Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898), Sir Sayyid/Syed for many, is well known for his pivotal role in th... more Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898), Sir Sayyid/Syed for many, is well known for his pivotal role in the foundation of Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College that became Aligarh Muslim University in 1920. The University's role in giving shape to a progressive Muslim community is the living legacy of Sayyid Ahmad Khan. He was a multidimensional personality – a pioneering thinker, an erudite scholar and a prolific writer, a rationalist theologian, community organizer, secularist leader, as well as a modernizer, deeply rooted in the Indian tradition. He serves as an inspiration even today, 200 years after his birth. He personified the reformist spirit of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and the fervent zeal to uplift his people as embodied by Mahatma Gandhi. Globally, one can place him alongside leading Muslim intellectuals of his time, such as the political activist Jamaluddin al-Afghani (1838–1897), modernist reformer and thinker Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905), and theologian Bediuzzaman Nursi (1877–1960). while there are ample scholarly and academic books, biographical narratives, and descriptive histories on the above-mentioned personalities, serious and dedicated scholarship on Sayyid Ahmad that captures the breadth of his activities and legacies is absent. This book, with contributions from some of the leading scholars in the field, critically examines Sayyid Ahmad’s life and contributions in the context of his and our current times. Engaging with his multifaceted work offers a better understanding of the challenges Indians faced during colonialism as well as enables a constructive way for addressing difficult problems of today.
Scholarship has mostly privileged larger cities as the leading centres in India at the expense of... more Scholarship has mostly privileged larger cities as the leading centres in India at the expense of belittling the role and significance of smaller entities. Villages are typically seen on the receiving end of the spectrum and qasbahs (small towns) are often clubbed with them. This book presents qasbahs as centers of intense intellectual and cultural activity in colonial India and as networks of social life, education, print culture, literary production, and intellectual dialogue. Drawing upon a wealth of untapped Urdu, English, Hindi, and Persian sources, it focuses on qasbahs as the new nuclei of Muslim social and cultural life upon the decline of the regional Indian states and their urban centers in the late nineteenth century, just as the successor-states had taken over from the Mughal Empire earlier. It also demonstrates that the emergence of modernity among the Muslims was a process during their colonial encounter in which qasbah residents were active agents and the Islam that emerged was that of everyday living. This volume looks into why locales remain major identity-markers, in addition to affiliations such as nation and religion, and what makes qasbahs still invoke memory and nostalgia among related Muslim individuals and families across the globe.
While religious groups have recurrently approached the state and its institutions to rationalize ... more While religious groups have recurrently approached the state and its institutions to rationalize their acts and selves, government taking recourse to referee religious concerns has had a long history. The colonial state in India was replete with specimens of the intermix of seemingly incompatible elements of the religious and the secular, in this case, religion and the legal network, avowedly one of modern state’s key secular institutions. In the qasbah town of Amroha where in 1895 a dispute occurred between Shia and Sunni Muslims about the wording of azan (call to prayer), both sides lined up with petitions and memoranda to win over a verdict on their side. The British authorities played it well, to their own advantages and whims. Similarly, over a communal strife between some Muslims and Parsis of Bombay in 1874, a series of letters to newspapers invoked the British sense of justice and fairness. While ‘a lover of peace’ sought strict actions against the perpetrators of violence, a certain ‘superior race’ pledged their loyalty and law-abiding nature. Several arrests were made as a follow up but charges could not be proved against a large number of the captives. Disputes and lawlessness thus became an arena for the government to play a role in determining what was right or wrong and who could have the final word where laws and rulings, not scriptures, determined the course of religious destinies and identities. This essay explores the intermediary nature and significant interventions of the state in handling the tumultuous relationship between religion and law, rendering them even more volatile.
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Dec 2015
The residents of the qaṣbas (unique small towns) of South Asia have claimed a distinct status for... more The residents of the qaṣbas (unique small towns) of South Asia have claimed a distinct status for their lands and their cultural and intellectual attainments by comparing their towns to the prominent centers of the Islamic world, such as Baghdad and Córdoba. Such claims of qaṣbas being a sort of ideal place includes comparisons with sites of religious, intellectual, and historical importance within India such as Malwa and Kashmir. This essay examines—by drawing upon Urdu poetry, memoirs and related literature, and architecture—the ways in which people from qaṣbas have attached particular importance to their places of origin. It investigates the various ways of articulating such associational feelings and emotions, ranging from a sense of belonging and pride to nostalgia.
This essay explores how the ideals of nationalism and Islam intersect by looking at the life and ... more This essay explores how the ideals of nationalism and Islam intersect by looking at the life and career of Mohamed Ali, a leading Muslim political figure, scholar, journalist and poet of the early twentieth-century India. Mohamed Ali, one of the leaders of the Khilafat movement, has often been seen as someone given to passionate politics and religious rhetoric. He was
Drawing upon the personal as well as political life of Mahatma Gandhi, this article argues that a... more Drawing upon the personal as well as political life of Mahatma Gandhi, this article argues that a series of experiments shaped and determined Gandhi's life and politics. Experiments, usually associated with hesitance and lack of confidence , were what the Father of the Indian Nation took earnestly to ensure the seriousness of his intents and doings. Always open and willing to create, execute, modify and indulge in experiments, Gandhi made sure of what worked and what did not on the basis of pragmatic considerations and proper contexts, thereby working from truth to truth and adopting what he thought worked well and discarding what he deemed erroneous. Taking cues from Gandhi's writings and actions, the author further explores the interconnectedness between his experiments and experiences and hints at how the Mahatma was made as much of the failures as of the successes.
This article provides a fresh initiative and insight into issues that are rather well trodden. Ga... more This article provides a fresh initiative and insight into issues that are rather well trodden. Gandhi, Mohamed Ali, Muslim politics, and the Khilafat Movement — each topic has been studied exhaustively. What this essay does is to pose them all together in an interactional framework to understand minority politics in colonial India. Here, minority politics is defined as issue-based politics around Muslims as minorities. This paper uses the terms “Mahatma” and “Maulana” as literary devices to understand Gandhi-Mohamed Ali relationship around the Khilafat Movement arguing how minority politics in British India became a terrain laden with individual motivations. The argument is unraveled through the analyses of Mahatma-Maulana interrelationship as understood from a range of sources in English as well as Urdu.
Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898), Sir Sayyid/Syed for many, is well known for his pivotal role in th... more Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898), Sir Sayyid/Syed for many, is well known for his pivotal role in the foundation of Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College that became Aligarh Muslim University in 1920. The University's role in giving shape to a progressive Muslim community is the living legacy of Sayyid Ahmad Khan. He was a multidimensional personality – a pioneering thinker, an erudite scholar and a prolific writer, a rationalist theologian, community organizer, secularist leader, as well as a modernizer, deeply rooted in the Indian tradition. He serves as an inspiration even today, 200 years after his birth. He personified the reformist spirit of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and the fervent zeal to uplift his people as embodied by Mahatma Gandhi. Globally, one can place him alongside leading Muslim intellectuals of his time, such as the political activist Jamaluddin al-Afghani (1838–1897), modernist reformer and thinker Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905), and theologian Bediuzzaman Nursi (1877–1960). while there are ample scholarly and academic books, biographical narratives, and descriptive histories on the above-mentioned personalities, serious and dedicated scholarship on Sayyid Ahmad that captures the breadth of his activities and legacies is absent. This book, with contributions from some of the leading scholars in the field, critically examines Sayyid Ahmad’s life and contributions in the context of his and our current times. Engaging with his multifaceted work offers a better understanding of the challenges Indians faced during colonialism as well as enables a constructive way for addressing difficult problems of today.
Scholarship has mostly privileged larger cities as the leading centres in India at the expense of... more Scholarship has mostly privileged larger cities as the leading centres in India at the expense of belittling the role and significance of smaller entities. Villages are typically seen on the receiving end of the spectrum and qasbahs (small towns) are often clubbed with them. This book presents qasbahs as centers of intense intellectual and cultural activity in colonial India and as networks of social life, education, print culture, literary production, and intellectual dialogue. Drawing upon a wealth of untapped Urdu, English, Hindi, and Persian sources, it focuses on qasbahs as the new nuclei of Muslim social and cultural life upon the decline of the regional Indian states and their urban centers in the late nineteenth century, just as the successor-states had taken over from the Mughal Empire earlier. It also demonstrates that the emergence of modernity among the Muslims was a process during their colonial encounter in which qasbah residents were active agents and the Islam that emerged was that of everyday living. This volume looks into why locales remain major identity-markers, in addition to affiliations such as nation and religion, and what makes qasbahs still invoke memory and nostalgia among related Muslim individuals and families across the globe.
While religious groups have recurrently approached the state and its institutions to rationalize ... more While religious groups have recurrently approached the state and its institutions to rationalize their acts and selves, government taking recourse to referee religious concerns has had a long history. The colonial state in India was replete with specimens of the intermix of seemingly incompatible elements of the religious and the secular, in this case, religion and the legal network, avowedly one of modern state’s key secular institutions. In the qasbah town of Amroha where in 1895 a dispute occurred between Shia and Sunni Muslims about the wording of azan (call to prayer), both sides lined up with petitions and memoranda to win over a verdict on their side. The British authorities played it well, to their own advantages and whims. Similarly, over a communal strife between some Muslims and Parsis of Bombay in 1874, a series of letters to newspapers invoked the British sense of justice and fairness. While ‘a lover of peace’ sought strict actions against the perpetrators of violence, a certain ‘superior race’ pledged their loyalty and law-abiding nature. Several arrests were made as a follow up but charges could not be proved against a large number of the captives. Disputes and lawlessness thus became an arena for the government to play a role in determining what was right or wrong and who could have the final word where laws and rulings, not scriptures, determined the course of religious destinies and identities. This essay explores the intermediary nature and significant interventions of the state in handling the tumultuous relationship between religion and law, rendering them even more volatile.
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Dec 2015
The residents of the qaṣbas (unique small towns) of South Asia have claimed a distinct status for... more The residents of the qaṣbas (unique small towns) of South Asia have claimed a distinct status for their lands and their cultural and intellectual attainments by comparing their towns to the prominent centers of the Islamic world, such as Baghdad and Córdoba. Such claims of qaṣbas being a sort of ideal place includes comparisons with sites of religious, intellectual, and historical importance within India such as Malwa and Kashmir. This essay examines—by drawing upon Urdu poetry, memoirs and related literature, and architecture—the ways in which people from qaṣbas have attached particular importance to their places of origin. It investigates the various ways of articulating such associational feelings and emotions, ranging from a sense of belonging and pride to nostalgia.
This essay explores how the ideals of nationalism and Islam intersect by looking at the life and ... more This essay explores how the ideals of nationalism and Islam intersect by looking at the life and career of Mohamed Ali, a leading Muslim political figure, scholar, journalist and poet of the early twentieth-century India. Mohamed Ali, one of the leaders of the Khilafat movement, has often been seen as someone given to passionate politics and religious rhetoric. He was
Drawing upon the personal as well as political life of Mahatma Gandhi, this article argues that a... more Drawing upon the personal as well as political life of Mahatma Gandhi, this article argues that a series of experiments shaped and determined Gandhi's life and politics. Experiments, usually associated with hesitance and lack of confidence , were what the Father of the Indian Nation took earnestly to ensure the seriousness of his intents and doings. Always open and willing to create, execute, modify and indulge in experiments, Gandhi made sure of what worked and what did not on the basis of pragmatic considerations and proper contexts, thereby working from truth to truth and adopting what he thought worked well and discarding what he deemed erroneous. Taking cues from Gandhi's writings and actions, the author further explores the interconnectedness between his experiments and experiences and hints at how the Mahatma was made as much of the failures as of the successes.
This article provides a fresh initiative and insight into issues that are rather well trodden. Ga... more This article provides a fresh initiative and insight into issues that are rather well trodden. Gandhi, Mohamed Ali, Muslim politics, and the Khilafat Movement — each topic has been studied exhaustively. What this essay does is to pose them all together in an interactional framework to understand minority politics in colonial India. Here, minority politics is defined as issue-based politics around Muslims as minorities. This paper uses the terms “Mahatma” and “Maulana” as literary devices to understand Gandhi-Mohamed Ali relationship around the Khilafat Movement arguing how minority politics in British India became a terrain laden with individual motivations. The argument is unraveled through the analyses of Mahatma-Maulana interrelationship as understood from a range of sources in English as well as Urdu.
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