat-e All-India Sunni Conference, p. 252. Introductory com m ent by the compiler
 Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 311

the leadership were Maulanas N a‘im ud-Din Muradabadi, Mustafa

Riza Khan (Ahmad Riza’s younger son), Zafar ud-Din Bihari, and
Sayyid Muhammad Ashrafi Jilani o f Kachhochha. The last-named
delivered the welcome address.
Unfortunately, neither the khutba delivered by Sayyid Muham­
mad33 nor the formal resolutions adopted by the 1946 All-India
Sunni Conference meeting, give us any insight into the debate that
must have taken place on this occasion, and in preceding years, about
the creation of Pakistan. Indeed, the khutba does not mention
Pakistan in a political context at all until the very end. It focuses, as
such khutbas did on previous occasions, on the need for ‘Sunni’
Muslims to improve their situation through tabligh, madrasas, and
personal attention to din. One may guess that the reason for this
surprising lack o f discussion o f what undoubtedly was an issue o f
paramount importance in 1946 may have been the problem that
some ‘ulama’ had in supporting the Muslim League.34
At any rate, Sayyid Muhammad’s khutba concentrates on the All-
India Sunni Conference’s educational and tablighi aspirations for the
Ahl-e Sunnat throughout India. Occasionally he couched this
sentiment by playing on the word pakistan in its literal meaning of
‘a pure place’. He indicated for instance that Pakistan would come
about naturally to the extent that Muslims became ‘pure’:
Because every Muslim must, from morning to night, be a Muslim, because
every m inute a person is governed by essentials, by the grace o f education every

o f the book.
33 Sayyid M uham m ad (1311/1893-94 to 1383/1963) was bom in R ae Bareilly district.
H e was b ro u g h t up by his m aternal grandfather, Sayyid ‘Ali Husain Ashrafi
(1849/50-1936/37), w ho had addressed the first All-India Sunni Conference in 1925.
Sayyid M uham m ad studied the dars-e nizami at the Madrasa Nizamiyya, Firangi Mahal,
L ucknow w here Maulana ‘Abd ul-Bari was one o f his teachers. After eight years there,
he w ent to Aligarh and studied with Maulana Lutf Ullah Aligarhi, then to Pilibhit, where
he studied hadis with Maulana ‘Abd ul-M uqtadir Badayuni. His maternal uncle, Maulana
Ahm ad Ashraf, was his pir. Sayyid M uham m ad’s accomplishments included the founding
o f a madrasa, Madrasa al-Hadis, in Delhi, converting some five thousand non-Muslims
to Islam, and writing books, both prose and poetry. See M ahm ud Ahmad Qadiri,
Tazkira-e 'Ulama’-e Ahl-e Sunnat, pp. 235—6.
34 T h at support o f the League was the subject o f considerable controversy amongst
Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ becomes clear further in this Epilogue, when we study ‘M uhammad
M iyan’ M arahraw i’s posidon.
312 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

breath can bccomc an Islamic breath. Then that breath will have that glory
which we call Pakistan . . . .
[If all Muslims] live and die for Allah, then you may be sure that in the
parched land between the Bay o f Bengal and the Indian Ocean [you] will see
Pakistan. W hen a community (qaum) becomes pure (pak) in knowledge, in
deed, [and] in disposition, it transforms whichever place which it sets foot on
into a pure abode (pakistan).35

Sayyid Muhammad spoke at some length o f the lack o f com­

munication between the Ahl-e Sunnat in different parts o f India,
and their attendant failure to make a concerted effort to ameliorate
their situation.36 During the course o f the four-day proceedings,
resolutions were adopted to act on suggestions made on this occasion
as well as in past conferences.
Addressing the Pakistan issue in the context o f this larger concern
for self-improvement toward the end ofhis khutba, Sayyid M uham­
mad affirmed the All-India Sunni Conference’s support o f the
Muslim League in the demand for Pakistan. Ideally, he said, they
would like all o f India to be ‘Pakistan’, but recognizing that things
change slowly, they supported the idea of a part o f the country being
singled out as a place to start. But this support was conditional, he
said, on the Pakistan-to-be being subject to the laws o f Islam:
Those Sunnis w ho have accepted this message [demand for a separate state]
advanced by the [Muslim] League, and who go about canvassing support for
the League, do so only to the extent that, in one part o f Hindustan, the free
governance o f the Q u r’an, o f Islam, will prevail. In this [part], the lives and
property o f non-Muslim zimtnis will enjoy protection according to the shari'a.
They will be allowed to freely engage in social relations and practise their din
. . . . If the League has adopted a path other than the one assumed by the Sunnis
to have been taken, no Sunni will accept it.37

And again,
In Pakistan that offender (mujrim) will not be favoured, who, professing the
kalima (articles o f faith), calling him or herself a Sunni, is [nevertheless] irritated
by the thought o f an Islamic authority.

35 Khutbat-e All-India Sunni Conference, pp. 270-1.

36 Ibid., p. 270, and passim.
37 Ibid., p. 276.
38 Ibid., p. 277.
 Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 313

Insofar as the All-India Sunni Conference was concerned, Sayyid

Muhammad said, the Muslim League was but an ‘interpreter’
(tarjuman) o f the Ahl-e Sunnat’s passionate desire (jazbat) to see the
recreation o f that pristine state o f affairs that had prevailed at the
time o f the ‘righdy-guided’ caliphs of Islam.39 The Muslim League’s
goals were but temporary. It was the All-India Sunni Conference
which would be needed in the future:
If Sunnis have the right, as other communities do— and they do have the
right— to stay alive, to protect their din, to arrange their future, to save their
community (qaum) from destruction, to adorn their mosques and khanqahs,
to keep their centres on the right track, then [the Sunnis] need the All-India
Sunni Conference more than they do any other organization [at the state
level?).40

The formal resolution on Pakistan adopted by the All-India Sunni

Conference, however, gave little hint of the nuanced support
indicated by Sayyid Muhammad in his khutba. It said:
This session o f the All-India Sunni Conference fully supports the demand for
Pakistan, and announces that the ‘ulama’ and shaikhs of the Ahl-e Sunnat are
prepared for whatever sacrifice may be necessary in the movement for the
creation o f an Islamic state (islami hukumat). And they consider it their duty
to establish a state [guided by] the Q u r’an, hadis, and the principles o f fiqh.41

There is no suggestion, in anything we have seen o f the proceed­

ings o f the Conference’s 1946 meetings, that a large-scale migration
(hijra) was envisaged, involving the uprooting o f thousands of
families leaving for a new home in Pakistan. It seems, rather, to have
been assumed that the ‘ulama’ o f the Ahl-e Sunnat would proceed
as they had done in the past, attempting to inculcate din among
Muslims throughout India and thereby deepen their influence.
Along with this they would help create, in one part o f the country,
a state which would be governed by shari'a and which would usher
in, they hoped, a life-style as close to their ideal as possible.
As for N a'im ud-Din Muradabadi, he never migrated to Pakistan.
He was about sixty at the time of Partition, and died a year later in

39 Ibid., pp. 276, 278.

40 Ibid., p. 278.
41 Ibid., p. 283.
314 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

1948. But before his death, he managed to visit Karachi, Lahore,

and other places in Pakistan, where he m et w ith Ahl-e Sunnat
‘ulama’ and directed them in the organization o f tablighi and other
work.42

S h a h A u la d - e R a su l ‘M uham m ad M iy a n ’ M arahraw i

Shah Aulad-e Rasul (1892-1952), generally know n as ‘Muhammad

Miyan’, was bom in Sitapur district (north o f Lucknow ). He was a
third-generation descendant, on his father’s side, o f Sayyid Aulad-e
Rasul (d. 1851, elder brother o f Shah Al-e Rasul, A hm ad Riza’s
pir), and, going further back, o f Shah Barkat Ullah (1660-1730),
considered the founder o f the Barkatiyya family. T he Barkatiyya
were Zaidi Sayyids tracing their descent back to Fatima, the Prophet’s
daughter. Although Muhammad Miyan’s ancestors had moved to
Marahra from Bilgram (in Hardoi district) in the seventeenth cen­
tury, a branch o f the family continued to live there into the early
twentieth. This ‘eastern’ branch was o f Shi‘i persuasion.43
Muhammad Miyan was educated by a host o f family elders and
other ‘ulama’, memorizing the Q ur’an, and learning Persian, Arabic,
and the dars-e nizami from them. He completed his studies at the
Madrasa ‘Aliyya Qadiriyya at Badayun. And although he was riever
personally instructed by Ahmad Riza, he looked upon the latter as
one o f his teachers.44 He was a prolific writer, having published
about thirty books, including a family history and several on the
political issues o f his day. He received bai‘a from his father, Shah
Muhammad Isma'il Hasan ‘Shah Ji’ (1855-1914?).
Muhammad Miyan, as a Sayyid and a member o f the family ot
Ahmad Riza’s pir Shah Al-e Rasul, was naturally included in the
42 ‘Hayat-e Sadr al-Afazil’, pp. 28-9. At Lahore, he is said to have stayed w ith M aulani
Abu‘l Barakat Ahmad Qadiri, the manager (nazim) o f the A njum an-e H izb ul-Ahnoi
an influential Panjabi organization that was part o f the A hl-e S unnat movement. For
m ore on this body, see G ilm u tin , Empire and Islam, pp. 1 0 4 ,164;M etcalf, Islamic Revvd,
p. 312.
43 See M uhamm ad M iyan’s Khandan-e Barakat (c. 1927), pp. 5 2-5. (N o publication
details are available.) Also see Chapter IV o f this study for an account o f the Barkatiyya
family in the nineteenth century.
44 Khandan-e Barakat, p. 53.
 Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 315

inner circle o f Ahmad Riza’s close associates. Ahmad Riza was on

particularly close terms with Nuri Miyan (Muhammad Miyan’s
uncle and maternal grandfather, d. 1906).45 After Nuri Miyan’s
death, Ahmad Riza used to attend his annual ‘urs at Marahra; in
addition, Ahmad Riza observed the ‘urs o f Shah Al-e Rasul for
three days at his own home in Bareilly each year.
Muhammad Miyan’s close links with Ahmad Riza and his khalifas
is indicated, among other things, by the fact that he delivered the
khutba-e sadarat, or chief address, at the first meeting o f the Ansar
al-Islam in April 1921 (22-24 Sha'ban 1339). This organization was
created by Ahmad Riza in order to raise money for the Turkish
cause and related concerns (such as protection o f the Hijaz from
non-Muslim rule).46 Furthermore, Muhammad Miyan’s positions
on the major early twentieth-century debates examined in the
previous chapter appear to have been in complete agreement with
whose taken by Ahmad Riza. Like Ahmad Riza, he believed that
British India in the 1920s was a dar al-islam, that Hindu-Muslim
unity in the course o f the Khilafat movement was to be condemned,
and that the Khilafat movement itself was but a means to achieve
independence from British rule.47 He also agreed with Ahmad Riza
on the impermissibility o f Muslims doing hijrat from British India
in 1920.48
In these respects Muhammad Miyan was in agreement also with
N a‘im ud-Din, who had likewise rejected Hindu-Muslim unity and

45 See, e.g., Ghulam Shabar Qadiri N uri Badayuni, Tazkira-e Nuri, p. 14.
46 See Shah Aulad-e Rasul, Khutba-e Sadarat (Marahra: Khanqah-e Barkatiyya, n.d.),
6 0 pp.
47 Ibid., pp. 18, 21, 25-6, and passim. Also see S. Jamaluddin, ‘Religiopolitical Ideas o f
a T w entieth C entury Muslim Theologian— an Introduction’, in Marxist Miscellany, 7
(M arch 1977), pp. 13-19. Jamaluddin interprets M uhamm ad Miyan’s attitudes on these
issues as an expression o f his ‘fierce class consciousness’. Because M uhamm ad M iyar
cam e from a sufi and zamindari (landowning) family, he says, ‘he attempted to divert
th e Muslims from the national m ovem ent in order to safeguard the vested interests o f
th e zamindar class. T he same class consciousness made him keep distance from the
Congress’. Ibid., p. 14. This would imply that no zamindars, H indu or Muslim,
participated in the nationalist m ovem ent, which is manifestly not the case. N o r does
class consciousness seem to have any bearing on political partnership with the Congress.
48 Khutba-e Sadara, p. 49. Also see Raja Rashid M ahmud, Tahrik-e Hijrat (1920), p. 94.
316 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

the Khilafat movement. N a‘im ud-Din had supported the goals of

the Ansar al-islam, and had addressed its meetings in 1921 as had
Muhammad Miyan.49 Furthermore, both men had w orked together
in the Jama‘at-e Riza-e Mustafa in the early 1920s against the
Shuddhi movement o f the Arya Samaj.50
By 1935-40, however, Muhammad Miyan had begun to move
away from N a‘im ud-Din and his associates in the All-India Sunni
Conference over the question o f what the leadership’s attitude
should be toward the Muslim League. Perhaps it was his disagree­
ment on this important matter that motivated M uham m ad Miyan
around 1935 to create thejam a‘at-e Ahl-e Sunnat, based in Marahra.
This new body, o f which Muhammad Miyan was president (sadr),5'
represented the opinions o f sufi shaikhs and ‘ulama’ calling them­
selves Ahl-e Sunnat. It met annually in the course o f a three-day ‘uis
for Muhammad Miyan’s father, Shah Muhammad Isma‘il ‘Shah Ji’.
In 1946, a small number o f Barkatiyya pirs associated with
Muhammad Miyan began a monthly journal, the Ahl-e Sunnat ki
Awaz, ‘The Voice o f the Ahl-e Sunnat’, in which the Jama‘at-e
Ahl-e Sunnat’s activities were reported. It is from this journal that
we learn why Muhammad Miyan and his supporters objected to the
Muslim League and the All-India Sunni Conference. It becomes
clear from this that the Jama‘at-e Ahl-e Sunnat’s objections to the
Muslim League were the main reason for its opposition to the
creation o f Pakistan.
The very first issue of the Ahl-e Sunnat ki A w az notes that the
Jama‘at-e Ahl-e Sunnat adopted certain resolutions at its 1946
meeting. These included, importandy, the declarations that
. . . we, the leaders o f the Jama‘at-e Ahl-e Sunnat, are free o f (ban) and
displeased with (be-zar) the Congress o f the kafirs and polytheists, and with the

49 Al-Sawad al-A 'zam, 2, 5 (Sha’ban 1339/April 1924), 4.

50 Rudad-e Jama‘at-e Riza-e Mustafa (1342/1924), p. 15. N o publication details arc
available.
51 Among other office-bearers (in 1946) were Maulana Shah ‘Hasan M iyan’, die
Vice-President (na’ib-e sadr), and Maulana Shah Al-e Mustafa ‘Sayyid M iyan’, the Chief
Administrator (nazim). Both were sajjada-nishms at the Barkadyya khanqah, as was
M uhamm ad Miyan. See Ahl-e Sunnat ki Aw az, 1, 5 (Marahra: K hanqah-e Barkatiyya.
n.d.), 2, 7.
 Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 317

. . . M uslim League o f the apostates (murtaddin) and hypocrites (munafiqin)

. . . . The All-India Sunni Conference has arisen after twenty-three years
wrapped in the cloak o f the clandestine League, and standing before the
touchstone o f the pure sunna, has not yet purified itself o f the strangers admitted
into it. [O n the contrary, it] is openly supporting the dark (muzlim) [the letter
sin in the Arabic replaced by zo ’e] League. Therefore, it is our shar‘i duty to
stay away from it. The newspaper Dabdaba-e Sikandari has adopted a policy of
clearcut opposition to the sunna in its [slavish support] o f the so-called Sunni
Conference . . . . This . . . meeting expresses its strong disapproval o f it.52

In this same meeting, the Jama‘at-e Ahl-e Sunnat also voiced its
opposition to the ‘fitna’ (affliction) o f the Ahrar and Khaksar
parties.53
An article written in February or March 1947 (Rabi‘ al-Akhir
1365) set out with clarity the Barkatiyya pirs’ objections to the
Muslim League. Its author, Hasan Miyan, wrote that the League did
n ot care in the least whether its supporters wee Muslims or kafirs,
as long as they were pro-League. Thus it was uninterested in
Muslims whose faith was true to the shari'a, but who were not
members o f the League and did not look upon Muhammad ‘AH
Jinnah as the ‘prophet o f politics’ (siyasat ka nabi) or the ‘protector
o f the law’ (qanun ka panvar-o-gar), and did not accept Jinnah’s and
the League’s ‘new shari‘a’.54 The League’s Pakistan would be open
to every kafir, polytheist, Hindu, Christian, or Jew. It would have
no place for true Muslims. Furthermore, in his view the current
‘w ar’ o f the League with the Congress was purely tactical in nature,
as were its expressions o f love for all Muslims. The assurances it was
giving the Muslims were designed to elicit support for its own
political agenda; there was no truth to them. He said he was surprised
that the All-India Sunni Conference did not see this, and reminded

52 Ahl-e Sunnat ki Awaz, 1, 2 0 -1 . There was a fourth declaration, not quoted above,
in w hich the Jam a'at expressed its support o f the newspaper Al-Faqih to which the
Dabdaba-e Sikandari was opposed.
53 T w o urban Muslim organizations that arose in Panjab in the late 1920s and early
1930s. For details, see Gilmartin, Empire and Islam, pp. 9 6 -9 ,1 0 5 , and references therein.
54 Hasan M iyan, ‘Leaguion ki islam-dosti aur muslim-nawazi ki haqiqat—League ke
Pakistan m en musalmanon ke li’e koi jagah nahin’ (The T ruth about the League’s Love
o f Islam and Cherishing o f Muslims— T here is N o Place for Muslims in the League’s
Pakistan), Ahl-e Sunnat ki Awaz, 2, 6-7.
318 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

them o f the Q ur’an verse (3:118, Yusuf‘Ali tr.), ‘O ye w ho believe!

Take not into your intimacy those outside your ranks . . . ’, for the
purpose o f outsiders is to mislead.55 In the current situation, he said,
there was nothing to be done but to stay away from ‘lovers of
falsehood’ like the League, the Congress, and others, and remain
firm in their adherence to the thirteen-hundred-year old sharia.56
These arguments, representing the Jama‘at-e A hl-e Sunnat’s
reasons for opposing the League’s Pakistan m ovem ent, are very
similar to Ahmad Riza’s own arguments in the early 1920s against
Hindu-M uslim unity and the Khilafat movement. Like Hasan
Miyan, who said that the Muslim League’s purposes in wanting to
create Pakistan were unrelated to the religious (dini) welfare of
Muslims, Ahmad Riza had seen the Khilafat leaden’ support of the
Turkish khalifa as politically motivated, and therefore ‘im pure’ or
tainted. Contributors to the Ahl-e Sunnat ki A w az indicated explicit­
ly that Ahmad Riza was the model they held up for emulation, and
maintained that those o f the Ahl-e Sunnat who disagreed w ith them
on Pakistan were not his true followers:
There are those who were respectfully bending their knees before che
Mujaddid-e A'zam [Ahmad Riza] yesterday and whose very breath trembled
in the presence of his awesome glory. Today, on the contrary,. . . they have
set themselves up as a mujaddid-e din and millat. Entrapping innocent people
in their . . . net, they move with the wind o f the times like a reed.57

The July 1947 issue (Sha'ban 1365) o f the Ahl-e Sunnat ki A w a z was
devoted solely to publication of correspondence between Muham­
mad Miyan and Na‘im ud-Din Muradabadi. The very fact that this
extensive correspondence, detailing their disagreements from
1938-39 to 1947, was made public in this way points to the fact
that relations between them had reached a point o f no return. The
depth of the rift and some sense o f the personal hurt caused to the
Barkatiyya pirs by their difference o f opinion with N a‘im ud-Din

55 Ibid., p. 8.
56 Ibid., p. 9.
57 Ahl-e Sunnat ki Awaz, part 1, p. 9. Though the writer’s name is n o t indicated, it may
have been Shah Al-e Mustafa Sayyid Miyan, the paper’s m anager (murattib). Ahmad
R iza’s name and views on Muslim participation in Congress- led m ovem ents were
similarly evoked by Hasan M iyan, in Ahl-e Sunnat ki Awaz, 5, 2 -3 .
 Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 319

Muradabadi is indicated by Hasan Miyan’s comment, following the

correspondence, that although the Barkadyya astana (‘palace’) had
been the ‘qibla and Ka‘ba’ o f the Astana-e ‘Aliyya Rizwiyya (Ahmad
Riza’s residence/khanqah), and o f numerous others revered by the
Ahl-e Sunnat, yet Na‘im ud-Din had been ‘ashamed’ (‘<*r) to
personally visit Muhammad Miyan at Marahra.58

B u r h a n ul- H a q q J abalpuri

While Na'im ud-Din and his associates in the Ahl-e Sunnat move­
ment supported the League and Pakistan from the outside, and
Muhammad Miyan and like-minded pirs opposed the League and
Pakistan altogether, Burhan ul-Haqq Jabalpuri adopted yet another
position. His career offers a complete contrast to the first two in that
he played a leadership role in the Muslim League from his
hometown o f Jabalpur in the Central Provinces. Insofar as the
Pakistan issue was concerned, he presents the picture o f an
important local politician rather than that o f an ‘alim anxious to
establish whether the League’s party members’ beliefs were ‘correct’
or not.
Burhan ul-Haqq Jabalpuri (1892-1984) was bom to a family that
traced its descent to the first caliph Abu Bakr (d. 13/634) and
therefore styled itself ‘Siddiqi’ (from the epithet ‘siddiq’, ‘true’,
attached by Sunni Muslims to Abu Bakr’s name). The family had
lived at Jabalpur since about 1865. This was the year that Burhan
ul-Haqq’s grandfather, ‘Abd ul-Karim, a mir munshi (religious teacher)
and kotwal (city magistrate) in British service, came to Jabalpur from
somewhere near Haidarabad as part of the Madras army.59 He gave
up his job a few years later and devoted himself to religious teaching.
He was initiated into the Qadiri order by his pir, a man from the

58 Hasan Miyan, ‘Sadr al-Afazil lchud apni khat o kitabat ki roshni m en’ ([Na'im ud-D in
Muradabadi] in Light o f His O w n Correspondence), Ahl-e Sunnat ki Awaz, 5, 22, 23.
T he reference was to a protracted discussion, which ended in stalemate, as to w here the
tw o m en should meet. Several locations were suggested, among them Bareilly (by N a'im
ud-D in) and Marahra (by M uham m ad Miyan).
59 M uham m ad Ham id Siddiqi R izw i Salami Burhani, Tazkira-e Hazrat Burhan-e Millat
(Jabalpur Astana ‘Aliyya Rizwiyya Salamiyya Burhaniyya, 1985), pp. 9, 12.
320 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

south Indian town o f Vellore, and had also been admitted into the
Naqshbandi order by another sufi teacher.60 ‘Abd ul-Karim cor­
responded with, though never met, Ahmad Riza, w hom he held in
high esteem.61
Burhan ul-Haqq’s early education took place under the direction
o f family elders, among them his grandfather and father ‘Abd us-
Salam. ‘Abd us-Salam, an ‘alim, devoted his time to teaching at the
Madrasa ‘Id al-Islam and issuing fatawa from its Dar al-Ifta. In the
1890s, he associated himself with the Nadwat al-‘Ulama’, attending
its annual meetings at Lucknow and elsewhere in a leadership role.
A personal dispute with Shibli N u‘mani, a leader o f the Nadwa, over
proposed changes in the dars-e nizami syllabus, and disagreement
with the Nadwa on more general matters, however, caused him to
leave.62 Henceforward, ‘Abd us-Salam became active in opposing
the Nadwa in concert with other Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’. In this
capacity he came into close contact with Ahmad Riza. In 1895-96
Ahmad Riza gave him a sanad-e ijazat, a certificate linking him as a
teacher to Ahmad Riza and his teachers in turn.63
The relationship between Ahmad Riza and Burhan ul-H aqq’s
father deepened over the years. Burhan ul-Haqq recalled that
Ahmad Riza wrote or sent a telegram whenever a bereavement
occurred in the family.64 It was he who named Burhan ul-H aqq’s
brother, bom in 1904, and then mourned his death a few years later.
In 1908, Burhan ul-Haqq’s uncle died within a day o f the death of
Ahmad Riza’s brother, Hasan Riza. Each side condoled with the
other at its loss.65
Growing up in this atmosphere of reverence for Ahmad Riza,
Burhan ul-Haqq soon developed a passionate desire to meet him in
person. He recalled that when he was about nine, he dreamt that he

60 Ib id , p. 12.
61 Burhan ul-H aqq Jabalpuri, Ikram-e Imam Ahmad Riza (Lahore: Markazi Majlis-e
Riza, 1981), pp. 30-1.
62 Ibid., pp. 42-5.
63 W hether the sanad was in hadis, fiqh or some other field is not specified. Ikram-e
Imam Ahmad Riza, p. 52.
64 Ibid., p. 35.
65 Ibid., pp. 36-8.
 Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 321

had fallen sick and was only cured when Ahmad Riza gave him a
ta'wiz (amulet). Soon after he actually fell seriously ill with the
plague; only when a ta'wiz from Ahmad Riza was tied to his body
did he recover.66 Some years later, in 1905—6 when he was fourteen,
he was finally able to fulfill his ambition o f meeting Ahmad Riza.
That year Burhan ul-Haqq accompanied his father to Bombay to
welcome Ahmad Riza back from the Haramain. Ahmad Riza, now
recognized by Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ as the mujaddid or ‘renewer’
o f the fourteenth Hijri century, had just scored what the Ahl-e
Sunnat regarded as a special victory against the Deobandis in the
course o f his recent sojourn at the Haramain. He naturally left a deep
impression on the young Burhan ul-Haqq during his ten-day stay
in Bombay en route to Bareilly.67
In 1913-14 Burhan ul-Haqq and his father went to Bareilly.
Ahmad Riza had sent for ‘Abd us-Salam in connection with his
dispute with certain Badayuni ‘ulama’ over the second azan (call to
prayer) on Fridays, which had led them to file a case o f libel against
him.68 Burhan ul-Haqq spent the next three years at Bareilly,
attending personally to Ahmad Riza’s needs, helping in the Dar
al-Ifta, and taking classes at the Madrasa Manzar al-Islam.69 From
Ahmad Riza he learned Hltn-e tauqit, the precise calculation o f time
by means o f the sun. Returning to Jabalpur in 1917, he was able to
persuade Ahmad Riza to come on a visit in 1919. While there,
Ahmad Riza performed Burhan ul-Haqq’s dastar-bandi (tying o f a
turban, symbol o f the completion o f one’s studies) at a large public
function.70 Burhan ul-Haqq also received a sanad-e khilafat, a
testimonial to his close relationship with Ahmad Riza over the years.

66 Ib id , pp. 55-6. Several years later, a similar event occurred in which Ahmad Riza
was believed to have saved Burhan ul-H aqq’s wife from almost certain death from the
plague. Again, the cure followed a vision in which Ahmad Riza appeared to her, soon
after which a ta'wiz was received in the mail. Ibid., pp. 64-5.
67 See Tazkira-e Hazrat Burhan-e Milica, pp. 15-16; Ikram-e Imam Ahmad Riza, pp. 54-5.
68 For details on this dispute, see Chapter VI above. Burhan ul-H aqq does not specify
what Ahm ad Riza wanted his father to do in his connection.
69 Mustafa Riza Khan and Amjad ‘All A‘zami were his constant companions during
these years. See Ikram-e Imam Ahmad Riza, p. 57.
70 Ibid., pp. 6 7 -8 . Also see C hapter III for details on Ahmad R iza’s Jabalpur trip.
322 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

In the 1920s, Burhan ul-Haqq followed Ahmad R iz a ’s lead on

the major issues, opposing the Khilafat m ovem ent, the Non-
Cooperation movement, Hindu-Muslim unity, and the Hijrat
movement.71 In March 1921, he joined a delegation from the
Jama‘at-e Riza-e Mustafa at a Khilafat committee m eeting at Bareil­
ly. Presenting the delegation’s point o f view to the Committee,
Burhan ul-Haqq debated with Abu’l Kalam Azad o n the issue of
Khilafat and Hindu- Muslim unity.72
The biographical sources are silent on Burhan ul-H aqq’s activities
between this point and Partition in 1947, though some information
is available about his interests in the 1950s and beyond.73 Unfor­
tunately, therefore, I cannot tell whether he ever discussed with
other Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’ the course to be followed regarding the
Muslim League and its demand for Pakistan.741 do not k n o w what
led him to join the League, or whether he had earlier been involved
in other organizations like Na‘im ud-Din Muradabadi’s All-India
Sunni Conference. The fact that he never moved to Pakistan despite
his avid support for the League in the early forties raises a whole
different set o f questions about his relationship to the League and
his support of a Muslim state versus his commitment to stay on in
Jabalpur and maintain his ancestral dargah. O n this, too, the sources
are silent.
W e can infer that Burhan ul-Haqq joined the League in the late
1930s when it was reorganized and revamped under the leadership
ofjinnah.75 In January 1940, Burhan ul-Haqq addressed a meeting

71 As to this last, I infer that he opposed the Hijrat m ovem ent from the fact that many
years later he accused Gandhi o f having encouraged the Muslims to do hijrat in 1920.
Sec Burhan ul-H aqq Jabalpuri, Khutba-e Sadarat, Muslim League Conference, District
Jabalpur, 1-3 January 1940 (Jabalpur n.d.), p. 2.
72 Ikram-e Imam Ahmad Riza, pp. 106-9; Tazkira-e Hazrat Burhan-e Millat, p. 20.
73 Ibid., pp. 23-4, 26-7, 37.
74 T he complete omission o f any reference to Burhan ul-H aqq’s membership o f the
Muslim League in the available biographical literature is curious. Perhaps it is connected
with the inherent contradiction suggested by the fact, referred to below, that despite his
being a m em ber o f the League he chose to remain in India after Partition. O r perhaps
the Ahl-e Sunnat did not approve o f his joining the League.
75 There are several sources on Muslim League history. For the 1930s period, see, e.g.,
Stanley Wolpert, Jinrnh of Pakistan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 140-54.
 Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 323

o f the Jabalpur District Muslim League Conference as the chairman

(sadr) o f the welcome session (majlis-e istiqbaliyya).76 In his speech,
he pointed out that Muslims constituted only four per cent o f the
population o f the Central Provinces, and that because they were so
outnumbered by Hindus (the other 96 per cent) they were economi­
cally weak, poor, and helpless. He then went on to detail the manner
in which the Hindus had taken advantage o f this weakness in recent
years,77 and enumerated at length the wrongs that Muslims had
suffered in the Central Provinces during the Hindu-dominated
Congress ministry that had governed from 1937 to 1939.78 All this
was, o f course, an echo o f League arguments made in support o f its
‘two-nation theory’, which held that Hindus and Muslims had never
shared a common cultural, linguistic, or religious tradition and
therefore could not live together as fellow citizens o f the same
country. Burhan ul-Haqq likened India to Europe, which consisted
o f separate countries, each with its own language, religions and
culture. If it was acceptable for Europe to be politically divided into
several states, he said, why should the Indian subcontinent be held
to a different standard?79 Beyond this, he went on to criticize recent
attempts at the national level to bring the League and Congress
together within a new constitutional framework.
During the next few years, Burhan ul-Haqq was actively involved
in Muslim League politics at Jabalpur. In a 1941 letter addressed to
Jinnah, he reported that the Muslim League in Jabalpur had set up
a Municipal Parliamentary Board which would be contesting elec­
tions that November in those district wards in which Muslims
constituted a majority.80 Wolpert points out that it was precisely by

76 M uham m ad Burhan ul-H aqq, Khutba-e Sadarat, 15 pp.

77 H e said that by trying to substitute Hindi for U rdu in high schools, for instance, they
were trying to make Muslim children forget their linguistic, cultural, and religious roots,
and to assimilate them w ith Hindus. Ibid., p. 3.
78 Ibid., pp. 8-9.
79 Ibid., pp. 6, 8. As a means o f underscoring the absurdity o f the idea that either Europe
or the subcontinent could ever form single states, he added that if the European nations
w ould agree to merge all their countries and becom e a single nation, the Muslim League
w ould drop its demand for a separate state!
80 C . P. & Berar 1:67, ‘Correspondence o f Qaide Azam Mr. M . Jinnah and O ther
Papers’, Shamsul Hasan Collection. This collection is ow ned by M r Khalid S. Hasan,
324 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

establishing such parliamentary boards throughout the country that

Jinnah was able to extend the League’s influence to towns and
villages throughout the country.81
Further correspondence dating to 1943-46 reveals Burhan ul-
Haqq directing administrative and political affairs in his area as
President o f the Jabalpur Tow n and District Muslim League. His
correspondence with Jinnah and other national Muslim League
leaders deals with a range o f issues. In a letter that shows his concern
about internal administrative organization, he suggests to Jinnah that
the number of delegates allotted to each district be changed to reflect
the number of fee-paying members in their districts.82 O ther letters
reveal Burhan ul-Haqq protesting to local authorities over matters
that Muslims perceived as injurious to their interests. One o f these
related to a proposal by the municipality to prohibit meat vendors
going from house to house to sell meat. Burhan ul-Haqq argued
that as it was overwhelmingly Muslims who engaged in this trade,
this law would affect them adversely and have no impact on other
religious groups.83 Similarly, he protested against the decision o f the
military to prohibit Muslim sepoys from wearing beards.84
Letters written in 1946 reflect the growing atmosphere o f conflict
between Hindus and Muslims, and the violence simmering beneath
the surface, ready to erupt at a moment’s notice. In one o f these,
Burhan ul-Haqq protested the Hindu Mahasabha’s use ofloudspeakers
fitted on tongas (horse-drawn passenger carriages) as they carried
people to and fro through town.85 In others, he referred to the killing

son o f Shamsul Hasan, o f Karachi. I am grateful to him for permission to photocopy

Burhan ul-H aqq’s correspondence included in the collection.
Burhan ul-H aqq is unlikely to have spoken and written English. His letter m ust have
been written for him by someone else, then signed by him (in English).
81 Wolpert.Jiwwto of Pakistan, p. 142.
82 C. P. & Berar 11:13, in ‘Correspondence’. T he letter was dated April 3, 1943, and
was acknowledged by Jinnah in an unsigned letter dated April 9, 1943.
83 Ibid., 17. T he municipal resolution prohibiting the sale o f meat by hawkers was dated
June 10,1943. A mass meeting ofM uslims, including dealers in the meat trade, protested
the decision on June 24, 1943.
84 Ibid., 19. This was the subject o f a resolution o f the W orking C om m ittee o f the
M uslim League ofjubbalpur, dated O ctober 12, 1943.
85 Ibid., 64. Letter to the Deputy Commissioner, Jubbalpur, dated O ctober 21, 1946.
 Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 325

o f Muslims in railway trains, and the public meeting? o f the Arya

Samaj that incited Hindus to anti-Muslim violence. He pleaded with
local authorities to take steps to prevent bloodshed.
This correspondence gives us a vivid glimpse o f the local atmos­
phere o f Hindu-Muslim hatred in Jabalpur immediately preceding
Partition, and of the efforts o f one Muslim League politician to
defend Muslim interests in his town and district. But what we do
not see so clearly, for lack o f knowledge o f the internal dialogue and
debate, is the connection between Burhan ul-Haqq the Muslim
League leader, and Burhan ul-Haqq the devoted follower o f Ahmad
Riza Khan and the Ahl-e Sunnat movement.
As I noted earlier, despite his Muslim League career Burhan
ul-Haqq never migrated to Pakistan. While some o f his children
married and settled in Karachi, he remained in India. After his
father’s death in 1952, he became his sajjada-nishin. He appears to
have continued to be an important local political figure, for it is
reported that on his death in December 1984 tributes were paid to
him by contemporary politicians, among them Rajiv Gandhi who
happened to be in Jabalpur in the course o f a national election
campaign.86

C o n c l u s io n

W hat common ground can we find in the biographies o f the three

men examined here? At first sight there appears little, particularly if
we contrast Burhan ul-Haqq to Na'im ud-Din and Muhammad
Miyan. While the last two disagreed with one another on the course
to be adopted, they clearly debated the Pakistan issue as ‘ulama’,
concerned primarily that they act as Muslims in this matter, as in all
others they had confronted before. For Burhan ul-Haqq, on the
contrary, the first priority appears to have been to safeguard the
political interests o f Muslims against those of their rivals, whether
Hindus or others.
Nevertheless, all three men, it is quite clear, believed firmly that

T h e H indu Mahasabha, led by M. M. Malaviya, had an anti-M uslim stance.

86 Tazkira-c Hazrat Burhan-c Millat, pp. 37, 41.
326 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

as Muslims they must repudiate any alliance w ith H indus regardless

o f the end sought to be promoted. This is the single com m on thread
that runs through their lives on all the issues they faced in the early
twentieth century. W e may recall that Ahmad Riza too had rejected
a Hindu-Muslim alliance in the early yean o f this century and that
this had accounted in part for his opposition to the Khilafat move­
ment. Consequendy, there was continuity in this respect between
Ahmad Riza and his three close followers.
Another principle that Ahmad Riza had consistendy upheld was
his refusal to associate with Muslims whose beliefs he judged to be
‘wrong’, or ‘false’. Here only Muhammad Miyan appears to have
followed his lead. N a‘im ud-Din and Burhan ul-H aqq, both sup­
portive o f the Muslim League in one way or another, seem to have
looked at the issue ‘politically’ and not to have asked w hether the
Muslims in the League were ‘good’ Muslims or not.
Perhaps the times seemed to them to call for a different approach.
Indeed, there is something to suggest that if they had taken an
anti-Muslim League position they would have lost the support and
respect o f ordinary Muslims around them. Hasan M iyan, for in­
stance, wrote in 1946 that pro-League sympathy was so strong in
Bareilly that if Na‘im ud-Din and Muhammad Miyan had chosen
Bareilly as the venue for their discussions public anger against
Muhammad Miyan would have been too great for even Mustafa
Riza Khan to contain.87 According to him, in Marahra on the other
hand the Muslims were not attracted to the League. As for Jabalpur,
Burhan ul-Haqq’s correspondence provides an indication o f the
kind oflocal harrassment that must have gone on on both sides. That
the Muslims were pro-League can be readily believed.
A question that does not surface in the biographies, though it was
clearly part o f the debate over Pakistan, was the fate o f the shrines
and khanqahs that would be left behind if their caretakers migrated
to Pakistan.88 It is significant that regardless o f what their positions

87 Hasan Miyan, Ahl-e Sunnat ki Awaz, part 5. T he reason for m entioning Mustafa Riza
in this context was that he was deeply revered as a pir, and his authority w ould not
normally have been challenged.
88 Obviously, the closing dow n o f madrasas also posed some o f the same dilemmas,
particularly if they w ere old and had an honoured tradition. B ut I assume that difficult
 Ahl-e Sunnat Debates on Pakistan 327

were on the merits o f the League and ofPakistan, none o f the ‘ulama’
whose lives I have briefly examined here left India at Partition.89
Logically only Muhammad Miyan’s position would have dictated
this course o f action. However, the need to maintain the continuity
o f the khanqah and dargah established by his ancestors, and to
observe the necessary ritual practices associated with them, ap-
parendy overrode other considerations for Burhan ul-Haqq despite
his support o f the League. Mustafa Riza Khan, a member o f the All-
India Sunni Conference who must therefore be assumed to have
supported the demand for Pakistan, did not migrate either. He too
had a khanqah to look after, that o f his father Ahmad Riza Khan.
This is not to suggest that none o f t^e Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’
migrated to Pakistan, for several obviously did. Many migrated a
few years after Partition rather than immediately, and set in place
new schools, khanqahs and other structures for the spread o f their
movement. Given the tragic dimensions o f the conflict, and the
insecurity, uncertainty, and sheer danger to life at the time, it is not
surprising that personal exigencies often dictated the practical steps
that individual Muslims took with regard to the decision to stay or
to leave.

as it may have been to abandon a madrasa, this could not compare to the difficulties
associated w ith leaving ancestral shrines containing the remains o f family elders. Given
th e reverence w ith which the Ahl-e Sunnat in particular regarded shrines, this must have
been a very im portant consideration in the decision to migrate. It is probable that
m igration was considered only after ensuring that some members o f the family stayed
behind in order to look after the shrine.
89 N a'im ud-D in, as earlier m entioned, was ailing at the time. Despite this, he did make
a trip to Pakistan to help get new A hl-e Sunnat organizations going there.
 CO N CLU SIO N

I began this study o f the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama'at by insisting on

the importance o f taking its own terms o f reference seriously,
rejecting the appellation ‘Barelwi’ because its own members reject
the name. Likewise, given its claim to be engaged in tajdid or
renewal of the faith, I have also described the movement as
‘reformist’. In the light o f the Ahl-e Sunnat’s defence o f the
veneration o f ‘saints’ and its vision of the Prophet M uhammad as
intercessor (at all times, not only on the Day of Judgment), miracle-
wprker, and the like, these claims have been regarded w ith some
scepticism by contemporaneous South Asian Muslim movements of
reform. Is the historian of religion wrong, then, in approaching a
religious movement in a spirit o f empathetic understanding from
within? I believe not. Indeed, the phenomonological approach
appears to be the only way ‘short o f conversion, [of enabling] one
to e n te r. . . fully into the religious experience o f other m en’.1
Beyond this, however, there remains a need for ‘structured under­
standing of social process’, as R off indicates.2 I would like to
conclude this study by making some general comments in this
direction. In order to do so, I draw on recent theoretical approaches

1 James E. Royster, ‘T he Study o f Muhammad* A Survey o f Approaches from the

Perspective o f the History and Phenom enology o f Religion’, Muslim World, 62 (1972),
64.
2 Roff, ‘Pilgrimage and the History o f Religions’, in Martin (ed.), Approaches to Islam
in Religious Studies p. 78.
 Conclusion 329

to the relation between the colonial state and an emerging South

Asian public in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Ahl-e Sunnat movement, like those other Sunni Muslim
movements which it debated and against which it defined itself in
the late nineteenth century, arose at the height o f the British empire.
Like its rivals, it sought to offer Muslims a meaningful personal
identity structured around the practice o f religion. As Freitag has
shown, Indians of all religious persuasions engaged in ‘public arena’
activities defined as ‘cultural’ precisely because the British Indian
state, deeming such activities to be apolitical, refrained from inter­
fering in them.
Among north Indian Muslims, a wide array o f movements and
leaders claimed the mantle o f reform, ranging from Sir Sayyid
Ahmad Khan on the one hand to the Ahl-e Sunnat on the other.
Despite the differences between them, they shared important char­
acteristics. Gilmartin describes the ‘ulama’ understanding of com­
munity as ‘one defined in its essence by the shariat and by controlled
personal behaviour’.3 To quote Gilmartin,
W ith the colonial state providing no symbolic definition o f Muslim community
in India, the assertion o f‘community’ solidarity required that the individual Muslim
himself bring his (or her) inner life and sense of identity under self-conscious
personal and rational co n tro l. . . . To many o f the reformist ulama, the
internalized control ofbehaviour that increasingly defined the community was
. . . fundamentally modelled on the triumph o f individual rationality (aql) over
emotion, a process that w ent hand in hand with the triumph of shariat over
local custom, and localized kin and caste based identities.4

This view o f community in no way challenged the ‘colonial

sociology’ o f the British Indian state. That sociology was based on
the assumption that the colonial state, informed by superior ‘univer­
sal principles’, and ‘scientific’ and ‘rational’ knowledge, was the only
authority ‘which allowed . . . the communities [to be ordered] into
a rationalized political whole’.5 Indian communities, by nature

3 David Gilmartin, ‘Democracy, Nationalism and the Public: A Speculation on Colonial

Muslim Politics’, South Asia, N ew Series, 14, 1 (June 1991), 134 (Special num ber,
‘Aspects o f the Public in Colonial South Asia’).
4 Ibid., 128-9.
5 Ibid., 124.
330 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

‘particularistic’, required the presence o f an outside arbiter to order

them into a rational whole. The ‘ulama’ definition o f community
accommodated itself to this understanding o f a multitude o f par­
ticularistic groups existing under the umbrella o f British rule.
As some scholars have recendy begun to explore, the British
policy o f non-interference in religion was also informed by a dimly
articulated view o f the religious and cultural realm as feminine. As
Freitag writes,
the state saw activities most important to [the] colonial O ther as being those
that took place around religion, kinship, and cultural production; these
activities were labeled ‘private’ or ‘domestic’, not public; because w om en took
much responsibility for domestic activities, the inen involved in those activities
must be effeminate. . . . W e might even go so far as to say that cultural
production, itself, came to some significant extent to be gendered as feminine.6

Faisal Devji has examined the implications o f shifting definitions of

private and public in colonial India with reference to changing
attitudes among the ‘ulama’ regarding women’s education7 and
sufism. Devji sees the reformist ‘ulama’ appropriating the sufi dis­
course o f love between God and man, which was implicidy critical
o f the legal culture o f the ‘ulama’. Deliberately reversing the values
of the shari‘a-oriented ‘ulama’, sufi writers ofghazal poetry feminized
and paganized God:
T he lover (ashiq) or mystic is disgusted by the arid hypocrisy o f shariat society
and wants to attain union with the beloved (mashuq) or God, who is usually
described as a pagan (kaffir) or idol (sanam, but). To do this he was to endure
not only the persecution o f legal society, but the alternate indifference and
cruelty o f his beloved, w ho often denies him entry to her exclusive wine
parties.8

6 San d m B. Freitag, ‘Introduction’, in Sandria B. Freitag (ed.), Culture as Contested Site:

Popular Culture and the State in the Indian Subcontinent (forthcoming).
7 ‘UJust as the British were proceeding to ‘fceform” the character and actions o f their
exotic, irrational Indian subjects through education, these same Indians w ere engaged
in an identical task with their ow n “O thers”.’ T he ‘ulama’ (and the Muslim élite, or
shurafa, m ore generally) began to advocate w om en’s physical separation (and protection)
from the outside world, now seen as morally corrupting. Faisal Fatehali Devji, ‘Gender
and the Politics o f Space: T he M ovem ent for W om en’s R eform in Muslim India,
1857-1900’, South Asia, 14, 1 (1991), 150.
8 Ibid., 147.
 Conclusion 331

The sufis’ antagonistic relationship with the ‘ulama’ nevertheless

rested on an acceptance o f the legal culture they represented, Devji
explains, for ‘the private cannot be endured for too long’. And in
an independent move, the Muslim élite or shurafa (including among
them the ‘ulama’) responded to the British takeover o f the ‘public’
state and what Devji calls the ‘moral’ city (the locus o f state power)
by incorporating sufism, hitherto seen as private and anti-estab­
lishment, into their discourse. They
were able to build their own private polity or political sphere . . . [locating it
in] areas such as the mosque and the school (the courts and market being
surrendered to the ‘amoral’ public sphere o f colonialism), areas which were
now seen as private. [This] privacy [was] confirmed by the feet that the mosque
and school as shariffiefs were paired in orthodox discourse with the traditionally
private areas o f the Sufi hospice or shrine and o f the domestic realm.9

In realigning the public and private spheres during the height of

colonial rule, Devji believes— accepting Benedict Anderson’s now
well-known argument about the connection between print tech­
nology and the growth of nationalism—that the ‘ulama’ (as part of
the shurafa) used ‘print capitalism’ to imagine themselves anew.
Print, unlike verbal exchange, is by nature declamatory, Devji points
out, allowing o f no ‘dialogue or interaction’, stressing instead ‘the
imperative, the uniform, and the linear’.10 Accompanying this
emphasis on publication, Devji also sees a spatial relocation o f the
‘ulama’ from the city to the qasba, or small rural town, centre o f
kinship networks, family property, and (although Devji does not
explicitly mention this) sufi hospices.
The relationship o f the colonial state to Indians engaged in
religious and cultural activity was by no means static. By the early
tw entieth century, underlying processes o f social change were
w orking toward the politicization o f religious practice, as several o f
the scholars mentioned here have shown. Gilmartin in particular
demonstrates the political role played by the emerging commercial
U rdu press in Panjab in the early twentieth century. R ooted in the
9 Ibid., 148. I take it that Devji is not hereby implying that mosque and shrine, or
‘ulam a’ and sufis, had been opposed until this point, but that a realignment ofboundaries
b etw een the tw o roles was in process.
10 Ibid., 149.
332 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

marketplace (unlike the ‘ulama’ whose activities were centred in

schools, mosques, and sufi shrines), newspaper editors, journalists,
and publicists created an ‘autonomous realm’ that did not accept the
British view o f Indians as divided into so many particularistic
communities. Unlike the ‘ulama’ again, this Muslim leadership used
a rhetoric o f emotion rather than restraint and reason. Gilmartin
illustrates his argument by discussing the politicization o f poetry
(most notably by Muhammad Iqbal) and the mobilization o f a
Muslim ‘public opinion’ around issues such as defence o f the
Prophet Muhammad against denigration by Hindus.
Let me recapitulate Gilmartin’s argument by referring specifically
to one o f the cases he mentions, that o f the Rangila Rasul (‘the Merry
Prophet’) in 1924, as this ties in with the importance o f the Prophet
to the Ahl-e Sunnat movement. Rangila Rasul was the tide o f a
pamphlet satirizing the Prophet’s sexual life. Published in Lahore in
1924, it was inspired by the anti-Muslim polemics o f the Arya Samaj.
The British, anxious to preserve public order, banned the pamphlet,
but in 1927 the order was overturned by the Lahore High C ourt.11
While all Muslims were united in condemning the pamphlet and in
protecting the Prophet’s honour, the ‘ulama’ (represented here by
the Jam‘iyyat-e ‘Ulama’-e Hind) expressed their disapproval of
uncontrolled action:
If Muslims acted on the basis o f ‘feelings’ that had been ‘involuntarily’ excited
by the Failure o f the Government effectively to prosecute the pamphlet, then
for that, in spite o f the appeal to shariat, the ulama could not be held responsible
. . . . If Muslims lost self-control, they declared, then ‘the entire responsibility
o f exciting religious feelings and making law subservient to ‘feelings’, would
have to devolve not on the ulama, but ‘on the Government’.12

Opposing the ‘ulama’ was the Urdu press, represented here by

Sayyid Ataullah Shah Bokhari, a poet, leader o f the Khilafat move­
ment, and later a leader o f the Ahrar Party. Bokhari maintained that
If the Hindus abuse the Prophet in a meeting held in a private building, . . .
Muslims should not attend it. But if any Hindu in any open meeting or

11 Gilmartin, ‘Democracy, Nationalism and the Public’, 134. Although Gilmartin does
not m ention the author’s name, one may assume it was a Hindu.
12 Ibid., 134.
 Conclusion 333

procession uses obscene language about the Prophet he should be killed there
and then. Any Muslim who would not be prepared to do this is not a true
Muslim.13

As Gilmartin comments, for Bokhari ‘it was the public display of the
heart in the active protection o f the honour of the Prophet that
defined the real existence o f a Muslim community during the Rangila
Rasul crisis . . . . To control one’s emotions in such a circumstance
was in Bokhan’s eyes almost a crime. His appeal was based not on
the letter o f the shariat, but on action in the name o f the heart, as the
most telling validator o f Muslim identity’.14
Gilmartin sees the long-term significance o f this agitation, and o f
a more protracted struggle between Sikhs and Muslims in the
mid-1930s over the disputed Shahidganj mosque, as paving the way
for the demand for Pakistan in the 1940s. A new ‘public’ that
transcended the particularistic Muslim community ordered by the
colonial state gradually emerged from this process. Because the
journalist leaders o f the Rangila Rasul and other agitations rejected
the ‘colonial sociology’ of the British Indian state, a new political
sphere, autonomous o f that state, grew to challenge it by the 1940s.
Although initially employing the rhetoric o f emotion, under Jinnah’s
leadership, Gilmartin argues, ‘the rhetoric o f emotional nationalism
. . . merged with the rhetoric o f control and discipline’.15
Turning once more to the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama‘at in light of
these analyses, I find helpful Gilmartin’s observation that the refor­
mist ‘ulama’ defined community around the concepts o f shari‘a and
a rhetoric o f restraint and self-control, in order to create a new type
o f person. In this perspective, the Ahl-e Sunnat movement’s claims
to being ‘reformist’, or engaged in tajdid, are self-evident. I am
reminded o f small details about Ahmad Riza Khan’s life-style as
described by Zafar ud-Din Bihari: he entered the mosque with his
right foot first, he exited it with his left; when sitting, he never
stretched his legs out in the direction o f the Ka‘ba; he urged upon
his followers the importance of having the right intention (niyya),

13 Ibid., 134-5.
14 Ibid.. 135.
15 Ibid., 138.
334 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

for a deed would be rewarded accordingly, and so on. The personal

adab (etiquette) o f ‘ulama’ o f competing movements, such as the
Deobandi or Firangi Mahali, likewise emphasized an ethic o f per­
sonal restraint.
N or was the Ahl-e Sunnat’s focus on the Prophet Muhammad
as a role model and object o f veneration unique among the late
nineteenth-century north Indian ‘ulama’. The Deobandis, as sufis,
also sought to develop a deep inner bond between master and
disciple, and looked to the Prophet Muhammad as ultimate ex­
emplar o f how a Muslim should behave. Indeed, having indicated
throughout this book the differences between the Ahl-e Sunnat and
Deobandi ‘ulama’, it seems important to make the opposite point
here, and to speculate that part o f the explanation for the urgency
and volume o f anti-Deobandi writing on the part o f the Ahl-e
Sunnat ‘ulama’ (matched on the Deobandi side with equally fierce
verbal and written attacks on the ‘Barelwis’) was not that they were
so different, but that they were so similar. It became important for
both sides to play up their differences in order to grow organiza­
tionally, for if they seemed too similar their separate existence would
make no sense. Differences of degree were thus highlighted until
they appeared to be insurmountable differences o f kind.
Taking this thought a step further, I would argue that the Ahl-e
Sunnat’s real ‘O ther’ among Sunni ‘ulama’ movements was not
Deoband but the Ahl-e Hadis, against whom they wrote relatively
litde. Unlike Deobandi and Ahl-e Sunnat ‘ulama’, those of the Ahl-e
Hadis accepted the authority of the Q ur’an and hadis alone. They
denied the legitimacy of the four Sunni law schools (mazhab) and
of the centuries’-old tradition of fiqh commentary related to these,
as unhelpful accretions which kept Muslims from studying the
original sources. It was they who urged individual Muslims
knowledgeable in Arabic to engage in their own interpretation
(ijtihad) of Q ur’an and hadis. And in contrast to the Deobandis and
Ahl-e Sunnat, the Ahl-e Hadis had no tolerance for sufism, regarding
it as a ‘danger to true religion’.16 In social terms, the Ahl-e Hadis
belonged to an exclusive elite, writing for the most part in Arabic
16 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 274. M y knowledge o f the Ahl-e Hadis m ovem ent is based
on her account.
 Conclusion 335

and Persian rather than U rdu.17 O f all the ‘ulama’ groups to whom
the Ahl-e Sunnat referred pejoratively as ‘Wahhabi*, the Ahl-e
Hadis, who admired Ibn Taimiyya and had active ties with the
Arabian Muwahhidun movement, were perhaps the only ones
deserving o f the label.
Contrasting these two polar opposites as I have, I return to the
fact that all the nineteenth century ‘ulama’, regardless o f affiliation
to one or other movement, looked to the Prophet Muhammad as
exemplar. The Ahl-e Hadis, defining themselves as such, were of
course making this very point, as were the Ahl-e Sunnat in their
choice o f name. The difference lay in their understanding o f what
it meant, as a practical matter, to follow the Prophet’s way or sunna.
The Ahl-e Sunnat, in embracing the concepì o f prophetic inter­
mediacy and a hierarchy o f spiritual authority that continues through
an unbroken lineage o f ‘saints’, were in social terms embedded in a
hierarchical ordering of society composed of shurafà (the élite) and
ajlaf (common people). This was equally true o f those ‘ulama’
groups, even the Ahl-e Hadis (and the Deobandis), who promoted
a more egalitarian vision of the perfect Muslim society. I would
argue that Ahl-e Sunnat teachings, despite their respect for hierar­
chy, nevertheless promoted a concept o f the person who in his or
her self-restrained adherence to the shari‘a was as thoroughly
‘m odem ’ as that envisioned by other Indian ‘ulama’ at the time. If
there is ambiguity here in the relation between respect for hierarchy
and the call for individual responsibility, perhaps this was one o f the
keys to the appeal o f the Ahl-e Sunnat. Perhaps this dual message
was just what was needed in late nineteenth-century British India.
In his presentation of the Ahl-e Sunnat message, however, Ahmad
Riza was forceful and unambiguous.
It is intruiging to speculate that the emerging concept of person-
hood subsumed by the emphasis on the importance attached to
exemplary personal behaviour modelled on the Prophet— in a con­
text o f shifting boundaries between the private and the public, as
Devji has shown— was accompanied by a feminization of language.
Freitag’s insights into the gendered nature of cultural production,

17 Ibid., p. 278.
336 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

and Gilmartin’s work on the growing importance o f th e rhetoric of

emotion in Muslim discourse in the early tw entieth century point
in this direction as well. For the Ahl-e Sunnat m ovem ent in the
period studied here, Ahmad Riza’s corpus o f na‘t p o etry in praise
o f the Prophet, evoking the sufi concepts o f divine love, comes to
mind. As shown, he employed the imagery o f the P ro p h et as Allah’s
beloved, sometimes explicidy using the metaphor o f a bride and
bridegroom. Devoted to the Prophet, Ahmad Riza in tu rn frequent­
ly described himself as a lover o f the Prophet.
Under Ahmad Riza’s pen the language o f love betw een God, the
Prophet, and the poet (himself) became a tool w ith which to
condemn those ‘Others’ (chiefly Deobandis) with w hose views he
disagreed, but it never became political in the way Gilmartin
describes happening with the commercial Urdu press o f early
twentieth-century Panjab. I believe the reason for this was that
Ahmad Riza was never comfortable with public ‘action’— and
would have eschewed it even if he had lived during the Rangila
Rasul controversy— because such action was rooted in the ‘amoral’
marketplace (to use Devji’s felicitous term). The politicization of
the Ahl-e Sunnat movement occurred under new leadership, as
most forcefully demonstrated by the events o f the azan dispute in
1914-17. Ahmad Riza confined his message to the w orld of the
mosque, shrine, school and home (the domestic and private realm),
refusing to involve himself in court or marketplace (the public
sphere o f colonialism). Younger leaders like Maulana ‘A bd ul-Muq-
tadir Badayuni, opposing him in court over a libel case, w ere in fact
signalling that they could no longer accept the more lim ited apoliti­
cal definition o f community for which he stood. In ‘Abd ul-Muq-
tadir, later a Khilafatist leader, one may see the process toward
politicization o f the Ahl-e Sunnat movement at work.
I would like to return, finally, to the question o f texts, the use of
which characterized all the nineteenth century reformist movements
in north India, as indeed elsewhere in the Muslim world. Texts are
given meaning in context, as we know. It is therefore crucially
important to attend to who uses them and how, in what situation,
how they relate to oral traditions, to competing texts, and so on.
While I agree with Devji that printed texts may be declamatory by
 Conclusion 337

nature and that their authors seek to give them unambiguous single
meanings, they do so in a context o f dialogue and interpretation that
may not always be explicit. Muslims could not ‘be’ Muslim (in a
religious sense) if they did not engage in the interpretation of their
scriptural texts. Given that the Islamic tradition is inherendy discur­
sive, dialogical, and dialectical, as Fischer and Abedi point out (and
compellingly illustrate) in their work on Iran in the 1960s and
1970s,18 differences o f interpretation are surely at the heart o f
Muslim self-definitions as this or that kind o f ‘Muslim’.
As this study has shown, under Ahmad Riza Khan’s leadership
the Ahl-e Sunnat movement interpreted both Q ur’an and hadis in
ways that supported its view o f the Prophet as uniquely endowed
by God. In lengthy exegesis o f relevant Q ur’anic passages, Ahmad
Riza argued that God had gifted the Prophet with unimaginable
abilities, including knowledge o f the Day ofjudgment. Citing hadis,
he argued that Deobandis had inaccurately reported a hadis in which
the Prophet had allegedly denied that he knew what lay on the other
side o f a wall. Likewise, Ahmad Riza accepted the authority of hadis
classified as weak, including one (from Abu Da’ud) which related
that the bodies of prophets do not decay after death, for Allah has
forbidden the earth from consuming them.
While movements such as the Ahl-e Sunnat seek to impart single
meanings to the texts around which they construct themselves, the
texts themselves are constandy open to rereadings and reinterpreta-
tions by other people in other historical situations. This is happening
anew in our own time in the Muslim world, as in the Muslim
diaspora in the Western world. Ahmad Riza’s writings and inter­
pretations are today being edited, commented upon, and glossed by
the Ahl-e Sunnat in publications in India, Pakistan and the U.K. A
new ‘canon’ is thus under process o f creation, which we would have
to locate in its own specific late twentieth-century context.

18 M ichael M .J. Fischer and M ehdi Abedi, Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in
Postmodemity and Tradition (Madison: University ofW isconsin Press, 1990).
 Glossary

abjad, the Arabic alphabet as used for chronograms

adab, (pi., ddab), etiquette, proper behaviour
'alim (pi., 'ulama'), scholar oflslam ic theology and jurisprudence, o n w hom
rests the interpretation o f sharf ‘a
*amal, practice, here specifically denoting phrases, num erical charts, etc.,
used by Sufis
anjuman, association
‘aqida (pi., iaqa’id), article o f faith, creed
ayat, literally ‘sign,’ verse o f the Q u r’an
azdn (Ar., addti), call to prayer, consisting o f seven form ulae am ong them
the profession o f faith (shahdda, kalima) and the takbif

bdb, literally ‘gate’, ‘d o o r’, here, chapter in a book

bad-mazhab, person w ith ‘w rong’ beliefs; the w ord mazhab (Ar., madhab),
literally one o f the four m ain Sunni law schools (Hanafi, Shafi'i,
Maliki, and Hanbali), is used in the A hl-e Sunnat context in th e m ore
general sense o f ‘faith’ or ‘b elief
bai'a, pledge o f allegiance o f a sufi disciple to his master by grasping his
hand
baraka (also barkat), literally ‘blessing’, pow er inherent in saintly persons or
sacred objects. Also see tabarrukdt
batil, false, baseless
batirt, hidden, esoteric. O pp. o f ¿ahir
baydtt, exposition, serm on
be-shar', literally ‘w ithout the law ,’ sufis regarded as deviant because they
do n o t observe the injunctions o f the shan ‘a
bid'a (also, bid ‘at) (pi., bida‘, bida't), reprehensible innovation, opp. ofsunna.
bid'at-e hasana, a ‘good’ bid'a
 Glossary 339

chanda, donation
chihlam, the fortieth day o f m ourning, or the period o f forty days’ m ourning
after a bereavem ent
chilld, forty days’ seclusion, in w hich the sufi novice is completely separated
from the world, and engaged only in prayer and m editation

dajjal, the A ntichrist or evil spirit w ho will appear before the end o f the
w orld to stir up anarchy and will then be killed by Jesus o r the M ahdi;
a term used in A hl-e Sunnat sources to refer to M irza G hulam A hm ad
(d. 1908), founder o f the Ahmadiyya m ovem ent
dalan, hall, washing place attached to a mosque
dar al-harb, enem y territory, an area w here Muslims are not in pow er and
w here the shari*a is n o t in force. O pp. o f dar al-islam
dargah, literally ‘co u rt’, the seat o f spiritual authority represented by sufi
shrines or tom bs
dars-e ni^ami, a course o f studies taught in South Asian madrasas since the
eighteenth century
dastar-bandi, literally ‘tying o f the turban’, a cerem ony in w hich a sufi
appoints a successor or sajjada-nish in by presenting his turban to the
latter; also used o f cerem ony m arking a student’s com pletion o f the
dars-e nirfimi syllabus
dih, the faith. O pp. o f dunya, ‘th e w orld’
diUtin, collection o f poems
du ‘a, petition; nonritual, personal prayer

e ‘tikaf seclusion for prayer and devotional exercises

fans, literally ‘annihilation’, total absorption o f the devotee in Allah. T hree

stages were distinguished: fa n a fi’l shaikh, complete spiritual unity w ith
o n e ’s spiritual preceptor; fana f t ’l rasul, annihilation in the Prophet
M uham m ad; and fana f i Allah, annihilation in the D ivine
fa q ih (p\.,fuqahar), a jurisprudent, one w ho is knowledgeable in f q h
faqit, literally ‘po o r’, general nam e for a sufi or religious mendicant; a
self-deprecatory way o f referring to oneself
farz (Ai.,farct), religious duty
fatw5 (p\.,fatawd), legal opinion given by a mufti
Jiqh, Islamic jurisprudence, based on the Q u r’an and prophetic traditions
(sunna), as well as qiyas and ijma‘. Different elaborations on matters o f
detail distinguish the four m ain Sunni law schools
fitna, turm oil, chaos; a state o f anarchy w hich foreshadows the end o f the
w orld

gaddi, literally ‘throne’, seat o f authority at a dargah (q.v.)

ghair-muqallid, one w ho does n o t follow one o f the main Sunni law schools,
340 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

but only accepts the authority o f the Q u r’an a n d hadis (as well as qiyds)
in matters o ffiqh. In A hl-e Sunnat literature, a (pejorative) name for
the A hl-e Hadfg
ghaus (Ar., ghauth), literally ‘help[er]\ title o f the h ig h est m em ber of the
hierarchy o f saints, particularly ‘Abd al-Q adir Jilani (d. 1166)
ghusl, ritual ablution; cerem onial washing o f a saint’s to m b during an 'urs
gumrah, one w ho has lost his way, gone astray
gutidh, sin, offence
gyarhawOi, literally ‘eleventh’, rituals perform ed in co m m em o ratio n of the
death o f Shaikh ‘A bd al-Q adir Jilani on the eleventh o f every month

had§ (Ar., hadith), tradition from the Prophet, rep o rt o f his w o rd s in a given
situation. A n individual hadfy consists o f a text (matn) an d a chain of
transmitters (isnad). T h e most reliable sources o f hadis are considered
by Muslims to be those o f al-Bukhari (d. 870) and M u slim (d. 875),
together k n ow n as the sahtliain, ‘the tw o correct ones’
had& qudsi,; ‘D ivine Saying’, the w ord o f Allah reported by th e Prophet in
his words
hajj, the annual pilgrimage to M ecca, required o f every M u slim at least
once in his or her lifetime if economically feasible
haqfqa(t), literally ‘reality’, the last stage on the sufi path o r tarfqa
haram, forbidden; one am ong five legal classifications o f h u m a n action
hijra, em igration o f Muslims, particularly from a land considered ddral-harb
(q.v.)

ijdzat, permission; in th e sufi context, permission to adm it disciples o f one’s

ow n into a particular order or num ber o f specified orders
ijma‘, the consensus o f scholars w hich, w ith Q u r’an, sunna, and qiyas,
constitutes one o f th e four bases o f the Law
ijtihad, literally ‘striving’, ‘effort’, independent inquiry to establish the
ruling o f the shan ca on a particular matter. T he person qualified for
the task is know n as mujtahid. O pp. o f taqlfd
'ilm-e ghaib, literally ‘know ledge o f the unseen’, a form o f knowledge
considered by m any Muslims to be accessible to Allah alone, but
claimed by the A hl-e Sunnat to also have been gifted by A llah to the
Prophet
imkdn-e najfl, literally ‘the possibility o f an equal’, subject o f a nineteenth
century debate am ong north Indian ‘ulama’ on w hether A llah could
m ake another p rophet similar in every respect to M uham m ad
irada, inner purpose or m otive, similar to nCyya
isal-e sawab, the transfer o f m erit for a pious act to som eone else, often
deceased. Associated w ith intercession at saints’ tom bs in particular
istifta, the act o f asking fo r a fatwa, request for a legal opinion
jagil, land grant from governm ent entiding ow ner to revenue therefrom
 Glossary 341

jama 'at, group, majority

janaza, funeral
jihad, literally ‘holy w ar’ against unbelievers. Also o n e’s ow n struggle w ith
o n e ’s baser instincts
jinn, beings m ade o f smokeless fire, some good and some evil, constantly
trying to possess hum an souls, w ho in turn try to control them

kafir (pi., kuffar), literally ‘ungrateful’, infidels. See also takjir

kalima, the profession o f faith in Allah’s unity and the prophethood o f
M uham m ad
karSmat (pi., karamdt), miracles perform ed by a saint
khalifa, viceregent; successor to a sufi master
khdnqah, sufi hospice, usually a large com pound w here the pi? and his family
as well as devotees live. O ften a school, a public kitchen and other
facilities w ere attached
khandan, a family, an extended kin group
khdtam al-nabiyyih, the seal o f the Prophets, an epithet o f M uham m ad
khatma, the reading o f the Q u r’an in a single night
khuda, G od

lazim, obligatory

madrasa, a school or academy o f learning w here the Islamic sciences are

taught
ma ‘rifa(t), spiritual ‘know ledge’ o f G od
maslaha (also maslahat), that w hich is conducive to good; expedient
mazar, literally ‘place for a visit (ziyara)’, the tom b o f a saint
milad, literally ‘birthday’, but used particularly for celebration o f the
P rophet’s birth anniversary, generally accepted as being on 12 R ab i‘
al-Awwal, the third lunar m o n th o f the Hijri calendar
millat, com m unity o f believers
mubah, legally indifferent in terms o f the shari'a
mubahala, a procedure in w hich tw o opponents in a debate invoke the
curse o f Allah on the person w ho is w rong. Also see muna^ara
mufti, a jurisconsult, one w ho issues fatawa
mujaddid, a renew er o f the shari'a, expected once every H ijri century
mujtahid, one w ho is qualified to engage in ijtihad
munazara, oral debate, usually betw een ‘ulama’
murid, literally ‘one w ho is desirous’, disciple to a personal pir
murshid, teacher
murtadd, an apostate from Islam

nabi(pi., anbiya’), prophet

na ‘t, poetry in praise o f the Prophet
342 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

na't-khwani, recitation o f na ‘t verse

na^ar, gift to a sufi pir
niyya, intention

pit, sufi master

piJi-muritii, relation betw een spiritual guide and disciple, w hich entails
absolute obedience o f the mund to his ptT, the term is used in a
pejorative sense by those w ho associate the bond and its associated
practices w ith ‘popular’ (i.e., ‘unreform ed’) religion

qabr, a grave
qasba, an agricultural tow n dom inated by M uslim service gentry
qafida-khwatti, recitation o f long poem in praise o f a king, an im portant
person, Allah, or the Prophet
qaum, com m unity, nation
qawutili, singing w ith musical accom panim ent at sufi devotional exercises,
often leading to a state o f ecstasy
q&li{Ar., qadi), ju d g e o{shan"a law
qiyamat, resurrection at the end o f tim e
qutb, literally ‘pole’, ‘axis’, the highest m em ber o f the hierarchy o f saints
around w hom the w orld revolves; equivalent in sufi theory to the
Ghaug-e A 'zam , o r Shaikh ‘A bd al-Q sdir Jilani

ra’is (pi., ru 'asa), person o f means respected in his com m unity

rasul, literally ‘messenger’, the P rophet M uham m ad as bearer o f the Q u r ’an,
basis for the sharfa
rawqfiz (Ar., raw&juf), literally ‘dissenters’, used in A hl-e Sunnat literature
in a pejorative sense in reference to Shi'is

sajjada-nishih, literally ‘one w h o sits on the prayer m at’, successor to a pit

$alat o salam, prayer calling upon Allah’s blessings on the P rophet
sama', literally ‘hearing’, listening to music, a controversial issue am ong
sufis
sanad, certificate o r testimonial
sayyid, descendant o f the Prophet through his daughter Fatima and her
sons Hasan and Husain, a group highly venerated by th e A hl-e Sunnat
m ovem ent
shaikh (Ar., shaykh), ‘elder’ or ‘leader’, in South Asia often used inter­
changeably w ith ‘pir’
shajara, spiritual a n d /o r family genealogy
sharfa, the sacred law o f Islam, com prising the totality o f A llah’s comm ands
that regulate the life o f every M uslim in relation to Allah and to those
around him o r her
shirk, idolatry, associating partners w ith Allah
 Glossary 343

silsila, chain linking an individual through his o r her sufi master ultimately
to the Prophet; those w ith similar chains or silsilas belonged to the
same sufi tariqa
sunna, the ‘w ay’ or ‘path’ o f the P rophet M uham m ad, as know n to Muslims
through th e hadis literature. Everything the P rophet is reported to
have said, done, or advised others to do, is thus part o f his sunna. T h e
A hl-e Sunnat wa Jam a'at defined themselves as followers o f the
prophetic sunna
sura, a chapter o f the Q u r’an

tabarrukat, objects filled w ith baraka or grace; sacred relics

tabligh, preaching
tajdfd, renew al o f the Law
takfit, declaring som eone an infidel or unbeliever {kafir)
taqlfd, literally ‘im itation’, following one o f the Sunni law schools in
preference to ijtihad. As Hanafis, m ost Sunni Muslims in nineteenth
century India w ere muqallids, adherers o f the Hanafi school o f law
tariqa, path, sufi order. In South Asia, the Naqshbandi, Chishti, and Qadiri
orders w ere the m ost im portant nineteenth century orders
tasawwuf, sufism
tauba, to repent; the first step on the sufi path
ta ‘ziya, replica o f a tom b o f Hasan and Husain, carried in public processions
during M uharram
tibb, Y unani m edicine

umma, com m unity o f Muslims

'urs, literally ‘w edding’, celebration o f a saint’s death anniversary w hen his
soul is believed to unite w ith Allah

wali, ‘friend’ (of God), sufi saint

wa % serm on
wasila, means o f access, interm ediary
wuzu (Ar., wmdu), ritual ablution before prayer

zakat, m andatory alms-tax on accrued wealth

ziydra, to visit, specifically the shrines o f dead saints in veneration and
supplication o f them
 Bibliography

Works in Urdu

Journals and Newspapers

Ahl-e Sunnat ki Awaz (Marahra: K hanqah-e Barkatiyya, n .d .), 1946.
Ashraßyya (M ubarakpur, Azamgarh). Articles by M a h m u d A h m ad Qadiri,
‘M alik al-'U lam a’ Maulana M uham m ad Zafar u d - D in Bihari aur
K hidm at-e Hadis’, 1 (February 1977), 15-20; 2 (A pril 1977), 25-30;
3 (July 1977), 15-21.
Dabdaba-e Sikandari (R am pur), 1908-22.
Al-Sawad al-A 'zam (Muradabad), 1920.
Tuhfa-e Hanafiyya (Patna), 1315/1898 to 1325/1908. A lso known as
Makhzan-e Tahqiq.

Books and Articles

W orks by Ahmad R iza Kh a n
Anwar al-Intibah ß Hill Nida Ya Rasul Allah (Karachi; B azm -e Qasimi
Barkati, 1986).
Al-'Ataya li-Nabawiyya f i ’l Fatawa al-Rizunyya, vol. 1 (Bom bay: Rizwi
Academy, 1405/1984-85).
---------- , vols. 2 and 3 (Sambhal, M uradabad: M aktaba N a'im iyya, n.d.).
---------- , vol. 4 (Ram nagar, N ainital: Madrasa M iftah al- ‘U lum , 1406/1986).
---------- , vol. 5 (Lahore: M aktaba Nabawiyya, 1392/1972).
---------- , vols. 6 and 7 (M ubarakpur, Azamgarh: Sunni D ar al-Isha‘at, 1981
and 1987).
---------- , vol. 10, part 1 (Besalpur, Pilibhit: M aktaba R iza Iw an ‘Irfan, n.d.).
---------- , vol. 11 (Saudagaran, Bareilly: Idara-e Isha‘at-e Tasnifat-e Riza,
1402/1981-82).
 Bibliography 345

Al-Daulat al-Makkiyya bi’l Madat al-Ghaibiyya (Karachi: M aktaba R iz­

wiyya, n.d.).
Dawam al-‘Aish f t ’I Ummat mitt Quraish (Lahore: M aktaba Rizwiyya,
1400/1980).
E'tiqad wa’l Ahbabß ’lJamil wa’l Mustafa wa’l A l wa’l Ashab (Lahore: Farid
B ook Stall, n.d.).
Fatawa al-Haramain bi-Rajf Nadwat al-Main (Bareilly: Matba* A hl-e Sunnat
wa Jama* at, 1317/1899-1900).
Fatawa al-Qudwa li-Kashf Dafin al-Nadwa (1313/1895-96). Publication
inform ation unavailable.
Fatawa al-Sunna li-Hjam al-Fitna (Bareilly: M atba' A hl-e Sunnat wa Jama'at,
1314/1896-97).
Hada’iq-e Bakhshish (Karachi: M edina Publishing C o., 1976).
Husam al-Haramain ‘ala Manhar al-Kufi wa’l Main (Lahore: M aktaba
Nabawiyya, 1405/1985).
Ihlak al-Wahhabiyyin 'ala Tauhin Qubur al-Muslimin (Bareilly: Hasani Press,
1322/1904-5).
I'lam a l-A ‘lam ba-an Hindustan Dar al-Islam (Bareilly: Hasani Press,
1306/1888—89). R ep rin ted in Do Ahamm Fatwe (Lahore: M aktaba
Rizwiyya, 1977).
Iqamat al-Qiyamat ‘ala T a ‘in al-Qiyam li-Nabi Tihamat al-Jaza al-Muhya
al-Ghalmat Kanhaiyya (Karachi: Barkati Publishers, 1986).
Al-Kaukab al-Shahabiyya ft Kufiiyat Abi Wahhabiyya (Lahore: N uri B ook
D epot, n.d.).
Kafl al-Faqih al-Fahimfi Ahkam Qirtas al-Darahim (Lahore: Shabir Brothers,
n.d.).
Al-Mahajjat al-M u’tamana f i A yat al-Mumtahana (1339/1920), in Rasa’il-e
Rizwiyya, vol. 2 (Lahore: M aktaba Hamidiyya, 1976).
M ajma‘-e Rasa’il: Mas’ala N uraurSaya (Karachi: Idara-e Tahqiqat-e Imam
A hm ad Riza, 1406/1985).
M ajm a‘-e Rasa’il: Radd-e M irza’iyyat (Karachi: Idara-e Tasnifat-e Imam
A hm ad Riza, 1406/1985).
M ajm a‘-e Rasa’il: Radd-e Rawafiz (Lahore: M arkazi M ajlis-e R iza,
1406/1986).
Maktubat-e Imam Ahmad R iza Khan Barelwi (Lahore: Maktaba Nabawiyya,
1986).
Malfuzat-e A "la Hazrat, 4 vols. (Gujarat, Pakistan: Fazl-e N u r Academy,
n.d.).
Nahj al-Salamafi Hukm Taqbil al-Ibhamainfi’l Iqama (Bareilly: Matba* Ahl-e
Sunnat w ajam a'at, 1333/1914-15).
Naqa4 al-Salafa ft Ahkam al-Bai‘a wa’l Khilafa (Sialkot, Pakistan: Maktaba
M ihiriyya Rizwiyya, 1318/1900).
346 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Rasa’il-e Rizunyya (Bareilly: Idara-e Isha‘at-e T asnifat-e R aza, n.d.).

---------- , vol. 2 (Lahore: M aktaba Hamidiyya, 1396/1976).
---------- , vol. 5 (Faisalabad: N uri B ook D epot, 1982).
Shumul al-Islam li-Usul al-Rasul al-Karam (Bareilly: H asani Press, 1315/
1897-98).
Subhan al-Subuh ‘an ‘A ib Kizb Maqbuh (Bareilly: M atba‘ A hl-e Sunnat wa
Jam a'at, 1307/1889-90).
Tadbir-e Falah wa Nijat wa Islah (Bareilly: Hasani Press, 1331/1913).
Tajalli al-Yaqin ba-an Nabiyana al-Sayyid al-Mursilin (Lahore: Hamid and
C o., 1401/1980).
Tamhid al-Iman ba-Ayat al-Qur’an (Bombay: R aza A cadem y, n.d.). Also
see English tr. by G. D . Q ureshi cited under ‘W orks in English’.

O t h e r A h l - e Su n n a t W o r k s
(a) Prim ary Sources
Am jad ‘Ah A'zami, Bahar-e Shari ‘at, 18 vols. (Bareilly: Q ad iri B o o k Depot,
n.d.).
A ulad-e R asul ‘M u h am m ad M iyan’ M arahraw i, Khandan-e Barakat
(Marahra: c. 1927).
--------; Khutba-e Sadarat, Ansar al-Islam, 22-24 Sha'ban 1339/A pril 1921
(Marahra: K hanqah-e Barkatiyya, n.d.).
Burhan ul-H aqq Jabalpuri, Ikram-e Imam Ahmad R iza (Lahore: Markazi
Majlis-e Riza, 1981).
--------; Khutba-e Sadarat, M uslim League C onference, D istrict Jabalpur,
1 -3 January 1940 (Jabalpur: n.d.).
H am id R iza Khan, Murasalat-e Sunnat wa Nadwa (Bareilly: 1313/1895-
96).
Hasan R iza Khan, Samsam-e Hasan bar Dabir-e Fitan (A zim abad [Patna]:
Matba* Hanafiyya, 1318/1900).
--------; Sawalat-e Haqa’iq-numa ba-Ru’asa Nadwat al-‘Ulama’ (Badayun:
V ictoria Press, 1313/1895-96).
Hasnain R iza Khan, Sirat-e A ‘la Hazrat (Karachi: M aktaba Qasimiyya
Barkatiyya, 1986).
M uham m adJalal u d -D in Q adiri (ed.), Khutbat-e All-India Sunni Conference
1925-1947 (Gujarat, Pakistan: Maktaba Rizw iyya, 1978).
Mustafa Riza Khan, Al-Tari al-Dari li-Hafawat ‘Abd ul-Bari (Bareilly: Sunni
Press, 1339/1912-13).
Rudad-e Jama ‘at-e Riza-e Mustafa (1342/1924).
Zafar u d -D in Bihari, Hayat-e A ‘la Hazrat, vol. 1 (Karachi: Maktaba
Rizwiyya, 1938).
--------; Chaudhwin Sadi ke Mujaddid (Lahore: M aktaba R izw iyya, 1980).
 Bibliography 347

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G hulam Shabbar Q adiri N u ri Badayuni, Tazkira-e Nuri: Mufassal Halat o
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M ahm ud Ahm ad Q adiri, Tazkira-e ‘Ulama’-e Ahl-e Sunnat (Muzaffarpur,
Bihar: K hanqah-e Qadiriyya Ashrafiyya, 1391/1971).
M as‘ud A hm ed, M uham m ad, Fazil Barelwi aur Tark-e Mawalat (Lahore:
R iza Publications, 1978).
-------- ; Fazil Barelwi ‘Ulama’-e Hijaz ki Nazar men (M ubarakpur, Azam­
garh: Al-M ajm a‘ al-Islami, 1981).
-------- ; Imam Ahmad Riza aur ‘Alam-e Islam (Karachi: Idara-e Tahqiqat-e
Im am Ahm ad Riza, 1983).
M uham m ad H am id Siddiqi R izw i, Tazkira-e Hazrat Burhan-e Millat (Jabal­
pur: Astana ‘Aliyya Rizw iyya Salamiyya Burhaniyya, 1985).
M uham m ad M ahbub ‘Ah Khan, Buland Paya Hayat-e Hashmat *Ali (Kan­
pur: A rakin-e Bazm -e Q adiri R izw i, 1380/1960-61).
M u ‘in u d -D in N a'im i, ‘Tazkira al-M a‘ru f Hayat-e Sadr al-Afazil’, Sawad-e
A ‘zam (Lahore: N a'im i Dawakhana, 1378/1959).
R azi H aidar, Khwaja, Tazkira-e Muhaddis Surati (Karachi: Surati Academy,
n.d.).
Sayyid M ahm ud A hm ad R izw i, Sayyidi A bu’l Barakat (Lahore: Tabligh
D epartm ent, Hizb al-Ahnaf, 1979).

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[A non.], ‘UmoAgahi (Karachi: G overnm ent N ational College, 1974—75).
Bedar, A bid Raza, Raza Library (Ram pur: Institute o f O riental Studies,
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Farid B ook Stall, 1406/1986).
M uham m ad al-Hasani, Sayyid, Sirat-e Maulana Sayyid Muhammad ‘Ali
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M ushir ul-H aqq, ‘U nnisw in Sadi ke H industan ki H ai’at Shar'i: Shah ‘A bd
u l- ‘Aziz ke Fatawa-e D ar ul-H arb ka ek ‘Ilmi Tajziya’, Burhan: 63, 4
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R ah m an ‘Ah, M aulawi, Tazkira-e ‘Ulama’-e Hind, tr. M uham m ad Ayub
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R aja R ashid M ahm ud, Tahrik-e Hijrat 1920: Ek Tarikh, Ek Tajziya
(Lahore: Maktaba ‘Aliyya, 1986).
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Works in English

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Shams ul-H asan Collection, Karachi.

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A hm ad Khan, M u ‘in -u d -D in , History of the Fara’izi Movement in Bengal
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A hm ed, Rafiuddin, The Bengal Muslims 1871-1906: A Quest for Identity
(Delhi: O xford University Press, 1981).
Alam, M uzaSar, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and the
Punjab, 1707-1748 (Delhi: O xford University Press, 1986).
Alavi, Hamza, ‘Pakistan and Islam: Ethnicity and Ideology’, in F. HaUiday
and H . Alavi (eds.), State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan
(N ew York: M onthly R eview Press, 1988), pp. 64-111.
A nderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983).
A rnold, T . W ., The Caliphate (London: R oudedge and Kegan Paul, 1965).
A w n, Peter, J., Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption: Iblis in Suf\ Psychology
(Leiden: E .J. Brill, 1983).
A l-A ‘zami, M. Mustafa, On Schacht’s Origins of Jurisprudence (N ew York:
Jo h n W iley and Sons, 1985).
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(Lucknow: G overnm ent o f India, 1974).
B aljon.J. M. S., Religion and Thought of Shah Wali Allah Dihlawi 1703-1762
(Leiden: E .J. Brill, 1986).
B arnett, R ichard B., North India Between Empires: Awadh, the Mughals, and
the British, 1 7 2 0 -1 8 0 1 (Berkeley: University o f California Press,
1980).
Bayly, C . A., ‘T h e Small T o w n and Islamic G entry in N orth India: T h e
Case o f Kara’, in K enneth Ballhatchet and Jo h n Harrison (eds.), The
City in South Asia: Pre-Modem and Modem (London: School o f O riental
and African Studies, University o f London, 1980), pp. 20-48.
--------; Rulers, T ow nsm en and Bazaars: N orth Indian Society in the A g e o f
British Expansion, 1770 -1 8 7 0 (Cambridge: Cam bridge U niversity
Press, 1983).
B rennan, Lance, ‘Social Change in R ohilkhand 1801-1833’, Indian
Economic and Social History Review, vii:4 (Decem ber 1970), 443-66.
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---------- , ‘T h e Local Face o f Nationalism: Congress Politics in R ohilkhand

in th e 1920s’, South Asia:Journal o f South Asian Studies, 5 (1976?) 9-19.
---------- , ‘A Case o f A ttem pted Segmental M odernization: R am p u r State,
1930—1939’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 23 (1981),
350-81.
Briggs, F. S., ‘T he Indian H ijrat o f 1920’, Muslim World, 20: II (April 1930),
164-8.
Brinner, W illiam M ., ‘P rophet and Saint: T he T w o Exemplars o f Islam’,
in Jo h n S. Hawley (ed.), Saints and Virtues (Berkeley: University o f
California Press, 1987), pp. 36-51.
B rodkin, E. I., ‘T he Struggle for Succession: Rebels and Loyalists in the
Indian M utiny o f 1857’, Modem Asian Studies, 6:3 (1972), 277-90.
---------- , ‘British India and the Abuses o f Power: R ohilkhand U nder Early
C om pany R u le ’, Indian Econotnic and Social History Review, x:2 0une
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B ro w n , Ju d ith , Gandhi's Rise to Power: Indian Politics 1915-1922
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B row n, Peter, ‘Relics and Social Status in the Age o f Gregory o f T ours’,
T h e Stenton Lecture 1976, University o f Reading, 1977.
---------- , ‘T h e Saint as Exemplar in Late A ntiquity’, in jo h n S. Hawley (ed.),
Saints and Virtues (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1987), pp.
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350 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

Douglas, Ian H enderson, Abul Kalam Azad: A n Intellectual and Religious

Biography, eds. Gail M inault and Christian W . Troll (Delhi: O xford
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---------- , ‘C ourt o f M an, C o u rt o f God: Local Perceptions o f the Shrine of
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Ehsan Elahi Zaheer, Bareilavis: History and Beliefs (Lahore: Idara Tarjum an
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R ep ro d u ctio n ’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 20 (1978),
485-516.
---------- , ‘T he Study o f Islam in Local C ontexts’, Contributions to Asian
Studies, 17 (Leiden: E .J . Brill, 1982), 1-16.
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--------; Collective Action and Community: Public Arena and the Emergence of
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Friedm ann, Y ohanan, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi: A n Outline o f His Thought
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---------- ‘T he A ttitu d e o f th e Ja m ‘iyyat-i ‘Ulama-i Hind to the Indian
N ational M ovem ent and the Establishment o f Pakistan’, Asian and
African Studies, 7 (1971), 157-80.
---------- , ‘T he Jam ‘iyyat al-‘U lam a-i H ind in the W ake o f Partition’, Asian
and African Studies, 11:2 (1976), 181—211.
--------; Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Ahmadi Religious Thought and Its
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Kram er, M artin, Islam Assembled: The Advent of the Muslim Congresses (New
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Interviews
A hm ad, Maulana Khalil, grandson o f M aulana D idar ‘Ah, founder o f the
D ar al-‘U lum Hizb al-Ahnaf. Teaches at the D ar al-‘U lum . 29
N o v em b er 1986, at Lahore.
Amritsari, H akim M uham m ad Musa, President, M arkazi Majlis-e Riza,
N u ri Masjid, Lahore; an authority on the A hl-e Sunnat in current-
day Pakistan. 19 N ovem ber 1986, at Lahore.
Faiz, M aulana Faiz Ahm ad, Imam at m osque in Golra Sharif, site o f Pir
M eh r ‘A h Shah’s shrine. 14 N ovem ber 1986, at Golra Sharif.
Faruqi, M aulana A bu’l Hasan Zaid, o f C hitli Q abr, O ld Delhi. A uthor o f
several books in rebuttal o f ‘W ahhabis’. 24 June 1987, at O ld Delhi.
Husain, Professor Abrar, Professor o f Statistics at a Raw alpindi college, has
studied Ahm ad R iza’s works related to mathematics specifically those
in w hich Ahm ad R iza rebutted aspects o f N ew to n ’s and Einstein’s
theories. 14 N ovem ber 1986, at Raw alpindi.
H usain, Sayyid E ’j az, a disciple o f Ahm ad R iza K han and resident o f
Bareilly. 17 April 1987, at Bareilly.
Ja‘far, Shaikh M uham m ad, Secretary-General o f the W orld Federation o f
Islamic Missions, Karachi. A disciple (murid) o f M aulana ‘Abd ul-
Alim Siddiqi M eruthi (who was a follower o f Ahm ad Riza). 25
O cto b er 1986, at Karachi.
Khan, M aulana A khtar R iza (‘Azhari M iyan’), great-grandson o f Ahm ad
R iza (through descent from H am id R iza Khan; younger brother o f
Subhan Riza below), Sadr o f the Markazi D ar al-Ifta, Bareilly, and o f
the All-India Sunni Jam 'iyyat al-‘U lam a’. 5 M ay 1987, at N ew Delhi;
16 O ctober, at Bareilly.
K han, M aulana Khalid ‘Ali, grandson o f Mustafa R iza Khan (Ahmad R iza’s
younger son, d. 1981). 16 O ctober 1987, at Bareilly.
Khan, M aulana Subhan R iza (‘Subhani M iyan’), great-grandson o f Ahmad
R iza (through descent from H am id R iza Khan [d. 1943], Ahmad
R iza’s eldest son). C urrent Sadr (head) o f the Madrasa M anzar al-
Islam, Bareilly. 17 April and 16 O cto b er 1987, at Bareilly.
Khan, M aulana Tahsin Riza, grandson o f M aulana Hasan R iza Khan (d.
358 Devotional Islam and Politics in British India

1908), presently Sadr-e M udarris at the Jam ‘iyya N uriyya, Bareilly.

Founded th e ja m a ‘at Islah al-‘U lum in February 1982, th e purpose of
w hich is to eradicate practices contrary to the shari'a (bid'a). 17 and
18 April 1987, at Bareilly.
Khan, M uham m ad Z u h u r ud-D in, publisher ofbooks o n th e A hl-e Sunnat
m ovem ent. O w n er o f M aktaba Rizwiyya, G ujarat (Pakistan), and
authority o n political dimensions o f the m ovem ent. 21 and 23
N ovem ber 1986, at Lahore.
M ahm ud, Raja R ashid, o f the Panjab T extbook Society, and author of a
history o f the H ijrat m ovem ent in 1920. 29 N o v em b er 1986, at
Lahore.
N a'ipii, M aulana M uham m ad Athar, grandson o f M uham m ad ‘Umar
N a'im i (a disciple o f N a'im ud-D in M uradabadi and assistant editor
o f the journal Al-Sawad a l-A ‘zam published by N a 'im ud-Din).
M em ber, C entral R o iy at-e Hilal C om m ittee, Sind, and Honorary
Khatib at Jam e' Masjid Arambagh, Karachi. 10 and 11 November
1987, at Karachi.
N a ‘im i, M au la n a R iz w a n u d -D in , g ran d so n o f N a ‘im ud-Din
M uradabadi. 19 O cto b er 1987, at M uradabad.
Niyazi, D r. Mustafa H usain Nizami, son o f M aulana N iyaz A hm ad who
founded the K hanqah-e Niyaziyya at Bareilly and w hose ‘urs Ahmad
R iza is reported to have attended each year. 19 April 1987, at Bareilly.
O karw i, Kaukab N oorani, Chairm an o f the O karw i Academ y, Karachi.
19 O cto b er 1986, at Karachi.
Q adiri, Maulana ‘Abd ul-H akim Sharf, teacher at Jam 'iyya Nizamiyya
Rizw iyya, Lahore, and author o f several books o n aspects o f Ahl-e
Sunnat belief and practice. 18-20, 23 N ovem ber 1986, at Lahore.
Qadiri, M aulana G hulam ‘Ah O karw i, a student o f Sayyid A b u ’l Barakat
(son o f D idar ‘Ali, founder o f the D ar al-‘U lum H izb al-Ahna£
Lahore), and teacher o ffiqh and hadis. 29 O ctober 1986, at Karachi.
R ana, Professor G hulam Sarwar, Assistant Professor, Political Science
D epartm ent, G overnm ent College, Lahore. Interested in the role of
sufis in the creation o f Pakistan. 22 N ovem ber 1986, at Lahore.
Sarwar, M ufti G hulam , o f Jam 'iyya Ghausiyya, Lahore, au th o r o f a work
o n the econom ic aspects o f the N izam -e Mustafa. Becam e a disciple
o f Mustafa R iza K han (Ahmad R iza’s younger son) in 1980. 21 and
22 N ovem ber 1986, at Lahore.
Siddiqui, Professor Bashir Ahmad, D epartm ent o f Islamic Studies, Panjab
U niversity, Lahore. 27 N ovem ber 1986, at Lahore.
W aqar ud-D in, M aulana, teacher o f hadis and mufti at Madrasa Amjadiyya,
Karachi. 12 A ugust 1986, at East M eadow, N ew Y ork.
 Index

Abd ul-B ari 306 223-4, 226-34, 244-8, 273-4, 277,

A bd u l-W ah id 224 280-2, 288-9, 293, 295, 305-7,
A bu’l Kalam Azad 36, 279, 286, 289, 314-15, 320-2, 325, 327, 333,
292, 295, 304-5, 322 335, 337
acculturate 10 as pir 135-40, 143
Afghanistan 268 azan debate 168, 188-200, 276,
A hl-e H adis 3, 12, 36, 39-41, 161, 297, 336
164, 175, 199, 201-5, 218-20, fatawa 13, 14, 43, 83, 84, 118,
231, 241, 248, 306, 334-5 129, 168; 1 7 7 ,1 7 9 -8 1 , 183-7,
A hle-e S unnat w a Jam a‘at m o v em en t 194, 204, 215, 222, 233, 252,
1-4, 6, 8-13, 15, 24, 34-5, 40- 4, 258, 278, 281-3, 288-90
48-50, 57-8, 60, 62-3, 65-6, 68, Fatawa-e R izunyya 181, 182 life 51-
7 0-3, 75-9, 81, 85-6, 89, 9 2 - 4, 67, 97, 130-2
97, 1 3 6 ,1 3 8 ,1 6 6 -8 ,1 7 5 -7 , 179, M aljuzat 6 4 ,6 6 , 68, 119, 129,
188, 192, 197-203, 205, 207- 8, 1 3 1 ,1 3 3 , 1 3 4 ,1 3 7 , 141, 151-
212, 215, 217, 219-23, 226-7, 4, 164, 166, 258, 300
229-33, 235, 240, 243, 245-50, o n Khilafat 286, 287, 290, 297
253-8, 263-5, 267, 2 6 9 ,2 7 6 -7 , on M uslims 283, 284, 294
281, 284, 288, 290-1, 296-7, 300, political beliefs 295-7, 298, 300-2,
302-14, 316, 319, 325, 328-9, 3 0 8 ,3 1 8 , 326
333-7 relations w ith Sayyids 150
See abo ulama, A hl-e Sunnat religious beliefe 12, 42, 128, 133,
A njum an-e A hl-e Sunnat 90 141-3, 145, 155, 1 5 7 ,1 5 9 ,
ideology 82 160-3, 205-16, 220, 225, 236-
Jam a‘at A hle-e S unnat 316, 318 9, 251, 253, 254-7, 259-61,
madrasas 5, 68-82, 90, 181, 224 264-6, 290-2
M ajlis-e A hl-e Sunnat 223-4, 226 w ritings 5, 84, 134, 138, 146-9,
press 83 151, 152, 154, 156, 158, 183-
See abo Dabdaba-e Sikandari 5 ,2 0 1 ,2 1 4 , 2 2 1 ,2 4 9 , 262,
A hm ad R iza K han Barelw i 2, 6-8, 40- 263, 269, 336
1, 44, 50, 68, 70, 72, 74-6, 88, 9 4 - A hm ad Shah Abdali 18, 20-2
5, 105, 117, 188, 202-3, 218-19, A hm adiyya m o v em en t 3, 231, 251
360 Index

A hm adis 50, 200-2, 229, 235, 264, B urhan u l-H a q q Ja b alp u ri 65, 136,
310 299, 3 20-6
A hrar Party 332
A kbar 42 canon 337
Aligarh M uslim U niversity (AM U) C histi o rd er 8, 3 6 -7 , 42, 4 5-7, 80, 87,
See M uham m adan A nglo-O riental 99, 128, 142, 194
C ollege C hristian 11, 29, 2 3 5 , 2 7 3 , 306, 317
A ligarh school 202 m issionaries 82, 9 3
A ll-India A yurvedic and U n a n i T ib - colonial India 1-4, 6, 7 , 10, 41, 79,
bia C onference 89 285, 329-31, 333
A ll-India Shi‘a C onference 89 colonial sociology 3 2 9 , 333
A ll-India Sunni C o nference 307, 308, com m unalism 1
3 1 0 -1 3 ,3 1 6 ,3 1 7 , 322, 327 co m m unity 2, 3, 119, 329, 330, 332,
alternative w orlds 2,3,4 333, 336
A nderson, B enedict 4, 276, 331 form ation 3, 4, 5
A n ju m an -e K h u d d am -e K a'ba 279- local 3
8 1 ,2 9 7 o f M uslim s 11
apolitical stance 1 contestation 5, 7
Arya Samaj 71, 89, 91-2, 94, 137, cosm opolitan 67
201, 202, 267, 300, 307, 310, 316, cow
325, 332 protection 3
A saf ud-D aula 27 slaughter 300, 307
A urangzeb 15, 45, 98, 99, 100 cultural p ro d u ctio n 335
A w adh 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 51, 54,
1 9 3 ,2 1 1 Dabdaba-e Sikandari 14, 75, 86-91,
113-15, 126-7, 136, 159, 168,
Baba Farid 108 189, 191, 193-4, 196, 277, 317
Bangash 15, 18, 2 0 ,2 1 ,2 3 , 100 D a r al-'U lam 37, 38, 73, 74, 77, 79-
banias 28, 29, 34, 283 81, 82, 110, 177, 179, 231,236,
Barelw i 237, 303
See A hl-e Sunnat w a ja m a ’at dargalis 12, 47, 100, 104-5, 109-10,
Barkatiyya Sayyids 41, 58, 72, 89, 97- 116, 120, 124, 125, 127, 164, 254,
128, 131, 143, 2 1 1 -1 2 ,3 1 4 ,3 1 6 , 267
319 D elhi Sultanat 98, 142
B atde o f Buksar 22 D eobandi m o v em en t 3, 11, 12, 35-
B attle o f Panipat 21 4 1 ,5 0 , 63, 65, 73, 77, 8 4 ,9 2 -5 ,
bhakti 267 111, 153, 162, 165, 174, 176, 194,
bid‘a 3 3 , 168, 172, 173, 174, 175, 199, 202-3, 208, 223, 229, 231,
189, 204-5, 207, 209, 210, 218, 233, 237, 246-8, 261, 266, 267,
222, 250 274, 280, 303, 306, 321, 335-7
British adm inistration 28, 47, 49, 50, See abo ulam a, D eobandi
60, 72, 85, 125, 295 devotionalism 30, 157, 152
British India 1, 4, 7, 11, 3 3-5, 42, 50, dialectical 337
72, 89, 96, 128, 178, 187-8, 200- dialogical 337
2, 217, 220, 229, 245, 268-70, diaspora 337
272-6, 278, 280, 284, 285, 289, discourse 1, 3, 43, 331
291-2, 297-9, 301, 315, 329-30, M uslim 336
333, 335 religious 2, 6
See also colonial India
 Index 361

East India C om pany 22, 23, 27, 28, H ijrat m o v em en t 268-70, 274, 277-8,
7 1 ,2 7 1 291-2, 297, 322
egalitarian 35 H in d u /ism 4, 10, 29-33, 35, 42, 71,
English papers 275 82, 92, 94, 121, 186, 201-2, 266,
267, 283, 293, 300, 306, 332
fam ily 97 relations w ith M uslims, 269, 279,
Fara’izi m ovem ent 32, 33, 241, 243 284-5, 2 9 1 ,2 9 3 -4 , 296, 302,
Farrukhsiyar 18, 19 3 0 7 -1 0 ,3 1 5 ,3 1 8 , 322, 323-6
fatawa 4, 38, 57, 61, 63-5, 68, 72-3, H in d u M ahasabha 324
81, 152, 1 6 2 ,1 6 4 , 166-7, 175-7,
179, 180, 181, 184-6, 188, 192-7, identity form ation 2, 96
205, 216, 221-2, 229, 233, 238, M uslim 6, 286, 337
247, 258, 262, 263, 266, 270-4, religious 6
2 77-8, 281, 283, 287, 293, 298, Iltutm ish 98
303, 309, 320 Indian N ational C ongress 7, 285,
See abo A hm ad R iza Khan 289, 2 9 3 ,3 1 7 , 323
Bar c\w i, fa tawa Indian nationalist m o v em en t
fem inization 330, 335 See nationalist struggle
Freitag, Sandria B. 2-4, 30, 31, 197, Indo-Persian culture 26, 29, 30
329-30, 335 institutionalization:
fundam entalist 9 o f religious beliefs 4
inter-religious conflict
G andhi, M .K . 7 ,1 8 7 , 268, 293 See com m unalism
G andhi, R ajiv 325 Islamic law 1, 45, 167, 272, 299, 312
Ganges C anal 120 legal theory 171, 172-9
ghazal poetry 330 Islamic reform 3, 63, 178, 274
G rand T ru n k R o a d 101
jag ir/d a ri 18, 19, 100
H aberm as 3 Jam a‘at-e R iza-e M ustafa 322
hadis 8, 43, 54, 57, 61, 64, 78, 85, Jam 'iyyat al-‘U lam a’-e H in d 7 ,2 7 6 ,
112, 118, 132-3, 157, 163, 167- 278, 285, 290, 292, 293, 297, 302,
73, 176-7, 185, 190-2, 196, 204, 307, 308, 309, 310, 332
207, 213, 217, 227, 229, 238-9, Jats 21
241, 244-6, 250, 254, 2 5 6 ,2 5 7 , Jew s 273, 317
2 6 2 -6 , 288, 290, 303, 334, 337 jihad 30, 37, 40, 178, 241, 270, 271,
H aji Shari'at U llah 2 7 1 ,2 7 2 272, 274, 280
hajj 6 Jin n ah , M uham m ad ‘Ali 317, 322,
H akim A jm al Khan 89 3 2 3 ,3 2 4 , 333
H allaq, W ail B. 175 jiz y a 29
H am za Alavi 11, 12 Jones, K en n eth 10
H anafi school 39, 57, 61, 85, 118, journalists 332, 333
167, 176-8, 190, 223, 233, 273 M uslim 279
Tuhfa-e Hanafiyya, 85, 86, 224
H anbali school 144, 175 kafir 84, 185, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206,
H aram ain 7, 32, 45, 60-5, 162, 187, 213, 218, 231, 2 3 3 ,2 3 4 ,2 4 4 ,2 4 6
188, 190, 194, 196, 203, 223, 226, Kayasths 30
227, 272, 321 khalifas 33, 46, 136, 137, 196, 298,
H astings, W arren 22 315
hegem ony 3 khanqahs 12, 46, 70, 76, 87, 100, 102,
362 Index

104, 106, 143, 193, 194, 196, 226, M u w ah h id u n m o v em e n t 7, 240-1,

327 243, 2 4 8 ,3 3 5
K hatris 30
Khilafat m ovem ent 7, 8, 71, 183, N ad w at al-'ulam a’ 3, 12, 63, 73, 77,
199, 267, 268, 269, 276, 285-8, 78, 84-5, 94, 168, 188, 199, 202,
289-91, 293, 296-7, 301-2, 306, 203, 217-24, 226-7, 232, 281,
308, 315-16, 318, 322, 326, 332, 298, 320
336 N a'im ud-D in Muradabadi 7 4 ,7 6 , 79-
com m ittee, 299, 307 80, 91, 94, 135, 137-8, 196, 284,
302-7, 311, 313, 315-16, 318-19,
L u ck n o w Pact 285 322, 325-6
N aqshbandi o rd er 36-7, 42, 44, 45,
M adrasa ‘Alujya 77 7 1 ,9 9 , 128, 193, 2 4 1 ,3 2 0
M adrasa Im dadiyya 302, 303 nationalism 4, 286, 331, 333
M adrasa M anz?r al-Islam 72, 74-77 nationalist struggle 7, 27, 268, 297,
M a h m u d o f G hazni 98 302
mahr 185 na'ts 1 3 ,9 1 , 115, 130, 160, 336
m ajlis-e milad 160 N ejd 240
M alw a 19 N izam u d -D in Auliya 108, 148
M arathas 19, 20, 21, 22, 51, 270 N o n -C o o p e ra tio n m o v em en t 187,
mass com m unications 276 291, 2 93-4, 2 96-7, 301-, 322
M aulana Fazl-e H aqq K hirabadi 71, n o n-interference 330
77 n o n -violence 293
m ed iatio n /ist 71, 163 N o rth -W e ste rn Provinces 15, 32, 116
m ilad 5, 14, 84, 160, 161, 162
M ir D ard 45 oral tradition 266, 336
M ir M ahdi M ajruh 25 ‘O th e r’ 4, 199, 334, 336
M irza D agh D ehlavi 25 O tto m a n E m pire 5, 61, 87, 92, 105,
M irza Ghalib 25, 26 176, 268, 275, 278, 279, 2 8 1 - 2 ,
M o m in K han M om in 24 284-6, 315
M ughal em pire 15, 17-21, 25, 32, 46, O udh
5 1 ,9 8 -1 0 0 , 102, 120, 1 5 2 ,2 1 6 See A w adh
M uham m ad ‘Ali 279, 306
M uham m ad ibn ‘A bd al-W ahhab Pakistan 8, 14, 144, 235, 302, 310,
240, 242 3 1 1 ,3 1 2 ,3 1 3 ,3 1 7 ,3 1 8 ,3 1 9 , 322,
M uham m ad Iqbal 36 325, 326, 327, 333, 337
M uham m ad Shah 17, 18, 19, 20 pan-Islam ic 7, 8, 268, 275, 2 8 5 -6
M uham m adan A nglo-O riental C o l­ Panjab 3, 18, 32, 46 -7 , 49-50, 70, 72,
lege (M A O ) 36, 59, 73, 217, 279 77-8, 81, 89, 270, 279, 295, 310,
M u 'in u d -D in Chisti 108, 194, 196 331, 336
mujaddid 9, 42, 63, 178-9, 193, 199, Partition (o f India) 313, 322, 325, 327
2 26-9, 234, 265, 321 partition o f Bengal 275, 279
mujahidin 271 Pathans 15, 28, 30-1, 58, 70, 211
mujtahids 132, 175, 176, 177, 178 See also Bangash
m unazara 93-6 Perso-Islam ic culture, 99
muqaddams 28 See also Indo-Persian culture
M uslim League 279, 285, 293, 302, phenom enological approach 328
3 1 1 -1 3 ,3 1 6 ,3 1 7 -1 9 , 322, 323-7 pirs 2, 5, 11-12, 38, 41, 62, 68, 70-2,
74, 7 6 ,8 1 ,8 9 , 90, 97, 100, 106,
 Index 363

tlO , 112, 116, 119, 122, 124-8, See also A hl-e Hadis
133, 134, 148, 163-4, 212, 255, R a n jit Singh 37, 270
304, 319 reform /ism 5, 7, 11, 12, 32, 37-41,
Barkatiyya 41, 49, 58, 317, 318 47, 48, 70, 89, 97, 126-7, 150,
C histi 47 168, 201-2, 269, 281, 329, 330,
Q adiri 68 333, 336
sufi 66, 105, 121, 132 See also Islamic reform
U sm ani 41 religious nationalism 1
polytheism 110, 266 politics o f 1
pre-colonial India 1, 10, 49 renew al m ovem ents 35, 39, 89, 240,
p rin t capitalism 4, 35, 276, 331 241, 243 M uslim 35, 63
press 82, 83, 279 R e v o lt o f 1857 25, 31, 32, 33, 34,
P ro p h e t M uham m ad 2, 5, 8, 9, 11, 35, 38, 52, 5 4 ,7 1 ,2 7 2 , 273
13, 37-41, 44, 50, 55, 66, 75, 9 2 - ribat 144
4, 105, 107-8, 111, 112, 114, 115, R o h ilk h an d 8, 15, 16 (map), 17, 18,
118-19, 126, 128-34, 142-3, 145- 2 0 ,2 1 ,2 2 , 2 3 ,2 7 , 28, 29, 3 0 ,3 1 ,
7, 149-65, 167-74, 177, 179, 190- 5 1 ,5 6 , 68, 100
2, 195, 198, 206-10, 212-18, 221,
225, 227, 228, 230, 233, 234, 236- sabiqi 9
41, 244-6, 250-66, 269, 288, 290, S afdarjang 17, 18, 20, 21
328, 332-7 Satan 42, 64, 135, 203, 234, 235, 236,
p ro p h eto lo g y 203, 215, 216, 233, 237, 238, 239, 240, 245, 246
• 255, 256, 257, 259, 263-6 Sauda 23
hierarchy 265, 266, 267, 335 Sayyid A hm ad Barelw i 32, 36, 55,
public arena 3 2 4 1 ,2 4 9 , 250, 270, 271
publishing: Sayyid A hm ad K han 7,.36, 73, 199,
Indian language 82, 96 202, 203, 217, 218, 220, 221, 243,
246, 248, 272, 273, 286, 329
Q a d iri o rd er 8, 37, 42, 43, 45, 51, 61, Sayyid Jam al al-D in al-Afghani 7
6 2 ,7 1 , 87, 99, 108, 116, 123, 144, Sayyid M uham m ad Ashrafi Jilani 311,
150, 193, 2 6 6 ,3 1 9 3 1 2 ,3 1 3
Q a ‘im 23 self-definition 2
qanutigos 28 See also identity form ation
Q u r'a n 8, 13, 39, 56-7, 94, 109, 114- self-determ ination 297
15, 126, 130, 132, 140, 146, 149, Shah A ulad-e R asul ‘M uham m ad
153, 167-72, 177, 185-6, 192, M iyan’ 105, 107, 314-19
204, 207, 209, 213, 216, 220, 238, Kliandan- e Barakat 105, 106
241, 244, 246, 259, 260-1, 264, Shah Barkat U llah 99, 100, 101, 103,
266, 281, 296, 307, 314, 318, 334, 105, 107, 1 0 8 ,3 1 4
337 Shah W ali Ullah 32, 35, 36, 37, 39,
Q u raish tribe 288, 289, 290 40, 45, 55, 104, 1 7 6 ,2 1 1 ,2 2 8 ,
229, 230, 241, 242, 243, 244
railways 34, 35, 295 shaikh 128, 132, 133, 142, 145, 146,
H ijaz R ailw ay 87 147, 148, 149, 150, 1 6 3 ,3 1 0 ,3 1 6
R a jp u ts 15, 17, 28, 29, 31 Shaikh ‘Abd al-Q adir Jilani 43, 108,
R a m p u r 14, 17, 2 2-7, 32, 34, 50, 54, 115, 126, 128, 130, 131, 133, 144,
56, 68, 75-8, 86-7, 113, 117, 159, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 157,
168, 189, 192, 193, 194, 208, 218, 1 6 1 ,1 6 3
221, 277
364 Index

Shaikh A hm ad Sirhindi 42, 43, 44, tajdid 10, 11, 177, 178, 229, 230, 328,
45, 193, 216, 220 333
Shaikh B akhtigar Kaki 108 Tariqa-e Muhammiadiya 36, 37, 38, 41,
shar‘ia 32, 42, 44, 46, 61, 70, 112, 55, 84, 237, 2 4 1 ,2 4 3 , 244,247,
114-15, 132, 134, 150-1, 162, 248, 249
167, 176, 181, 186, 211, 223, 269, w ritings 250, 251-5
271, 272, 277, 285, 287, 288, 291, tazkiras 12, 13, 14
293, 295-7, 299, 3 0 1 ,3 1 3 ,3 1 4 , terai 17
329-30, 333, 335 transm igration 306
Shaykhzadahs 21 tw o -n atio n th eo ry 323
S hi'i M uslim s 4, 9, 21, 2 3 -4 , 27, 30,
42, 89, 104, 123, 143, 199- 200, ulama 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 27,34-
202-3, 206, 208-16, 218, 220, 6, 4 0 -1 ,4 4 -5 , 47, 49, 50, 54, 55,
221, 232, 246-7, 286, 306-14 58, 62, 64, 68, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80,
Shuddhi m o v em en t 71, 94, 267, 300, 8 1 ,8 2 , 85, 86, 88, 8 9 ,9 3 ,1 1 0 ,
307, 308, 316 114-17, 122, 128, 130, 132,157,
Shuja ud-D aula 20, 22 159, 162-8, 172, 174, 176, 177,
sikhs 10, 178, 333 178, 180, 184, 186-8, 190-3,195-
Sindhi literature 263 9, 202-3, 206, 210, 217-8, 220-3,
social change 1 226-7, 229, 231-5, 239, 247, 263,
social conflict 29 265, 268-9, 273, 276-7, 279-85,
South Asia 1 ,8 , 12 290-3, 310, 313-16, 325, 329-33,
sufism 6, 8, 11-13, 36-48, 51, 59, 75, 335
76, 80, 87, 89, 9 0 ,9 1 ,9 7 ,1 0 1 , A hl-e Sunnat 2, 4, 6, 13, 14, 42,
102, 105, 106, 108, 109,110,112, 48, 63, 7 0 ,7 1 ,7 5 , 81,88,92,
113, 118, 121, 126, 128,142,145, 124, 186, 224, 230, 259, 307,
150, 151, 152, 183, 1 9 3 ,2 1 5 -1 6 , 320, 321, 322, 327
236, 241, 262, 266, 304, 310, 316, D eobandi 3, 38, 94, 110,161,
320, 330, 3 3 1 ,3 3 2 , 334, 336 179, 185, 186, 194, 208, 230,
See also reform ism 237, 238, 244, 248, 249, 274,
Suhraw adi 99, 128 286, 304, 334
sunna 5, 8, 37, 38, 39, 41, 48, 57, 70, Firangi M ahali 334
118, 166, 168, 169, 170, 172,173, north Indian 2, 32
174, 177, 1 7 9 ,1 8 6 , 190-1, 198, Sunni 66
200, 205, 227, 214-16, 218, 220, U sm ani 49, 123
221, 232, 246, 247, 286, 306, 314 U n ited Provinces 41, 49, 50, 69
Sunni M uslims 1, 6, 9, 12, 21, 27, 36, (map), 72, 81, 85, 100, 183, 269,
39, 42-3, 49, 65-6, 94, 118, 127, 278, 292
132, 1 3 4 ,1 6 6 ,1 7 8 , 184, 200, 203, untouchables 121
206, 208, 209, 210, 211, 215, 216, U rd u literature/letters 26, 82, 83,
218, 219, 220, 221, 228, 233-5, 152, 263, 275
247, 267, 281, 310-11, 329, 334 press 1 8 8 ,2 9 2 , 331 ,3 3 2 , 336
Sw am i D ayanand 201 ‘urs 5, 14, 39, 70, 84, 87, 88, 90, 91,
Swam i Shraddhanand 94 106, 111-12, 114, 116, 118, 130,
syncretist 9 161, 164, 175
‘urs-e N u ri 113-17, 126, 127
tabarrukat 107, 108, 110 w o m e n participants 117-19
tabligh 81, 308
TablighiJama'at 3, 92, 93 V eer, van d e r 6
 Index 365

V ictoria (Q u een o f England) 298 W o rld W a r I 6, 75, 88, 92, 105, 268,
Voll, J o h n O b e rt 240, 241, 242 285
voluntary organizations 2, 5, 68, 72,
82, 88, 89, 96 Zafar u d -D in Bihari 13, 50, 52, 54,
56, 65, 67, 73, 74, 88, 136, 143,
W ahhabis 7, 81, 84, 137, 143, 164, 149, 158, 159, 180, 181, 226, 227,
174, 194, 231, 233, 235, 236, 240, 228, 229, 2 8 4 ,3 1 1 ,3 3 3
241, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, Zaidi Sayyids 98
249, 262, 266, 305, 306, 335 zam indari 100, 101
W ajid ‘Ali Shah 24 zaruriyat-e din 202, 203, 205, 206,
waqt 77 207, 209, 232
w o m e n ’s education 330
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