Arabic in India, Qutbuddin

Arabic in India:
A Survey and Classification

of Its Uses, Compared with Persian
TAHERA QUTBUDDIN
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Arabic in India carries an almost absolute Islamic identity, to the extent that even the study
of pre-Islamic pagan poetry is ascribed to a spiritual impetus. This is not surprising, for it is
generally acknowledged that the Arabic language has a predominantly sacred character out-
side the Arabic speaking Middle East. However, the functional manifestation of the language
in the subcontinent has great historical significance and has not been systematically ex-
plored. ' To this end, this paper presents a survey of the uses of Arabic in India from its arrival
in the eighth century through the twentieth, under the following eight-part classification:
liturgy, teaching and study, nomenclature, inscriptions, vocabulary assimilation, composition
of religio-scholarly texts, composition of secular-scholarly texts, and marginal utilitarian
uses. Details of the uses of Persian—the other major foreign language brought here by
Muslims, which flourished side by side with Arabic for many centuries—are offered here
as foil, inasmuch as they bring into sharper focus the scriptural face of Indian Arabic.
The first acquaintance of the residents of the Indian subcontinent with the Arab people
came about when Arab sailors first docked at Indian ports in order to acquire spices in pre-
Islamic times, perhaps as far in the past as 50 CE. This early trade contact occurred two
centuries before Arab was attested as a distinct language in the Arabicin Peninsula in the third
century. Trade contacts persisted, and at some point in time, through Arab traders, Indians
must have gained rudimentary acquaintance with the Arabic language. In the seventh cen-
tury, the Arabian Peninsula witnessed the birth of Islam, and the majority of Arabs became
Muslim. One century later, in 711, the Arab-Muslim Umayyad commander Muhammad b.
al-Qäsim al-Thaqafí invaded and conquered the western Indian province of Sind. Arab
Muslims settled there, and with their colonization of Sind came India's first substantial and
sustained contact with both the religion of Islam and the Arabic language. At this time,
Indians began to convert to Islam.^ The initial act required of any convert, the recitation of
the Islamic creed of faith, "la ilähä ill" 'lläh, muhammad"" rasul" 'lläh" (There is no god but
God, Muhammad is the messenger of God), had an Arabic linguistic frame, which meant
that Indian converts to Islam came into contact with Arabic through their very first religious
1. For a brief overview of the features and history of Arabic in India, see my entry on "India" in Encyclopedia
of Arabic Language and Linguistics, ed. Kees Versteegh (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 2: 325-31.
2. A detailed analysis of historical, political, social, and economic development of the Indo-Islamic world is
provided in André Wink, Al-Hind: The Making of ¡he Indo-Islamic World (Leiden: Brill, 1990-2004), 2nd ed.,
vols. 1-3; Annemarie Schimmel, Islam in the Indian Subcontinent (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980). See also S. Maqbul
Ahmad et al., "al-Hind," The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (EP) (Leiden: Brill, 1960-2004), esp. sub-entries:
Aziz Ahmad, "Islamic Culture" and K. A. Nizami, "Islam." Short overviews of the Indo-Islamic world are Scott
Kugel, "South Asia, Islam in," in Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, ed. Richard Martin (Macmillan
Reference USA, 2004), 2: 634-41 ; Perween Hasan, "South Asian Culture and Islam," 2: 641-44.
Journal of the American Oriental Society 127.3 (2007) 315

316 Journal of the American Oriental Society 127.3 (2007)
experience. Arabic also had religious prestige as the language of Islamic scripture, believed
by the majority of Muslims to be inseparable from the message;^ moreover, familiarity
with the Arabic Qur'an was deemed necessary for the correct ritual practice of Islam.'* For
these reasons, Indian exposure to the Arabic language was primarily through the medium
of religion, and Arabic came to India as the language of Islam.
Non-sacred Arabic hegemony was promoted in many parts of the world by political,
social, and economic factors. So much so, that in some of the lands conquered by the Arab
Muslims, such as Coptic-speaking Egypt, ^ Arabic almost entirely displaced and replaced
the local languages. In India, however, this did not happen, mainly because Arab Muslims
did not have political control over more than the western provinces, and this control was for
a limited time. The major Muslim dynasties in India were of Turkic origin, and their cultural
language was, in the main, Persian. Other than the colony in Sind, Arab Muslim presence
in India was constituted by small and early Arab trader settlements of mostly Yemeni and
Basran descent on the Malabar coast (details in section VIII), by limited contingents of
Yemeni mercenary soldiers employed by various Muslim rulers, and by occasional Arab
visitors. Thus, Arab Muslims never really had a major presence in India. The locals continued
for the most part to use their own Indo-European and Dravidian languages, with Arabic play-
ing a subsidiary (albeit religiously significant) linguistic role.
Historically, Arabic has been used in India almost exclusively by its Muslim population,
and has been a key force in delineating and shaping Indian Muslim identity.^ Currently, it
is used almost solely by the 13.19 million Muslims who form 13.43 percent of the total
1.03 billion Indian population.'' Conversely, almost all Muslims in India appear to have
some acquaintance with Arabic. From the early eighth century, Arabic in India has borne an
Islamic identity, which has continued to be elaborated and strengthened through the thirteen
centuries of its use under Muslim, Hindu, and British rule. The succeeding dynasties of
Muslim rulers—including the Ghaznavids, Ghurids, slave-Sultans, Khaljis, Tughlaqs, and
Lodis in and around Delhi, the Bahmanis and Adil-Shahis in the Deccan, the Shah-Mirs in
3. A fundamental reason for this perception is the direct connection made by the Qur'an itself between its reve-
lation and the Arabic language. Cf. Qur'ân 26:192-95 (my translation and emphasis):
"Verily, it is the revelation of the Lord of all the worlds. The Trustworthy Spirit has descended with it upon your
heart [O Muhammad], so that you be among the Warners, in a clear Arabic tongue." See also Qur'an 42:7 and 12:2:
"an Arabic Qur'ân." Kees Versteegh, in his study of the Arabic language, remarks that "In all Islamic countries, the
influence of Arabic is pervasive because of the highly language-specific nature of Islam. Since the Revealed Book
was inimitable, it could not be translated, and those who converted to Islam had to learn its language." He goes on
to discuss briefly the role of Arabic in Africa, Iran, Ottoman Empire and Turkey, the Indian subcontinent, and East
Asia. See K. Versteegh, The Arabic Language (Edinburgh: Columbia Univ. Press, 2001), 226ff. See also Arabic as
a Minority Language, ed. Jonathan Owens (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2000).
4. One of the many authors arguing for the necessity of the Arabic language to the practice of Islam is Anwar
al-Jundi, al-Fusha lughat al-Qur'an (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Lubnani, 1982).
5. Arabic did not entirely displace the local language in other countries over which the Arabs held political
dominion for lengthy periods, such as Persia. The reasons for the different reception of Arabic in Egypt and in
Persia have not been fully explored.
6. Cf. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, "The Role of Arabic and the Arab Middle East in the Definition of Muslim
Identity in Twentieth Century India," The Muslim World 81.y4 (2001): 272-98.
7. Census of India 2001: The First Report on Religion Data (New Delhi: Jayant Kumar Banthia, Registrar
General and Census Commissioner [2004]).
QUTBUDDIN: Arabic in India 317
Kashmir, the Sultans in Gujarat, the Ilyas-Shahis in Bengal, and the powerful Mughal
emperors who ruled the entire Indian subcontinent—all these dynasties, even though the
language of their court administration was one of the Indian languages or Persian, con-
tinued to patronize Arabic-Islamic scholars and to promote the study of Arabic for religious
purposes. In 1947, after India gained independence from British rule and was partitioned,
Pakistan and later Bangladesh developed vis-à-vis Arabic in different directions—such as
the proposals voiced in Pakistan by various political groups in the 1950s and 1970s that
Arabic be adopted as the national language^—which fall outside the scope of this article. In
India, in the decades following Independence, Arabic usage was also modified in minor ways,
but its Islamic identity was preserved and continues to be preserved today. Considering the
future of Arabic usage in India, among the factors inhibiting it is the decline of Persian and
Urdu and with it the decline of the Arabic-script reading populace. Some positive influences
are India's growing economic prosperity (and subsequent rise in education) combined with
Islamic revivalist trends. It will be interesting to see how the conflicting forces play out.
Let us compare the history of Arabic in India to that of Persian.^ Persian flourished in
the subcontinent from the twelfth through the nineteenth centuries (especially from the late
sixteenth through the eighteenth), largely with court patronage. It had a prominent place in
Indian society at all levels, in both its Muslim and non-Muslim segments, with mainly literary
and government functions, as well as Sufi religious ones. The eariiest formal relationship
between India and Persian was formed with the establishment of Ghaznavid power in Punjab
in the early eleventh century, when a high literary tradition of Persian, primarily poetic, took
root. By the time of the conquest of north India in the twelfth century by the Turkish Ghurids,
Persian had evolved as a literary language throughout Central Asia, and under the patronage
of the Delhi Sultans, Persian writers, scribes, and poets flourished through the early fifteenth
century, particularly when Sikandar Lodi (r, 1488-1517) completely Persianized the admin-
istration. When Chingiz Khan invaded the Perso-Islamic world in the thirteenth century,
many Persian speakers migrated to northern India, and a coherent Perso-Islamic identity (in
opposition to Arab culture) was linked positively with the term '"Âjam," Under the Mughals,
particulariy Akbar (r, 1556-1605), there was an efflorescence of Persian literary culture in
a large part of India, and Persian became the first language of the king and the court, Akbar
formally declared it the language of the Mughal administration at all levels; it thus became an
important tool for career advancement, particularly in the civil service. Persian also became
a second language, perhaps even something approaching a first language, for many Indians,
But with the waning of Mughal power and patronage, Persian declined rapidly in India; par-
ticularly when the rising British colonial power replaced it with English as the language of
administration and education in India in 1835. Its use in the beginning of the twenty-first
century has narrowed to a tiny number of scholars.
8, For details of Arabic study and usage in Pakistan, see Arat>ic in Pakistan, ed. Habibul Haq Nadvi, National
Congress for Promotion of Arabic in Pakistan (Karachi: Univ, of Karachi, 1975); and Tariq Rahman, "The Teaching
of Arabic to the Muslims of South Asia," Islamic Studies 39,3 (2000): esp, 416ff,
9, For Persian in India until the advent of the British, see Muzaffar Alam, "The Culture and Politics of Persian
in Precolonial Hindustan," in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstruction from South Asia, ed, Sheldon Pollock
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ, of California Press, 2003), 131-98, The brief outline here is culled from this
article. The best full-length history of Persian in India, according to Alam, is Muhammd 'Abdu'l Ghani, Pre-
Mughal Persian in Hindustan (Allahabad: Allahabad Law Journal Press, 1941); idem, A History of Persian Lan-
guage and Literature at the Mughal Court, vols, 1-3 (Allahabad: The Indian Press, 1929-30),
A word should be added here about the sources for this study. In addition to synthesizing
data from disparate multilingual secondary works such as those listing madrasas (religious
schools) of India and bibliographies of Indian-Arabic texts, this paper stems from research
conducted in varied primary source materials. Some of these original sources are Arabic
books and poetry composed in India, manuscript catalogues of Indian libraries, madrasa.
curricula, inscriptions on monuments and tombs, and catalogues of inscriptions and coins.
Additionally, I have included findings from field work conducted in India for brief periods
over the past several years, including interviews with Indian Muslim scholars of Arabic,
visits to madrasas and monument sites, observation of Muslim nomenclature, and exami-
nation of Arabic vocabulary incorporation.
With brief remarks pointing out the analogous or divergent uses of Persian where relevant,
the following pages present a detailed survey and classification of the uses of Arabic in India.
I. LITURGY: QUR'ÄN, RITUAL PRAYER {SALAH),

DU^Ä\ TASBIH, AND RELIGIOUS POETRY
One of the most common uses of Arabic in India is liturgical. This includes Qur'anic
recitation, litanies (tasbih), prose prayers (du'ä'), formulaic expressions connected with the
ritual prayer {salah), Süfl chants (dhikr), and the chanting of religious poetry (qaslda, na't,
munäjät, and marthiya).
The recitation of the Arabic Qur'an is considered by Muslims a meritorious act and forms
an important part of their religiosity. In India, Muslims recite the Qur'an avidly, but generally
without understanding the literal meaning. Nevertheless, they still see it as an act that
brings the reciter closer to God and wins him or her divine grace {baraka) and light {nur).
Qur'anic recitation in India takes place in homes, masjids, madrasas, and other venues, at dif-
ferent times of the day or night, individually or communally, at religious and social gather-
ings or as part of a daily religious routine, throughout the year, but most especially during
the month of Ramadan, audibly or inaudibly, in sophisticated and melodious recitation {tartll
or tajwid), or in plain, elementary recital. Since a significant number speak Urdu (in 2003,
roughly 25 million)'" or other Indian languages written in the Arabic script, they can, if
they are literate—thus, roughly half of all Indian Muslims ' '—de facto read and write the
Arabic script. Since Qur'anic recitation in the original Arabic is an integral part of the man-
datory ritual prayer {salah), those who can read and those who cannot all consider it a re-
ligious obligation to memorize suras. They most commonly leam by heart the shorter suras,
including al-fâtiha, al-näs, al-falaq, al-ikhläs, al-kawthar, al-nasr, and al-qadr. They also
recite al-fâtiha for the benefit of a deceased soul and upon visits to the shrine of a saint.
Uniquely in the Indian subcontinent, Qur'anic suras are subdivided into 557 thematic
rukü' (lit. bowing). They are so named because they signal the moment of the rukû' within
the taräwlh prayer performed nightly by Sunni Muslims in Ramadan; through the course
of the month, the prayer leader recites the entire Qur'ân, dividing his recitation according
to these markers—roughly, one rukü' per taräwlh rak'a.^^ Muslims outside South Asia
10. "Indian Languages" (retrieved July 15, 2003, from http://www.indianchild.com/indian_languages.htm).

11. Literacy among Indians in general is 75.3% male, 53.7% female (2003 estimate); Muslim literacy rates are
lower, at 67.6% male, 50.1% female. Census of India 2001. Until the twentieth century, literacy rates were some-
times as low as 10-20%
12. The only person to have written about the Mravvi/i-relatcd division of the ruku' appears to be M. Amir Ali,
"Organization of the Qur'an" (retrieved July 15, 2004, from http://ilaam.net/PDF/QuranOrg.pdf). Some of the fol-
generally follow purely length-oriented hizb divisions. The ruku' are also important in the
communal Qur'ân dawr (lit. cycle or turn) recitation held in several Indian Muslim com-
munities, where each person present audibly recites in turn a ruku' of the Qur'an while the
audience listens and follows along. Rukü' divisions are marked only in the Qur'ân editions
published in India and Pakistan, and they are denoted by the last letter of the word, 'ayn.
(A major Indian-Pakistani Qur'ân publishing house is the Taj Company, and the ruku'
divisions may be observed in their Qur'âns,)
Arabic litanies {tasblh or wird, pi, awräd) are frequently employed. These include
Qur'ânic verses, such as in kull" nafs'" lammä 'alayhä hafiz (Each soul has a protector),
wa-idhä maridt" fa-huwa yashfln (If I become ill. He is the one who cures me), and ala
bi-dhikr' l-läh' tatma'inn" l-qulüb (Indeed, it is by remembering God that hearts are com-
forted). They also take the form of pious, non-Qur'anic invocations, such as la hawl" wa-
lä quwwaf ilia bi-1-läh' l-'aliyy' l-'azïm (There is no strength or power save through God
Most High Most Mighty) and allähumma salli 'ala muhammad'" wa-'alä äV muhammad'"
wa-bärik wa-sallim (O God, bless Muhammad and the progeny of Muhammad and give
[them] grace and well-being). Invocations of the names of Sufi saints are also used as litanies,
such as yä 'Abd al-Qädir (O Âbd al-Qâdir!), and in the case of Shiîte Muslims (par-
ticularly, but not exclusively), the names of the Five Pure Ones, such as yä Muhammad
(O Muhammad!) and yä 'Ali (O ÂlÜ), Other common litanies are short Arabic phrases in
praise or supplication of God, such as subhän" l-läh (May God be praised!), al-hamd" li-läh
(All thanks and praise are due to God!), or astaghfir" l-läh (I ask God for forgiveness).
These phrases and verses are repeated over and over, often forty, or one hundred, or one
thousand times, or in another number having symbolic significance. Sometimes, a rosary
(also called tasblh, like the verbal noun) is used to count the number of recitations; at other
times, the fingers of the right hand are used;'^ occasionally, no count is made.
The liturgical recitation of Arabic prose prayers (du'ä') composed by medieval Middle
Eastern savants and later, Indian ones, is a common practice. Both tasbih and du'ä\ although
they may be recited at any time during the day or night, are most often performed at specific
times: (i) following the saläh, (ii) as part of a morning liturgical ritual, or (iii) just prior to
sleeping at night. Before, within, and after the prayer ritual, worshippers recite formulaic
Arabic phrases. These expressions differ somewhat according to the denomination of the
worshipper. Before the saläh is the Arabic call to prayer {adhän and iqäma) that contains
phrases mostly culled from the shahäda; its gist is somewhat comprehensible even to the lay
person. After the saläh, Arabic du'ä' and tasbih are recited. These iire considered optional
and have a wide range.
lowing details are from his article, and are supplemented by data gleaned in an interview I conducted in June 2004
with a Mumbai-based Qur'ân reciter. In the taräwlh, Indian Sunni Muslims complete the recitation of the entire
Qur'ân in twenty-seven nights, I surmise this is so because they consider the 27th to be Laylat at-Qadr, an auspicious
night in which to complete the recitation of the Qur'ân, and also because Ramadan could theoretically end anytime
after the 27th, at the sighting of the new moon. For the final remaining nights after the 27th, they repeat the last few
suras. The taräwih has twenty rak'as, 20 multiplied by 27 yields 540, and this means that if one ruku' is recited per
rak'a, just seventeen rukü's are left over of the total 557 rukH's, and these seventeen are added on at any point in
the recitation. Since the ruku' divisions are based on theme, it would be difficult to get an exact 540 part division.
Some details about the ruku' divisions are also provided by Hashim Amir Ali, "The Qur'ân in Secular India," Isiam
and the Modern Age 63 (1975): 83-84,
13, Fingertips and knuckles, front and back, make thirty-three counts; done thrice, this yields ninety-nine; one
final recitation makes one hundred.
Chanting of Arabic religious poetry is customary in private or public gatherings, and at

various times. Most often, this religious poetry is composed in praise of the Prophet
Muhammad—in Arabic and other languages"*—and is called naU (lit. description), salam
(lit. greeting of peace), or qaslda (lit. ode). The birthday of the Prophet on the twelfth day
of Rabí' al-Awwal is a favorite occasion for recitation of na't. Arabic panegyrics are also
composed and sung for the Shiâ Imams and the Sufi saints. Another kind of religious poetry
that is often composed in Arabic and chanted is the munäjät (Arabic "private dialogue"). In
the Dâ'Qdi Bohra (Shi*îte Ismâ^îlî Tayyibi) community, munäjät poems are composed to
commune with God and are often recited in Ramadan. In the Twelver Shiîte and Nizari
Khoja communities, they also include poems addressed in a plea for succor to the Imam.
Poetry mourning Husayn {marthiya) is usually recited in Indian languages, but Arabic elegies
are also performed.
Süfí orders such as the Naqshbandis and Chishtis often use Arabic in their ritual remem-
brance of God {dhikr), which contains, among other things, repetitious recitation of the names
of God and of certain suras, especially those which begin with the word "Say!" {qui). Sufi
orders also use a great deal of Persian poetry in their dhikr sessions. They sing it in concert
in the courtyards of Sufi shrines, such as the mausoleum of Salim Chishti in Ajmer. The
ghazals and mathnawis of Rûmï, Hafiz, and Jâml, are also popular, as well as the Persian and
Urdu poetry of Indian Sufi shaykhs, particularly Amir Khusraw, and others such as Hamïd
al-Din Nâgawrî, Amir Hasan, and Nur Qutb-i ^Älam. The Sufi-oriented Indian qawwäli
(similar to sama' in Central Asia and Turkey) is a musical recitation of poetry, usually in
Urdu and Punjabi, but sometimes fully in Persian, or containing opening verses in Persian
and Arabic. Amir Khusraw is credited with the founding of the qawwäli genre in the late
thirteenth/early fourteenth century. Its repertoire includes songs of hamd (praise of God),
na't (praise of Muhammad), manqabat (praise of "Âli), marthiya (elegy on Husayn), and
ghazal (love poem with two simultaneous registers, secular and spiritual).
Thus, the use of Persian in Indian Mushm liturgy is mostly Sufi and poetic, versus that
of Arabic, which, although making use of the poetic tradition, as well as prose prayers and
pious litanies, is based primarily on Qur'anic scripture.
II. TEACHING OF ARABIC AS A LANGUAGE OE RELIGION

The religious need of Indian Muslims to learn Arabic gave rise over the centuries to a large
number of religious schools catering only to Muslim students, called maktab and madrasa. '^
(The terms are somewhat fluid, the word madrasa sometimes being used to denote a maktab;
other terms used are hifz-khäna for Qur'an memorization schools, and jämi'a or dar al-
'ulum for higher education institutes. In premodem times, the term madrasa was also used for
14. See AH Asani, "In Praise of Muhammad: Indigenizing the Arabic Qasida in Urdu and Sindhi," in Qasida
Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa, ed. S. Sperl and C. Shackle (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 1: 351-61.
15. Two comprehensive works on the madrasas of India are Kuldip Kaur, Madrasa Education in India: A Study
of its Past and Present (Chandigarh: Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, 1990), and Ziyaud-
Din Desai, Centres of Islamic Learning in India (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting, Govt. of India. 1978). An encyclopedia on the subject is K. C. Sharma, Encyclopedia of Madrasa
Education in India (New Delhi: Vista Intemationai, 2007). 5 vols. T. Rahman, "The Teaching of Arabic," provides
a useful overview of the chronological development of Arabic teaching in India and Pakistan. Of the multitude of
Urdu books on the subject, particularly useful are Muhammad Qamar Ishaq, Hindustan ke ahamm madäris (New
Delhi: Institute of Objective Studies, 1996); Qamar al-DIn. Hindustan id dini darsgähen (New Delhi: Hamdard
Education Society, 1996).
secular schools with both Muslim and Hindu students.) Maktabs imparted primary learning,
focusing on Qur'ân recitation and memorization of suras, and, by extension, a basic knowl-
edge of the Arabic language, particularly the script. They also taught Sharlâ precepts, par-
ticularly those relating to the ritual prayer (salah), the ritual purification {wuda'), the two
calls to prayer (adhän and iqäma), and formulae recited within the ritual prayer. At more
advanced levels, they taught some Qur'ân interpretation and prophetic Traditions (Hadîth).
Maktabs continue to flourish in India today, in masjids or independent institutions, with the
inclusion in modem times of a rudimentary secular component, comprising basic arithmetic
and elementary literacy in the local vernacular.'^ In addition, today many Muslim children
who otherwise go to secular school or do not go to school at all also receive part-time re-
ligious education at home by professional mullas/maulvis or parents, or at after-school part-
time maktabs. This home instruction is entirely focused on religion, the Qur'ân, and Arabic.
Madrasas have generally been for more advanced religious learning and Arabic has been
an important component of their curriculum. Many have "Arabic madrasa" as part of their
name, such as the Madrasa 'Ârabiyya Jâmi'a Imdâd al-'ÛlDm in Zaydpur, and Madrasa
•Ârabiyya Dâr al-Ta'lîm in Muhallapura SDfipur, both in Uttar Pradesh. ''' By the tenth cen-
tury, the first ad hoc madrasas in India were established in Sind in the towns of Mansura
and Multan, and were associated with the local masjids. In the last decade of the twelfth
century, the Turk invader Muhammad Ghûrî (d. 1206, founder of real Muslim dominion in
India) established formal madrasas in the town of Ajmer in North India. Soon thereafter, his
successor's successor Sultan Iltutmish (d. 1236) established the first madrasa in Delhi and
one in Badaun, and in the following decades, madrasas sprang up all over northern India.
Then, over the next seven centuries of partial or full Muslim rule, until the deposition of
the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar in 1857 by the British, madrasas proliferated
in all parts of India into the hundreds, either associated with, or independent of, masjids. In
the nineteenth century, the new colonial power promoted Western-style secular education,
particularly English, and the Arabic language (and Persian) diminished in importance. Many
madrasas were adversely affected, but several new ones such as Deobandh and then Nadwa
(details later) were instituted by Islamic salaft revivalists deliberately to counter the colonial
approach and bolster traditional religious education. Paradoxically, most of the important
madrasas existing today were established during the British Raj. In these institutions, in the
words of a modern scholar, "Arabic, being the language of the original sources of Islam,
was to be the major focus of study. It was, so to speak, not only a language but the major
linguistic symbol of Islamic identity and Muslim resistance to modernity."'^
The curriculum followed in these madrasas through the centuries focused on Islam as a
subject and Arabic as a tool. Until the fifteenth century, the principal subjects of study in
madrasas were the religious sciences (in Arabic) of Qur'ân exegesis, Hadîth, jurisprudence,
SOfism, theology, history, the related subjects of Arabic grammar and literature, and some
logic and philosophy, also in Arabic. Approximately the same curriculum was followed all
over India. The course was based on Arabic texts with works from the classical (Middle
16. See Kaur, Madrasa Education, 253.

17. See Ishâq. Hindustan ke ahamm madaris, 25 (Süñpur), 41 (Zaydpur).
18. T Rahman, "The Teaching of Arabic," 411. This issue is addressed in detail in Barbara Daly Metcalf,
Islamic Revivalism in British India: Deobandh, ¡860-1900 (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1982). See also re-
marks on this subject by S. M. Yusuf, "Arabic Language and Literature in the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent," Iqbal
16.1 (1967): 61-62; S. A. H. Abidi, "Arabic and Persian Studies," in Orientât Studies in India, ed. R. N. Dandekar
and V. Raghavan (New Delhi: International Congress of Orientalists. 1964), 53.
322 Journal of the American Oriental Society 111.?, (2007)
Eastern) canon being studied, such as Tafslr Ibn Kathlr, Zamakhshari's Kashshäf, Tafsir
al-Baydâwi, al-Muwatta', al-Sahihayn, al-Hidäyafi al-furû', Talkhîs al-miftäh, 'Awärifal-
ma'ärif, Fusüs al-hikam, Hidäyat al-nahw, Sharh mi'at 'ämil, and al-Käfiya. A few modi-
fications to this curriculum were made in the fifteenth century, when a couple of medieval
Arabic science texts were added, and again in the eighteenth century by Shah Wall Allah
(d. 1760). Some years later. Mulla Nizam al-Dîn (of Sihali near Lucknow, d. 1748) pro-
posed a new Arabic curriculum, later to become famous as the Dai-s-i Nizami." He con-
firmed several Arabic religious and grammatical texts already in use, and, for the first time
in Indian madrasa history, added Arabic texts on jurisprudence, logic and philosophy com-
posed by Indian savants, such as Mulla Jîwan of Amethi (d. 1718), Mir Muhammad Zahid
al-Harawï (d. 1700), and Mulla Mahmud JawnpQrî. This curriculum was adopted almost
immediately all over India and continues to be used to this day with some amendments, in-
cluding the addition of non-religious subjects such as mathematics and English. In the late
eighteenth century, salafi madrasas purged the syllabus of Sufi texts (Arabic and Persian).
Shiîte madrasas follow different curricula with regard to religious texts, but usually the texts
used for the study of Arabic grammar and rhetoric, perhaps even some literature and phi-
losophy, are the same as those prescribed by the Dars-i Nizâmî.
The number of full-time Arabic madrasas in 1996 was 757.^'^ The best known madrasas
of India today are in the northern part of the country in the state of Uttar Pradesh, Deo-
bandh in this state is the home of the famous madrasa named Dar al-'Ûlum^' (founded
1866), which has around two thousand students from India and other countries of South and
East Asia, a large library (133,070 printed books and 1,563 manuscripts), and focuses almost
completely on religious education. ^^ A modem Indian scholar calls it a "mother institution"
for Indian Muslim educational centers. ^^ Another well-known madrasa in this state is the Dar
al-ÛlQm Nadwat al-'Ûlama'^'* in Lucknow^s (founded 1893), with 1,500 students, seventy
professors, and a strong research orientation. It focuses on religious learning, particularly
Arabic, but includes some secular sciences as well. Its focus is on subjects, as opposed to
the text-based approach of other, traditional madrasas. Both the above are Sunni institutions,
the Deobandh madrasa a strongly salaß one. Two important Twelver Shi4te madrasas are also
in the same town of Lucknow, the Madrasat al-Wa'izin^^ (founded 1919) and the Jámila
Näzimiyya^'' (founded 1890), In Western India, the leading Muslim educational institution
19, For details of the Dars-i Nizâmî, see Qamar al-Dîn, Hindustan kl dinl darsgâhên, 345-52; Desai, Centres
of Islamic Learning, 14-15; and Francis Robinson, The 'Ulama of Farangi Mahall and Islamic Culture in South
Asia (Delhi: Orient Longman, 2001), 48-50, 248-51,
20, Qamar al-Dîn, Hindustan ki dinl darsgâhên, 70,
21, An important monograph on the Deobandh madrasa is Metcaif, Islamic Revivalism. See the Deobandh
Arabic curriculum in Kaur, Madrasa Education, 121-24,
22, Asaf Fyzee calls the Deobandh madrasa an institution devoted to "pure religious learning," A, Fyzee,
"Islamic Studies in India," Melanges Louis Massignon (Damascus: Institut français de Damas, 1957), 2: 204,
23, Kaur, Madrasa Education, 57,
24, Ibid,, 63-65, An international conférence on Arabie literature was held at the Nadwa in 1981 ; its proceedings
were published as al-Adab al-lslämi: fikratuhü wa minhäjuhü, ed, Abu al-Hasan 'All al-Hasanî al-Nadw! (Lucknow:
al-Amana al-Dâ'ima li-Nadwat al-Adab al-Islâmî al-'Alamîya, 1981),
25, See F, U Farooqi, Lucknow: A Centre of Arabic and Islamic Studies during the Nineteenth Century (New
Delhi: Falâh-e-Dârayn Trust, 1999),
26, Kaur, Madrasa Education, 67-68,
27, Ibid,, 61,
is in Surat, the Jámila Safiyya^^ (founded 1813) of the Dâ'ûdî Bohra Tayyibi Shi'â de-
nomination, with 149 professors and 717 students (440 men, 277 women) from India and
outside India in 2006, and a large library. In Central India, the foremost madrasa is the Dar
al-ÛlOm Taj al-Masajid^' (founded 1948) in Bhopal. South India, especially the states of
Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh, also contain several important madrasas.
The method of teaching Arabic in these madrasas is grammar-centered and text-oriented.
The focus is on reading and understanding classical Arabic texts. Speaking skills are not
emphasized, but stylized prose writing skills {inshä') are given some attention. Generally,
modern proficiency-based techniques are not used, although there is a slow move towards
their utilization. Rote memorization is favored over analysis.
The British colonial government in India de-emphasized religious madrasa education; they
focused on the creation of institutions of secular learning which they claimed would make
the world's academic and scientific progress accessible to the Muslims of India. Arabic in
these institutions was initially somewhat marginalized and "orientalized," both in terms of
teaching method and modified curriculum. The change of direction was often administered
by Muslim modernist reformers rather than directly by the British. Thus, three modem-style
Muslim universities (which were open to non-Muslim students) came into being: Aligarh
Muslim University, 30 the first Muslim institution of secular learning, was founded in 1875
in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, by the reformist Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan; it attained the status of
a university in 1921, and currently has two full departments of Islamic Studies, viz., Arabic
studies and theology. The Jamia Millia Islamiyya^' has a more clearly Islamic bent, and aims
to offer modem secular education simultaneously with religious education. It was founded in
1920 in Aligarh, and moved to Delhi in 1925. The Jamia Osmania University^2 in Hyderabad,
Andhra Pradesh, was established in 1917 by the Nizam of Hyderabad; it has a department
of Islamic studies in which Arabic is taught, and where research in Islamic studies (mostly
Arabic-based) is encouraged. The issues related to the teaching of Arabic in these univer-
sities and in other institutions in India have been the subject of several conferences and
monographs.^3 Furthermore, the Arabic language is offered as an academic subject in a few
28. See on the Jami'a Sayfiyya Tahera Qutbuddin, "The Dâ'ûdî Bohra Tayyibis: Ideology, Literature, Education
and Social Practice," in A Modem History of the Ismaiiis, ed. Farhad Daftary (forthcoming. J. B. Tauris, 2008). See
also Kaur, Madrasa Education, 53-54.
29. See Kaur, Madrasa Education, 71-72,
30. Cf. Theodore P, Wright, Jr., "Muslim Education in India at the Crossroads: The Case of Aligarh," Pacific
Affairs 39.1/2 (1966): 50-63. An attempt to use modern teaching methods in Arabic teaching can be observed in
M. R, K. Nadwi and A. Ashfaq, Arabic Language: An Introduction to Selected Teaching Materials in English
(Including Audio-Visual Media) (Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim Univ. Press, 1993). A textbook for Arabic literature at
Aligarh University is Anon., al-Muntakhab min al-shi'r al-'arabi al-qadim wa-al-hadUh (Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim
Univ. Press, 1990), an anthology with thirty-eight poets, classical and modem, biographies and poetry, including
poetry by seven Indian poets, mostly from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
31. See the Arabic curriculum of the Jamia Millia Islamiyya in Kaur, Madrasa Education, 77-78.
32. See the Arabic curriculum of the Jamia Osmania University in ibid,, 128-30,
33. See MashSkil ta'lim al-lugha al-'arabiyyaß al-ma'ähid al-hindiyya ma' al-tarklz al-shadld 'ala al-manâhij
wa-at-nuzum wa-al-ahdâf, ed, Mu'în al-Dïn al-A'zamî, also titled Proceedings of the Seminar on the Problems of
Teaching Arabic in Indian Institutions with a Focus on Systems, Aims and Methods (Hyderabad Deccan: Central
Institute of English and Foreign Languages, 1982); Usul wa-turuq tadris al-lugha al-'arabiyya f'l mukhtalifal-
mustawayat, ed, M. al-A'zamI, also titled Proceedings of the all India Seminar/Workshop on the Principles and
Methods of Teaching Arabic at Various Levels (Hyderabad Deccan: Central Institute of English and Foreign Lan-
guages, 1985); Muhammad Sali, A Diagnostic Study of the Difficulties of Pupils in the Learning of Arabic in the
324 Journal of the American Oriental Society Ml.3 (2007)
non-denominational universities,^'' This phenomenon is less significant from a sacred lan-

guage point of view, but it is interesting to note that the students who learn Arabic in these
universities are most often heritage students who do so for religious reasons.
Let us take a quick, comparative look at the teaching of Persian in India, Increasingly from
the thirteenth century, Persian was taught in maktabs and madrasas as well as Sufi khänqähs
(lodges),^^ Madrasa pupils studied the Persian literary classics, such as Sa'dî's Gulistän and
Büstän, Hâfiz's Dîwan, Jâmî's Yüsufwa Zulaykha, and ROmî's Mathnawî. They also read
ethical texts such as Nasir al-DIn TQsî's Akhläq-i Näslrl, and historical works such as Abu
al-Fadl's Akbar-näma, as well as treatises on theology, medicine, tales, prosody, and rhetoric,
Epistolography was a key Persian language subject. At the preliminary and secondary stages,
the study of Persian preponderated, and, in fact, the medium of instruction in many madrasas
was Persian, ^^ From the time of Sikandar Lodi in the fifteenth/sixteenth century, the intro-
duction of non-religious themes into the syllabi at middle levels had stimulated a wide appli-
cation to Persian studies. Large numbers of Hindus joined madrasas to acquire training in the
Persian language and literature, with the intention of pursuing civil service careers,^^ Süfí
khänqähs also played a critical role in popularizing the Persian language, ^^ Devotees studied
Persian to be able to read Sûfî texts, particularly the teachings of the Sufi masters called
malfüzät. Some khänqähs served almost as full fledged madrasas. There was provision for
teaching not only Persian and Arabic Sufi texts, but also texts in both languages on Hadith,
Qur'an exegesis, jurisprudence, logic, and grammar,^^
In the nineteenth century, after the end of the Mughal period, the study of Persian in Indian
madrasas declined rapidly. When English replaced Persian as the official administration lan-
guage, the career incentives for studying the latter disappeared, Madrasas which had earlier
combined religious and civil service training now functioned mainly as religious institutions.
In contrast, the demand for Arabic continued to be strong among Indian Muslims for spiritual
reasons. In a 1996 study of religious schools in India, the number of Persian madrasas in
India is listed as 12, compared to the 757 Arabic madrasas mentioned earlier. In a side com-
parison, this study lists 264 Urdu madrasas and 2,275 Sanskrit paths halas.'^^ A glance at
Secondary Schools of Kerala, Ph,D, thesis (Kerala Univ,, 1984); Ahmed Kutty, "Development of Arabic Education
in Kerala, A Survey," Journal of Kerala Studies 56.9 (1984): 77-91,
34. Forty-one Indian universities out of a present total of around 194 offer Arabic at B,A., M,A,, and Ph,D,
levels; students are nortnally permitted to register for an Arabic course, provided they can find an outside professor
to tutor them. See S, A, Rahman, "Arabic in India; Retrospects and Prospects," Muslim and Arab Perspectives tnter-
national tslamic Magazine 3 (1996); 157, See also the Arabic curricula of these universities in Kaur, Madrasa Edu-
cation, 124-26,
35. See the list of Persian texts studied in Awrangzeb's time from a 1688 work titled Kiiuläsat al-maktab (MS),
listed in Kaur, Madrasa Education, 111-12, A list of the most common Persian texts studied in madrasas in the
Mughal period is provided in Alam, "The Culture and Politics of Persian," 163. See also Desai, Centres of Islamic
Learning, 16,
36. Desai, Centres of Islamic Learning, 11; Kaur, Madrasa Education, 112.
37. Alam, "The Culture and Politics of Persian," 162-63. Hindus might even have taught Arabic and Persian.
'Abd al-Qâdir Bada'ûnî (b, 1540) mentions an Arabic and Persian teacher of this period he calls by the Hindu caste
name "Brahman"; Muntakhab al-tawáríkh, ed. Ahmad 'AIT and Nassau Lees (Calcutta; Bibliotheca India, 1869),
2; 323,
38. See Alam, "The Culture and Politics of Persian," 147-48.
39. Kaur, Madrasa Education, 10.
40. Qamar al-Din, Hindustan ki dini darsgâhën, 70-71.
some State Board madrasa curricula, as well as the Central Waqf Board madrasa curriculum,
reveals the focus of the course to be on Arabic-related material in the fields of scripture
(and scripture-related), grammar, and belles-lettres; Persian texts on grammar, belles-lettres,
and poetry form a small, often optional part of the syllabus.""
III. ARABIC ISLAMIC NOMENCLATURE

Side by side with names of Persian or Indian origin, Muslims in India and converts to
Islam often adopt Arabic personal names."^ In the vast majority of cases, these Arabic
names have a religious association: they are often names of important religious personages
such as Muhammad (or Ahmad), Âlï, and Fätima, or names having some religious context,
such as Tasnim (name of a river in Paradise). Other names such as Anjum (stars) or Rafíq
(companion) are not connected with religion. Parallel to the adoption of the name Maria
by women in Spain, many Indian Muslim males who are not named by one of the Prophet
Muhammad's names commonly adopt Muhammad as their first name and another, relatively
less common one such as Hasan or Halim, as their second. They are usually called by both
names together (viz. Muhammad Hasan) or by the second name only.
Compound names are common, usually in an idâfa construct, often with a "servant of"
first term, frequently with one of the names of God as the second part: Âbdullah (servant
of Allah, male), Amatullah (servant of Allah, female). Probably due to the fact that most
Indian Muslims do not understand Arabic grammar and vocabulary well, they sometimes
inadvertently adopt the names of God—such as Rahman (the Merciful) and Jabbar (the
Most Powerful)—without a "servant of" prefix. In other compound names, the second term
is often the name of the Prophet Muhammad or one of his family, such as Ghulam RasOl
(servant of the Messenger), Banda-i-Âli (servant of Âlî), or Âbd al-Husayn (servant of
Husayn). As seen in these examples, the terms for "servant" are either in Arabic ("'abd" and
"ama") or in other languages such as Persian ("ghulam" and, less commonly, "banda"),
with the result that there are several compound names formed from two languages. Some-
times the first part is an active participle, such as Dhakir-Husayn (one who remembers
Husayn, pronounced Zäkir-Husayn), or a verbal noun such as Fadl-al-Rahman (grace of the
Merciful, pronounced Fazlur-Rahman).
Also prevalent are pseudo-Arabic names that contain two Arabic words in a construct
form whose semantic sense is unclear. The following are a few examples: Abu al-Kalam,
the name of an Indian Muslim freedom fighter, meaning "Father of Speech"; Islam al-Din,
the name of a man from Bihar, meaning "The Islam of religion"; Samî Allah, the name of
a man from Uttar Pradesh, meaning "God's namesake," or, if actually "Sami^ Allah" with an
'ayn, "The One Who Hears Allah."
In contrast, Persian first names are more often associated in India with the Parsi com-
munity, Zoroastrians who migrated from Persia in the eighth century. They often select
names of ancient heroes such as Rustam and Jamshid from the Shähnäma tradition, and of
4L See the curricula of the Central Wakf Board and the State Boards of West Bengal and Bihar in Kaur,
Madrasa Education, 355-98.
42. Given names are almost always Muslim, and often Arabic. Trade and place names are not distinctively
Muslim, and often, though not always, carry the relative adjectival suffix "wätä" (lit., "belonging to"), such as
Känchwäla (glass trader), and Ujjainwälä (family originally from Ujjain).
characters such as Shîrin (sweet one) from poetic love mythology. They also use descrip-
tive names with a literary substratum, such as Dilnawâz (gracious one) and Mehrü (moon-
faced one). Indian Muslims take some Persian names such as Shirîn, but do not adopt the
names of the Persian kings.
Titles in India have frequently been in Arabic. More prevalent than the few secular ones
adopted by kings and ministers—such as Nasir al-Dawla (one who aids the state) and
Malik al-Sharq (king of the east)—are titles of religious significance. The Arabic word
"dm" (religion) has been and continues to be used as a favorite second term of the com-
pound title. It is also quite common in personal names, usually as a namesake of an earlier
savant. Religious titles include titles of kings and ministers, but mainly comprise ones con-
ferred on Muslim savants: Nizam al-Dîn (order of religion), Farid al-Dîn (unique in re-
ligion), Ghiyäth al-Dîn (refuge of religion), Sayf al-Dîn (sword of religion), Burhân al-Dîn
(proof of religion), and Qutb al-Dîn (pivot of religion).
In contrast, Persian titles of Indian rulers are usually related to sovereignty, such as
Âlamgîr (conqueror of the universe), Jahângîr (conqueror of the world), Jahânpanâh (succor
of the world). Shah Jahân (king of the world), Awrangzeb (ornament of the throne), Bahadur
Shah (brave king), and Thurayya Jäh (one with the lofty station of the Pleiades). Mughal
emperors often had both "something of din (religion)" titles in Arabic and ones related to
kingship in Persian. Titles denoting nobility are often also in Persian, such as Mîrzâ (prince,
noble), Bêg (lord, prince), and Begum (lady).
Thus, comparing Arabic and Persian nomenclature in India, Arabic names and titles are
most often related to religion and are from the religious tradition, whereas Persian ones are
more often kingly or literary.
IV. ARABIC INSCRIPTIONS OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE:

QUR'ÄN VERSES AND OTHER
Indian Muslim rulers utilized Arabic to inscribe religious texts—particularly Qur'an

verses—on masjids, mausoleums, madrasas, coins, forts, palaces, and regal paraphernalia.'*^
The common people also used Arabic for epitaphs, as well as for dedications and ornamen-
tation on various religious buildings. Much of this material has been catalogued.^'*
43. An overview is provided by Burton-Page, "Kitäbät (i) inscriptions (10) India," Efi.
44. Some catalogues of the Arabic and Persian inscriptions of India are Qeyamuddin Ahmad, Corpus of Arabic
and Persian Inscriptions of Bihar (A.H. 640-1200) (Patna: K. P Jayaswal Research Institute, 1973); Ziyaud-Din
Desai, A Topographical List of Arabic, Persian and Urdu Inscriptions of South India (New Delhi: Sundeep Pra-
kashan, 1989); Abdul Karim, Corpus of the Arabic and Persian Inscriptions of Bengal (Dhaka: Asiatic Society of
Bangladesh, 1992); Subhash Parihar, "Arabic and Persian Inscriptions from Sirhind," Islamic Studies 38.2 (1999):
255-63; Asoke Kumar Bhattacharya, Cultural, Historical, and Political Aspects of Perso-Arabic Epigraphy in India
(Calcutta: Firma KLM Pvt. Ltd., 1999); idem, Arabic, Persian and Urdu Inscriptions of West India: A Topographical
List (New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 1999); Syed Abdur Rahim, Arabic, Persian and Urdu Inscriptions of Central
India: A Topographical List (New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 2000). Coin catalogues include R. B. Whitehead, ed..
Catalogue of Coins in the Panjab Museum, vol. 2: Coins of the Mughal Emperors (Lahore: Clarendon Press, 1914);
Nelson Wright, ed.. Catalogue of the Coins in the Indian Museum Calcutta, vol. 2: The Sultans of Delhi, Contem-
porary Dynasties in India (New Delhi: Indological Book Corporation, 1972); idem, ed.. Catalogue of the Coins in
the Indian Museum Calcutta, vol. 3: Mughal Emperors of India (Lahore: Clarendon Press, 1972); John Allan, ed..
Catalogue of the Coins in the tndian Museum Calcutta, vol. 4: Coins of Awadh, Mysore, Bombay, Räjputäna and
Central India (Lahore: Clarendon Press, 1976).
The earliest Arabic inscription in India is from the eighth century in a masjid in Kovalam
(South India)."^^ The few early Muslim inscriptions were solely in Arabic. From the thirteenth
century, with the establishment of Persianate Muslim power in North India, Muslim in-
scriptions, with Qur'an verses and the like, began to proliferate. Other than Persian mystical
poetry, the religious content continued to be inscribed in Arabic, while secular components
such as names and dates were mostly replaced by Persian (and later, Urdu). In the twenty-
first century, Muslim communities continue to employ Arabic religious inscriptions.''*
The thousands of monuments built by Muslims throughout India are lavishly adorned by
religious Arabic inscriptions, particularly Qur'anic verses. These monuments include the Taj
Mahal at Agra (built 1630-1652) where the sura of Yäsin is inscribed, and the mausoleum
of the Dâ'Qdî Bohra Dâ^î Sayyidnâ Tâhir Sayf al-Dîn, the Rawdat Tâhira in Mumbai (built
1965), the only place in the world where the entire Qur'ân is inscribed on marble in letters
of gold. Dedication plaques of masjids, mausoleums, madrasas, forts, and palaces usually
contain a verse or two from the Qur'an, often in elaborate tughra calligraphy. Plaques on re-
ligious buildings are often entirely in Arabic. Persian masjid dedications are also present, and
they typically contain the name of the builder and the date of construction. Fully secular
Persian inscriptions are located on cannon guns, noting such things as the date of their
manufacture, and their capacity.
Arabic inscriptions on epitaphs and coins are also mostly religious. Epitaphs on mauso-
leums and graves are regularly in Persian, Urdu, or another vernacular, but, as a rule, they
contain some Arabic religious texts, especially Qur'an verses. Some of the religious content
of epitaphs is in Persian, particularly lines of Süfl poetry. Coins struck by Muslim rulers
often have a similarly dual, secular Persian and religious Arabic, component. The year and
denomination are often in Persian, whereas the Islamic creed of faith, the kalimat al-shahäda,
is in Arabic, as are optative phrases of prayer following the name of the ruler, such as
"khallad" alläh" sultan" mulkih'" (May God preserve the power of His kingdom forever),
V. ARABIC RELIGIOUS VOCABULARY INCORPORATED AND

INTERJECTED INTO INDIAN LANGUAGES
Much of the Arabic vocabulary that has been incorporated into Indian languages over
the centuries has to do with religion, moral values, and issues discussed extensively in
the Qur'ân,'*^ Heaviest absorption appears to be into languages used to a great extent by
Muslims, in particular Urdu, The following sample Arabic terms have been simultaneously
assimilated into four Indian languages, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, and Marathi: din (religion),
hajj (the Hajj pilgrimage), häjß (one who has made the hajj pilgrimage), îmân (belief),
jannat (heaven), jahannam (hell), haqlqat (reality), haqq (right), hikmat (wisdom), dunyâ
45, The text reads: "Ismä'il—109 [727]—b, Malik Dinar" (in three lines). See M. Abdullah Chaghatai,
"Khatt (iv) In Muslim India," EP, from Majalla Tilsänin 1:51,
46, Since Independence, the government of India appears to have deliberately de-emphasized the Islamic Indian
heritage; several monuments with Arabic inscriptions—such as the Red Fort in Delhi—are falling into decay due
to inadequate maintenance,
47, Arabic words incorporated into Marathi are listed in Muhammad Ajmal Khân, "al-Kalimât al-'arabiyya wa-
al-ßrisiyya fí al-lughät al-hindiyya," pt, 4: "al-lugha al-marâthiyya," Thaqafatu'l-Hind 13,1 (1962): 88-95; he has
earlier published similar articles—which I have been unable to locate—listing the incorporation of Arabic into
other Indian languages.
(this world), risäla (message), salam (greeting), shaytän (satán), sadaqa (alms), zulm
(oppression), 'adâlat (justice), ghusl ([ritual] hath), fasäd (corruption), qabr (grave), qalam
(pen), kafan (shroud), ladhdhat (pleasure), mätam (mourning), maqâm (station), mawt
(death), wafä' (loyalty), wäjib (mandatory), wa'da (promise), yaqln (certainty).''^
Persian religious vocabulary of non-Arabic origin has also been incorporated into Indian
languages (such as roza, fasting, and namäz, ritual prayer) as well as a large number of
secular Persian words (such as dehät, villages, and gul, rose). Moreover, because all official
correspondence in Mughal times was in Persian, people learned the polite forms of address
and phrases used in that language, and soon these Persian forms, whether in the original or
translated, came to be used in Punjabi, Gujarati, and other regional languages."*^
Persian was so predominant that the integration of Arabic into Indian languages took
place primarily through its mediation—thus Arabic vocabulary that had earlier been absorbed
into Persian came into Indian languages as Arabo-Persian words. Evidence of Persian as a
vehicle for Arabic assimilation is found in the fact that the Arabic vocabulary absorbed
into Indian languages sometimes has a modified lexical meaning not existing in the original
Arabic, but present in the Arabo-Persian word (e.g., makän, meaning "house" rather than
"place," fursat, meaning "leisure time" rather than "opportunity"). Some scholars believe this
mediation to be absolute.^'' The extra step in the transition, however, does not change the
fact that the Arabic vocabulary incorporated into Urdu or other Indian languages is heavily
religion-oriented.
Religious Arabic phrases are habitually interjected into Urdu (and other Indian-language)
speech. These phrases usually contain an "Allah" component, such as al-hamd" li'lläh (praise
be to God), shukr°" li'lläh (thanks be to God), tnä sha' alläh (what [wonders] God has
willed!), inshä' alläh (if God wills), and jazäk" 'lläh (may God reward you!). Additionally,
the introductory parts of Muslim speeches and sermons are often in Arabic and may be brief,
one-sentence openings or longer, multi-paragraph ones. These typically contain the name and
praise of God (basmala and hamdala), and benedictions on the Prophet (tasliya); Qur'ân
and Hadlth quotations are used heavily in religious communications, both written and oral,
such as religion classes and the Friday sermon.
Many Arabic words which have more general meanings in Middle Eastern Arabic take
on a religious connotation in India. Sahifa, which can mean several things in Arabic, in-
cluding a leaf in a notebook, a page, a newspaper, or a prayer book, signifies here the last
sense only. Ziyärat, which means visit, connotes here a visit to the shrine of a saint. Majlis,
which means sitting or assembly, indicates here a religious assembly. Other words of general
meaning, in both Arabic and Indian languages, can denote a religious meaning in the latter.
An example is the word qasida, which—in contrast to its dictionary meaning of the genre
of monorhymed, monometered ode, whose themes include love, wine, and praise of political
patrons—is often used in India to denote a religious poem in Arabic, particularly praise of
the prophet or Imams. (It also denotes a secular praise poem in Persian, Hindi-Urdu, and
Sindi.) Similarly, the word kitäb, which means any book, often represents here a religious
book, picking up on the designation of the Qur'än as The Book or Kitäb. In many cases.
48. A modified pronunciation frequently accompanies the assimilation, often with the addition of vowels
between two consecutive consonants, or with doubled consonants (in Gujarati: 'aql —• akkat; 'unir —• umar).
49. K.a.ur, Madrasa Education, 161.
50. Versteegh, The Arabic language, 237.
Arabic words are automatically considered sacred by virtue of their being Arabic. Particularly
for those who have not studied the language in depth—which constitutes the majority of
Indian Muslims—any Arabic word or phrase is sacred, or, at the very least, belongs in the
sphere of the sacred. Moreover, incorporating Arabic (and Persian) words and phrases
into Indian-language speech is considered by Muslims a mark of refinement and religious
learning.
VI. COMPOSITION OF RELIGIOUS WORKS IN ARABIG AND OF WORKS

IN INDIAN LANGUAGES BASED ON ARABIG RELIGIOUS TEXTS
A glance at the contents of relevant bibliographies demonstrates that a large percentage
of the Islamic works composed in India are in Arabic. Conversely, and more germane to the
topic, it also demonstrates that the majority of Arabic books in India have been composed
on subjects of religious import.5' Approximately eighty-five percent of the Arabic books of
India listed by Brockelmann, ^^ for example, are on the subjects of Qur'än and Hadlth studies,
jurisprudence, Sufism, theology, and the lives of saints, while only 15 percent are books on
secular subjects—philology, philosophy, belles-lettres, and medicine—and these too are sus-
tained by the Islamic ethos (as will be explained in section VII). In The Contribution of
Indo-Pakistan to Arabic Literature, Zubaid Ahmad lists 360 Arabic books by Indian scholars
in the religious sciences (jurisprudence 87, theology 75, Sufism 74, Qur'ân 55, Hadlth 45,
history and hagiography 24), and 217 in secular fields imbued with the Islamic heritage
(philology 99, philosophy 56, belles-lettres 22, medicine 22, and mathematics 18). The
Arabic-Islamic works take the form of original religious books, commentaries on classical
religious texts (usually on Qur'ân and Hadlth, and commonly in the form of glosses and
superglosses), and religious poetry. Some are by Arab immigrants, but the majority is by
scholars of Indian ethnicity, some of whom trained in Mecca or Baghdad, and many of whom
were Sufis. Also abundant are Indian-language commentaries on, and translations of, clas-
sical Arabic religious texts.
51. Studies and bibliographies of Arabic Islamic literature in India include Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der
Arabischen Literatur (GAL), Suppl. II (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1938), 309-12, 598-628, 849-64; S. Sabahuddin, "List
of Works on Hadith compiled in India in Arabic, Persian or Urdu before 1857," Istamic Cutture 20 (1946): 208-12;
Muhammad Ishaq, India's Contribution to the Study of Hadith Literature (Dhaka: Univ. of Dacca, 1955); M. G.
Zubaid Ahmad, The Contribution of Indo-Pakistan to Arabic Literature (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1946/
1968); Annemarie Schimmel, Islamic Literatures of India, vol. 7, fase. 5 in series A History of Indian Literature,
ed. Jan Gonda (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1973), 1-8, 48-52; Ismail K. Poonawala, Bibliography of Ismaiti
Literature (Malibu, Calif.: Undena Publications, 1977); Shahabuddin Ansari, "Islam and Islamic Studies: An Annual
Bibliography of Articles," Istam and the Modern Age 13.4 (1982): 252-303; 14.4 (1983): 299-372; 15.4 (1984):
209-300; 17.1/2 (1986): 33-131; Mohammed Haroon, Islamic Literature: Indian Contribution (New Delhi: Indian
Bibliographies Bureau, 1996); Ali Asani, "India," in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. Julie Meisami and
P Starkey (London: Routledge, 1998), 1: 395-96; S. A. Siddiqui, "Contributions of Indian Muslims to Islamic
Studies," The Muslim World League Journal 30 (2002): 34-39.
Urdu studies of the same include Jamil Ahmad, Harakat al-ta'llfbi al-lugha al-'arabiyya fi al-iqlim al-shimäll
al-hindiß al-qamayn al-thâmin 'ashar wa al-tasi' 'ashar (Damascus: Wizârat al-Thaqâfa, 1977); Shabbir Ahmad
Qâdirâbî, 'Arabi zabän o abad 'ahd-i mughliyya mën (Lueknow: Nizâmî Press, 1982); Athar Shër, 'Arab'i Fârsi awr
'ulüm istämiyya mên Bihâr kä hissa (Patna: Idara-e Tahqîq-e 'Arab! o Fârsï, 1983); Zubayr Shams Tabriz Khân,
'Arabl adab mên Hindustan kâ hissa 'ahd-i sattanat-i Dihli mën 1206 ta 1526 (Lucknow: Nizâmi Press, 1989);
Ahmad al-Färüqi, Musähamat dar al-'ulûm bi-Deobandß al-adab at-'arabí hattä 'am. I400H/1980CE (New Delhi:
Dar al-Färüqi, 1990).
52. Brockelmann, GAL, Suppl. 2, 309-12, 598-628, 849-64.
The best-known Indian Qur'ân commentaries in Arabic include the two volume Tafsir
al-rahmän wa-taysïr al-mannän (popularly known as Tafsir-i rahmänl) by a scholar of Arab
Nawa'it descent, Âla' al-DIn Mahâ'imï (d. 1431), and a four-volume commentary that uses
only undotted Arabic letters following the Indian penchant for stylized Haririan Arabic
writing, titled Sawäti' al-ilhäm by the court poet of the Mughal emperor Akbar, Faydi
(later Fayyädi, d. 1595). Several Arabic glosses on the Tafsir al-jalälayn were also com-
posed. ^^ Qur'an commentaries in other languages include the sixteen-volume Urdu work
Tafhim al-Qur'än of the reformist Abu al-'-Alâ' Mawdûdî (d. 1979), and the first Persian
commentary in India, al-Bahr al-mawwäj of Qâdî Shihâb al-Dîn Dawlatâbâdî (d. 1445).
Translations of the Qur'ân include the Urdu Tarjamän al-Qur'än by the freedom fighter
Abul Kalam Äzäd (d. 1958),^'* and the earlier Persian translation of Shah Wall Allah, con-
sidered by the well-known scholar of Muslim South Asia, Annemarie Schimmel, to be one
of the best Qur'an translations into Persian. Compilations of Hadîth are also numerous.
Among the most important are a Hanafî tract which has attracted over a thousand commen-
taries^^ titled Mashäriq al-anwär by Hasan al-Saghânî of Lahore, and an encyclopedic col-
lection of Hadith arranged according to subject that is still one of the most widely read
Hadith works in India titled Kanz al-'ummälfl sunan al-aqwäl wa-al-af^äl by the prolific
author Âll al-MuttaqI (d. 1568) of Burhanpur. Additionally, several glosses were composed
on the Sahïhayn of Bukhara and Muslim and on Malik's Muwatta'.^^ Among the best-known
fiqh works is the multi-authored work on Hanafi law commissioned by the Mughal emperor
Awrangzeb (r. 1754-1760), al-Fatäwä 'älamglriyya.^^ The Tahqïq arädl al-hind by Shaykh
Jalal Thânêsarî deals with fiqh questions (on property and such) specific to India. Several
other works in Arabic on the principles (usül) and specifics (furü') of jurisprudence were
also composed. In theology, an important work is the Hujjat Allah al-bäligha of Shah Wall
Allah. Süfí masters also composed their Khiläfat-nämahs in Arabic. Some Persian Süfí
works were translated into Arabic: Ja^far al-Sadiq al-Âydarus translated the work Saflnat
al-awUyä' of the Mughal prince Dârâ Shiköh (d. 1659), under the title Tuhfat al-asfiyä\
Of the Arabic poetry that was composed in India,^^ a large proportion was in praise
of the Prophet Muhammad and his family. The prolific poet and author Ghuläm 'All Azad
Bilgrâmî (d. 1785) of Aurangabad in the south was given the honorific "Hassan-i Hind"
(the Hassan of India) in recognition of his lyrical panegyrics on the Prophet in the tradition
of the Prophet's poet Hassan b. Thâbit, including a famous lämiyya.^^ Several poets of the
Qutbshahi Twelver ShiHte Deccan kingdom of Golconda in South India expended a large
proportion of their literary energies in praising 'All b. Abl Talib and the Shi'a Imams; the
53. E.g., Salâmullah Dehlvi, al-Kamälayn häshiyat al-jatälayn; TXirâb 'Alï, al-Hilâlayn hâshiyat al-jalälayn.
54. AbQI Kalâm Azâd, Tarjumân al-Qur'än, 3 vols. (Lahore, 1931-1936).
55. Schimmel, Islamic Literatures of India, 3.
56. Cf. Siddiqui, "Contributions of Indian Muslims to Islamic Studies," 38.
57. Compiled c. 1760 to 1828 by a group of scholars led by Shaykh Nizam.
58. A comprehensive study of Arabic poetry in India is Ahmad Idrîs, al-Adab al-'arabifi shibh al-qärra al-
hindiyya hattä awä'il al-qam al-'ishrln (Cairo: 'Ayn lil-Dirâsât wa-al-BuhQth al-Insâniyya wa-al-Ijtimâ'iyya, 1998).
Other studies include M. A. Muid Khan, The Arabian Poets of Goiconda (Bombay: Univ. of Bombay Press, 1963);
M. A. K. Masumi, "Nazra 'ala shu'arâ' al-'arabiyya fí al-hind," Thaqafatu'i-Hind 17 (1966): 91—114; Muhammad
Yousuf Kokan, Arabic and Persian in Camatic 1710—1960 (Madras: Hafíza House, 1974); Muhammad Fârûq
Bukhäri, Kashmir men 'arabi shi'r o adab (Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, 1993).
59. Diwan (MS), Asafiyyah library, Hyderabad. Cf. Masumi, "Nazra 'ala shu'arâ' al-'arabiyya fi al-hind,"
98-112.
Hijazi poet Sayyid 'Ali b. Ma'sum (d. 1705), whose family immigrated to the Qutbshahi
kingdom, composed panegyrics on Muhammad and 'All.^^ i^ Western India, several of the
religious leaders of the Dä'üdi Bohra Tayyibi community, especially the Da'is 'Abd 'Ali Sayf
al-Din (d. 1817) and Tâhir Sayf al-Din (d. 1965),^' were notable poets, and composed poetry
in praise of the Prophet Muhammad, the Imams, and the Dâ'is, elegies for Husayn, and
poetry in communion with God called munäjät. A poem by Tâhir Sayf al-Din titled "The
philosophy of the intellect" (falsafat al-'aql) is an eloquent exposition of the rational human
being's need for divine guidance.
A large number of libraries^^ in India house Arabic (and Persian) works by Indian and
Middle Eastern scholars, including thousands of manuscripts, some very valuable. Some
libraries are affiliated with madrasas and universities, or with shrines of saints (dargäh), and
others are independent, public or private. Some of the most important in North India are the
Rampur Raza Library in Rampur (6,000 Arabic mss), Mawlânâ Äzäd Library, Aligarh
Muslim University, Aligarh (c. 12,000 Persian and Arabic mss), and Kutubkhâna-i Nâsiriyya
(Twelver Shi'ite), Lucknow (c. 30,000 Persian and Arabic mss). Eminent libraries in Western
India are the Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute, Tonk, Jâmi'a Sayñyya Library (Dâ'Ddi
Bohra), Surat, Hadrat Pir Muhammad Shah Dargâh Library, Ahmedabad, and in Mumbai,
the Jâmi' Masjid Library, the Library of Bombay University, and the Tayyibi Dâ'ûdi Bohra
Da'wat library. In Eastern India, important libraries include the Khudâ Bakhsh Oriental
Public Library,^3 Patna, the Library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, and the
Oriental Public Library,^ Bankipore. In South India, three in Hyderabad are notable: the
Sâlâr Jung Museum Library (Twelver Shi'ite), the State Central Library, and the Kutubkhâna-
i-Sa'idiyya. Many smaller libraries also exist, and some that existed through the centuries
of Muslim rule in India have been dismantled or absorbed into other institutions.^^
Several publishing houses take a special interest in publishing editions of Arabic and
Persian texts. ^* The foremost such publisher is the Dâ'irat al-Ma'ârif al-'Uthmäniyya,
Hyderabad-Deccan (founded 1888). Institutions that sponsor publishing houses include the
Institute of Islamic Studies, Muslim University Aligarh, Osmania University, Hyderabad;
Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras,^'' Government of Bihar Institute of
Post-Graduate Studies and Research in Arabic and Persian, Patna; a few are associated with
madrasas, such as the Dâr al-Musannifín (also called Shibli Academy), Azamgarh (founded
1915). Presses of the University of Lucknow, University of Delhi, and Madras University
also publish studies on Arabic works. Two well-known English-language academic journals
60. Khan, The Arabian Poets of Golconda, 121-22.

61. Sayyidna Jâhir Sayf al-Dïn, Diwan: Jawähir al-baiägha al-iadunniyya, 2 vols. (Dubai: Anjuman-i Najmi,
1414 H [1993]).
62. For details about most of the existing libraries named here in the text, see Desai, Centres of Islamic Learn-
ing, 95-125.
63. See Catalogue of the Arabic and Persian Manuscripts in the Khuda Bakhsh Orientai Public Library, 37 vols.
(Patna: The Library, 1970fif.).
64. See Catalogue of the Arabic and Persian Manuscripts in the Oriental Public Library at Bankipore, 34 vols.
(Patna: Superintendent, Govt. Print., Bihar, 1908ff.).
65. See S. A. Zafar Nadvi, "Libraries during the Muslim Rule in India," pt. 1, Islamic Culture 19.4 (1945):
329-47; pt. 2, Islamic Culture 20.1 (1946): 3-20.
66. For details, see Abidi, "Arabic and Persian Studies."
67. See A. Zaibunnisa, ed., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Islamic Manuscripts, pt. 2: "Arabic manuscripts"
(Madras: Government Oriental Manuscript Series, 1995), 10-52.
related to Islamic studies are published in India: Islamic Culture^^ and the Journal of
Islamic History.^^
Original Islamic compositions in Persian are mostly in the Süfí domain. The "malfüzät"
utterances of Sufi masters (shaykhs) recorded by their disciples, comprise a new genre of
Persian mystical literature.^" Although some compilations of Süfí utterances had been made
earlier in other lands, Hasan Sijzi of Delhi gave the genre a definite literary form. His
Fawä'id al-fu'äd, a summary of what he had heard from his master, Nizam al-Din Awliyâ',
inspired masters of many different mystical orders, and a considerable body of malfüzät
literature appeared throughout India. Persian Sufi poetry was also composed by Indians,
including Sûfî savants and Mughal courtiers; some of these have been listed in the section on
liturgy. A smaller (in volume) oral genre, not specifically SOfí, was that of sermons (tadhkir)
delivered in good Persian prose, studded with classical poetry, in the courts of kings as well
as in army camps and bazaars. The fable (dästän) was also a spiritual, moral genre in Persian.
Additionally, some Hindu spiritual works were translated into both Arabic and Persian, such
as the Hathagoya, a work on bodily and spiritual discipline.
Comparing Arabic and Persian Islamic writing in India, Persian works comprised com-
mentaries and translations of Arabic texts, and a copious body of poetic and malfüzät Süfí
texts; religious composition was one of the many parts of the Indian Persian library. Arabic
works, on the other hand, comprised all the above genres, but also contained works on
Hadith, jurisprudence, and theology, as well as religious poetry of a non-Süfí bent. Religious
composition formed the larger part of the Indian Arabic library.
VII. SECULAR-SCHOLARLY USAGES INFLUENCED BY RELIGION

Secular-scholarly and secular-literary uses of Arabic in India that are manifested in the
production and study of non-religious Arabic works are also underpinned by a religious
motivation. The proto-Wahhâbi Damascene theologian Ibn Taymiyya had remarked that "the
Arabic language is not just the communicative medium of Islam; it is also an expression of
the rational, ethical and belief systems which Islam embodies."^' In the perception of Indian
Muslims, since Arabic is the sacred language of the Qur'ân, anything composed in Arabic
is religious, and therefore part of religious learning. Accordingly, non-religious Arabic
learning in India also stems from its religious essence. Arabic scholarship is equated with
Islamic scholarship, and experts in the Arabic language are often the same scholars consid-
ered authorities in religion. As such, both the language and its scholars are regarded with
veneration, and the Arabic literary heritage is deemed to be the Islamic literary heritage.''^
68. Islamic Culture, Hyderabad Deccan, quarterly, 1927ff.; first published by the Nizam's government; from
1948, published by the Islamic Culture Board, Hyderabad, Deccan; from 1997, published by the Academic and Cul-
tural Publications Charitable Trust, Hyderabad; currently edited by Shahid AH Abbasi; articles in English on Islamic
cultural issues, including topics related to Arabic language and literature, by scholars from India and worldwide.
Includes some editions and translations of texts.
69. Journal of Islamic History, Delhi, publication of the Institute of Islamic and Arab Studies, Society of Islamic
History, 1995ff.; papers in English and Arabic on Islamic history, from early Islam to modern times; articles by
contributors from India and outside India, particularly from scholars affiliated with universities in the Middle East.
70. On the Persian malfüzät literature of India, see K. A. Nizâmï, "Malfüzät," EP\ idem, "Historical Significance
of the Malfuz Literature," in his On History and Historians of Medieval India (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal,
1988), 163-97; Ziyauddin Desai, Malfuz Literature as a Source of Political, Social, and Cultural History of Gujarat
and Rajasthan in 15th Century (Patna: Khuda Bakhsh Library, 1991).
71. Ibn Taymiyya, quoted in al-Jundi, al-Fushâ lughat al-Qur'än, 256.
72. See the editorial detailing this aspect in the first issue of the joumal Islamic Culture.
Indian litterateurs explicitly connect their secular Arabic literary efforts to Islam. In his
study of Arabic belles-lettres in India, Ahmad Idris explains that since Arabic scholarship
developed around Islamic studies, authors presented their work as a service for religion, con-
necting the subject of the book with religion in one way or another. ^^ He quotes the following
(somewhat convoluted) remarks by the poet Ahmad al-Rasülpürl in the introduction to his
poetic Diwan, explaining that his (secular) poetry is a religious effort:
It is not concealed that the science of Arabic is aniong the sciences of the Islamic religion, just
as it is not concealed that from the earliest times, the Muslims of India expended effort in the
path of studying the Arabic language and publishing literary data. Why ever not, when between
Islam and knowledge of the Arabic language there is a relationship any person who wishes
knowledge of religion and Shari'a cannot do without.^''
Moreover, it is the religious scholars in India who have produced the (relatively much
smaller) body of non-religious Arabic literature, presumably as part of their religious effort.
Through the centuries, and in addition to their religious compositions, they have continued
to compose Arabic literary works that are not overtly influenced by religion: elegies, pane-
gyrics, and love lyrics (ghazals) in the field of poetry, ^^ and quasi-picaresque novels called
maqämät in the ñeld of prose, such as al-Maqämät al-hindiyya by Abu Bakr b. Muhsin
(d. 1715)^^ and al-Manäqib al-haydariyya (maqämät) by Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Shîwânî.
They have composed innumerable works in Arabic on other subjects, such as medicine,^^
philosophy, and grammar. ^^
Indian Muslims also consider the study of all texts Arabic to be a religious exercise.
Madrasa students pay particular attention to the study of Arabic grammar and rhetoric as
these are vital in deciphering the Islamic scriptures and theological texts. They also read
poetry and bellettrist prose, as this promotes understanding of the literary features of the
Qur'ân and its "miraculous" nature. They particularly favor the collected D'iwän of al-
Mutanabbi and the Hamäsa anthology of Abu Tammäm, and often memorize many or all of
the Maqämät of al-Harîrî. They have also translated Arabic secular works such as the Kallla
wa Dimna into Indian languages, and also into Persian, and written studies on earlier Arabic
belles-lettres in different Indian languages, particularly Urdu.^^ They continue to study
Arabic works on various secular subjects such as philosophy, logic, medicine, mathematics,
and history, considering these to be important for promoting religious understanding, being
part of the Islamic ethos. In his monograph on Indian madrasas, Ziyauddin Desai discusses
the religious orientation of the curriculum, the subjects studied, and the role of Arabic, as
follows:
73. tdrrs, al-Adab al-'arablfl shibh al-qärra al-hindiyya, 15-16.

74. Ibid., 1, my translation.
75. See examples of such poetry in Idris, al-Adab al-'arabifi shibh al-qärra al-hindiyya.
76. See translations of two Indian maqämas in R. Y. Ebeid and M. J. L. Young, "Arabic Literature in India: Two
Maqämät of Abu Baicr al-Hadrami," Studies in Islam 15.1 (1978); 14-20.
77. See, for example, anon., Unpublished Arabic and Persian Books on Graeco-Arab Medicine written in India
from 634/1236 to the end of ¡9th Century (New Delhi: Institute of History of Medicine and Medical Research,
[1969]); M. Azeez Pasha, ed., Union Catalogue of Arabic and Persian Medical Manuscripts in the Libraries of
Hyderabad (Hyderabad, Deccan: Osmania Medical College, 1966).
78. For example, Qâdî Shihâb al-Dîn Dawlatâbî (d. 1445) wrote a commentary on Ibn Hâjib's (d. 1249) Käfiya;
he also composed al-Irshädfl al-nahw, which later became a standard grammar book in Indian madrasas.
79. Some Urdu studies by Indian scholars on Middle Eastern Arabic literature are 'Ali Ahmad Rif'at, 'Arabl
adab (Bhadalpur: Urdu Academy, 1962); Muhammad al-Râbi' al-HasanI al-Nadwi, al-Adab al-'arabi bayna 'ard
wa-naqd (Lucknow: Maktabat Dar al-'UlQm li-Nadwat al-'Ulama', 1965); Ihtisham Ahmad Nadwi, Jadld 'arabi
adab ka irtiqä' (Rai Breli District: Masud-ul-Hasan, 1969).
By the very nature of the curriculum in which religious sciences occupied the prominent
position—the Quran being considered the source and fountain-head of Islamic learning—
Arabic not only formed one of the important subjects of study but in the higher classes even the
prescribed text books on non-religious sciences were in Arabic. Thus, most of the text books in
Quranic Commentary, Tradition, Theology and Islamic Law (Fiqh) as well as on Logic (Mantiq),
Philosophy and similar subjects were in Arabic. This emphasis necessitated the accent to be laid
on the study of Arabic Grammar and Syntax. The Arabic belles-lettres did not occupy that promi-
nent a place; nevertheless, selected books on Arabic literature were taught as part of the
course.^"
Furthermore, the Arabo-Persian nastaHlq or (less commonly) naskh script is used to write
various Indian languages.^' Sometimes it is adopted by the entire language user group, as in
the case of Urdu, Kashmiri (Purik), Pashto, and Sindhi, and at other times by particular user
groups, as in the case of Gujarati (Lisan al-Da'^wat), Tamil (Arwî), Malayalam (Mappila),
Punjabi, Konkani, and Sanskrit, the latter for a short time in the nineteenth century. This
usage has a religious association as well, being confined for the most part to Muslims—in
the case of Urdu to a large extent, and in the case of languages like Tamil and Gujarati almost
exclusively.
The production of Persian non-religious work in India, literary and otherwise, was an
enormous enterprise. Some of the genres that proliferated were works on history, philology,
and lexicography (sixty-six dictionaries produced between the tenth and nineteenth cen-
turies). Persian poetry (panegyric or qasida., and love poetry or ghazal) was a particularly
important part of the cultural landscape, and there were no booksellers in Agra, Delhi, and
Lahore in Mughal times who did not sell anthologies and collections of Persian poetry. With
its expanding territory, Persian writing was gradually Indianized. Much has been written
about the sabk-i hindl (Indian Style) of Persian literature, but the discussion has centered on
rhetorical issues to the exclusion of religious ones. In the late Mughal period, literary salons
formed an integral part of Indian culture. Comparing Persian and Arabic non-religious com-
position in India, the composition and study of secular Arabic works appear to be limited
(relative to the explicitly religious), and linked to religious ends, whereas the composition
and study of Persian works appear to stem mostly from cultural motives.
VIII. MARGINAL NATURE OF NON-RELIGIOUS,

PURELY UTILITARIAN USAGES OF ARABIC
There do exist in India a small number of purely secular, utilitarian usages of Arabic, but
these are so limited in application that we can consider them marginal.
For a brief period from the eighth century forward, Arabic was the spoken language of
a small Arab migrant community called the Nawä'it or Naityas (from the Arabic nüti.
80. Desai, Centres of Islamic Learning, 11. ,

81. For details on the use of the Arabic script to write Indian languages, see Suniti Kumar Chatterji, "Sanskrit in
Perso-Arabic Script: A Side-Light on the Medieval Pronunciation of Sanskrit in Kashmir and Northern India," Indian
Linguistics 1 (1939): 317-40; N. S. Gorekar, "Indian Vernaculars in the Arabico-Persian Script," Indica 2.1 (1965):
35-46; M. M. M. Mahroof, "Arabic-Tamil in South India and Sri Lanka: Language as Mimicry," Islamic Studies
32.1 (1993): 169-89; Stuart McGregor, "The Progress of Hindi," pt. 1: "The Development of a Transregional
Idiom," in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, ed. Sheldon Pollock (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 2003), chap. 16.
meaning mariner). ^^ They settled on the southwestern Malabar or Konkani coast of India in
the areas which today fall south of Mumbai, in the state of Maharashtra, northern Kamataka,
and Goa. These Arab settlers soon became culturally and linguistically assimilated into the
fabric of Indian society without really influencing the use of Arabic in India. For many
generations, they have spoken Daldi, which is a sub-dialect of Konkani, which, in turn, is
a dialect of Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language; they are not more familiar with Arabic than
their neighbors of Aryan and Dravidian descent. The Mappillas of Kerala went the same
route, now speaking Malayalam, as well as the Happais or Labbais of Tamil Nadu, who now
speak Tamil.
From the late twentieth century, another small group gained an interest in learning basic
Arabic for communication purposes, viz., Indians (both Muslim and non-Muslim) who work
in the Arabian Gulf countries.^^ Connected to the Gulf States phenomenon, another some-
what curious usage of Arabic in India is the publication since 1957 of a non-religious Arabic
journal, Thaqäfatu'1-Hind (Indian Culture), by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations
(incidentally, from 1968, the Council has had a Hindu President). The purpose of the journal
is political and economic, to address the growing financial interest of India in the Arab Gulf
States through the promotion of cultural understanding. The cover page of the journal states
that "the objects of the Indian Council, as laid down in its constitution, are to establish, revive
and strengthen cultural relations between India and other countries by means of (1) pro-
moting a wider knowledge and appreciation of their language, literature and art; (2) estab-
lishing close contacts between the universities and cultural institutions; and (3) adopting all
other measures to promote cultural relations." Thaqäfatu 'l-Hind publishes articles on such
diverse topics as Indian Muslim history, Shakespeare, Gandhi, Nasser, and the Hindu scrip-
tures. It has also published several articles on relations between India and the Arab world. ^''
Almost all its articles have been translated by its editors into Arabic from other languages
such as English or Urdu.
In comparison with the marginal use of secular Arabic, non-religious, non-scholarly
usages of Persian were strong from the thirteenth century. As early as the fourteenth cen-
tury. Amir Khusraw remarked that Persian speech and idiom enjoyed uniformity of register
throughout the four thousand parasangs of India. ^^ Particularly during the reign of the em-
peror Akbar, and until the end of Mughal rule (thus from the sixteenth through the nine-
teenth centuries), Persian flourished in mundane and intellectual, cultural and bureaucratic,
milieus almost throughout the entire subcontinent. As the officially sponsored language of
the Mughal court and its administration, Persian was a second language for a large percentage
of Indians living in Mughal India, Hindu and Muslim alike.
82. See details on these groups in Nawab Aziz Jang Bahadur, Tärlkh al-Nawä'it (Hyderabad, Deccan: Villa
Academy, 1902/1976); M. M. Alwaye, "al-Marakiz al-QI5 Ii'1-thaqâfa al-'arabiyya ñ al-hind," Thaqafatu'l-Hind 15.4
(1964): 55-64; R. E. Miller, "Mappilla," EP\ M. Mines, "Labbai," El; I. Poonawala, "Naityas," Efi\ G. Bouchon,
"Quelques aspects de l'islamisation des régions maritimes de l'Inde à l'époque médiévale (XlI-XVIe s.)," Purû-
sârtha 9 (1986): 29-36; Mohammad Koya, "Muslims of Malabar with Special Reference to their Distinctive Char-
acter" (Ph.D. thesis, Calicut Univ., 1988); Wink, Al-Hind, 1: 67-86.
83. Cf. T. Rahman, "The Teaching of Arabic," 158-61.
84. Some of these articles, all published in Thaqafatu 't-Hind, are: Humayun Kabir, "al-'Alâqât al-hindiyya al-
'arabiyya," 19.2 (1968): 57-61; Maqbool Ahmad, "Bimâ-dhâ tadin al-hind li'l-'arab?" 18.2 (1967): 18-26; Tara
Chand, "al-'Aläqät al-hindiyya al-'arabiyya qawiyya mundhu fajr al-islam," 14.4 (1963): l-11; Yahyä al-Khashshâb,
"al-'Älam al-'arabi wa-al-hind," 15.4 (1964): 48-54.
85. Amir Khusraw, "Dibacha-i ghurrat al-kamâl," in Khusraw-näma, a special issue of Majalla-i tahqiqät-i
ßrsi, ed. Sharif Husayn Qâsimi (Delhi: Dept. of Persian, Delhi Univ., 1988), 173.
336 Journal of the Americart Oriental Society f 27.3 (2007)
ARABIC AND PERSIAN USAGES IN INDIA COMPARED
USAGE ARABIC PERSIAN
1. Liturgy Qur'ân recitation. Litanies. Prose prayers. Süfí poetry: Ghazals. Qawwalis.
Religious poetry. Invocations. Süñ dhikr
2. Teaching and Fields of study: Qur'ân exegesis. Hadith. Fields of study: Süfí texts.
Study (maktabs Theology. Süfí texts. Curriculum; Dars-i Poetry. History. Ethics.
and madrasas) Nizâmî, early 18th c. ff.
3. Nomenclature Used by Muslims only. Usually have Used by Parsis and Muslims.
(names and titles) religious association. Names: Literary Association.
Names: Religiously important personages. Titles: Usually linked to
Qur'anic. sovereignty.
Titles: Often in the form " . . . of religion
(dur
4. Inscriptions Qur'ân verses. Usually secular: dates,
(monuments, Islamic creed of faith (shahäda). provenance, etc.
masjids, coins, Some Süfí poetry.
epitaphs, etc.)
5. Vocabulary Much religious (and some secular) words Religious and secular words
(assimilated into incorporated. incorporated.
Indian languages) Religious Arabic phrases interjected into Mark of refinement and
everyday speech and formal prose. learning.
Some Arabic words with general dictionary
meanings have special, religious
connotations.
Mark of refinement and learning. '
Assimilation largely through Persian.
6. Composition of 85% of all Arabic composition religious. Malfüzat. Sufí poetry.
religious works Fields: Theology. Exegesis. Hadith. Translations of Arabic scripture
Jurisprudence. Poetry. Commentaries on and theological works, and
religious texts. Süfí works. commentaries thereupon.
1. Study and Fields of study and composition: Philosophy. Fields of study and composition:
composition of Grammar. Belles-Lettres. Given religious History. Philology.
secular-scholar complexion. Lexicography. Grammar. Poetry.
works Given mostly cultural, some
religious complexion.
8. Utilitarian First language for tiny groups of Arab From 16th c. to 1835, official
settlers in 8th, 9th c. on Malabar coast. language of Mughal admini-
Migrant workers to Gulf States in 20th c. stration, thus most of Indian
leading to interest in study of Arabic as a subcontinent. Language of high
language of communication. culture, spoken and studied by
almost all educated elite.
Overall Primarily Religious Primarily Cultural/
Bureaucratic, Secondarily
Religious (Sufi)
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The Mughal scholar Jamal al-Dîn Injû (d, c. 1686) had placed Persian alongside Arabic
as the language of Islam. ^^ However, unlike the case of Arabic with its broad, multiple, but
almost solely religious usages, the religious significance of Persian in India was mainly
confined to the sphere of Sûfî writings and rituals. Moreover, its limited Islamic identity was
overshadowed by its use as the language of high culture and government administration.
The dichotomy in the Indian usage of Persian and Arabic along the lines of religion vs, cul-
ture/bureaucracy becomes even clearer when it is known that many Mughal litterateurs who
composed in both Arabic and Persian used Arabic for religious writings and Persian for
secular ones. An example is Akbar's court poet Faydi, who wrote his Qur'ân commentary
in Arabic, as mentioned earlier, and his love-epic Nal-Daman in Persian, What is more, the
cultural hegemony of Persian ended definitively with the end of the Mughal Empire in the
nineteenth century, a milestone year in its decline being 1835, when the British replaced it
with English in public administration.
The religious Sufi use of Persian in India had earlier suffered a blow in the late Mughal
period itself, with the reformulation of Sufism.^^ Akbar's (r, 1556-1605) syncretic religious
policies had evoked an orthodox reaction, represented by theologians like 'Abd al-Haqq
Dihlawi (d, 1642), who reintroduced in India an emphasis on the study of Hadith; and
Naqshbandiyya Sufls like Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (d, 1624), who brought Indian Sufism
close to non-Snfi Sunni Islam, The conflict of eclectic and orthodox trends of Mughal culture
is to some extent reflected in the essentially personal trial of strength between Dará Shikoh
and Awrangzeb, resulting in the latter's victory and the establishment of a theocratic regime.
The Awrangzebian de-emphasizing of Süfí Islam was further bolstered when, from the
late eighteenth century onward, parts of the Indian Muslim populace came under the growing
influence of Arabian Wahhâbî salafl thought. Indian scholars such as Sayyid Ahmad Barêlwî
(1786-1831) and Shah Wali Allah traveled to the Hijaz for the Hajj, studied there for a while,
and returned bearing this influence. ^^ The salafls emphasized a return to "pure" (Qur'an-
and Hadith-oriented, Arabic) Islam, and rejected what they perceived as impure accretions.
Among these professed heresies were practices connected with Sufism, Since Sufi scholar-
ship and ritual in India were linked with Persian literature, certain Indian Muslim reformers,
even while using Persian in their own writings, began discouraging the study of Persian as
something alien to Islam, They contrasted it negatively with Arabic, which they venerated
as the language of the Islamic scripture. At the end of his novel Tawbatun Nasüh (A True
Repentance), the Urdu writer Nazir Ahmad (d, 1912) had his protagonist repent of his
worldly ways, this repentance being manifested in his burning of all his Persian books. But
the best example is perhaps that of the influential early eighteenth-century intellectual Shah
Wall Allah, who, after his fourteen-month trip to Arabia, shifted his scholarly focus squarely
to (Arabic) Hadith. Even though a Sûfî master himself, he appears to have become puristic
in this second stage of his life, and he was the inspiration for the formation of the salafi
86, Farhang-i Jahanglri, ed. Rahïm 'Afifi (Mashhad: Mashhad Univ, Press, 1975), 1: 16,
87, Cf, some details in Aziz Ahmad, "Hind: Islamie Culture," EP.
88, The founder of this movement, Muhammad b, 'Abd al-Wahhäb of Najd, lived from 1703-1791, The
Wahhabls became the dominant religious and political force in the Arabian Peninsula around 1746, when the
family of Sa'Od combined their political force with Wahhabi teachings. In 1773, the Principality of Riyadh fell to
the Sa'Dd family, and ushered in the era of the first Saudi state, establishing Wahhabism as the strongest religio-
political force in the Arabic Peninsula, For details, see Ayman al-Yassini, "Wahhabiyah," in The Oxford Encyclo-
pedia of the Modern Islamic World, ed, John Esposito (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995), 4: 307-8.
Deobandh school (his son's students were among its founders).^^ In his Luminous Essay
{al-Maqala al-wadiyya), he writes the following strong words:^"
Arab lineage and the Arabic language—both, for us, are sources of pride, because they bring us
closer to the best of prophets and apostles . . . Thanks may be rendered to God for this great favor
by not abandoning the customs and traditions of the first Arabs, who were the [forefathers of the
Prophet]. . . .
Among us [Indians], he is fortunate who cultivates an association with the Arabic language,
[its] morphology, syntax, and works of literature; who obtains an understanding of the Hadith
and the Qur'än. As for Persian and Indian language works . . . reading them is error upon
error . . . [At the very least], one should realize that what they contain is worldly knowledge. . . .
The difference in the relative perceptions of Arabic and Persian in the nineteenth cen-
tury—the first through the lens of scriptural religion, the second through the combined lens
of Süfí Islam and Mughal high culture/administration—is the main reason why, after the end
of the Mughal period, Persian almost disappeared in South Asia, even as a classical lan-
guage of learning, while Arabic maintained its position.
89. Paradoxically, Shah Wall Allah was also the inspiration for the founding of Aligarh Muslim University by
the secular reformists.
90. Shah Walî Allah, "Al-Maqala al-wadiyya fl al-nasiha wa al-wasiyya," in Majmü'a-ye wasäyä arab'a, ed.
Muhammad Ayyüb Qâdirî (Hyderabad Sind: Shah Wall Allah Academy, 1964), 51, 53; Urdu translation, 81, 83-84.
The work—ironically—is in Persian. On his life and works, see Marcia Hermansen, "Wall Allah, Shah," in Oxford
Encyclopedia of the Modem Islamic World, 4: 311-12.

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Arabic in India:

A Survey and Classification

Journal of the American Oriental Society 127.3 (2007) 315

I. LITURGY: QUR'ÄN, RITUAL PRAYER {SALAH),

10. "Indian Languages" (retrieved July 15, 2003, from http://www.indianchild.com/indian_languages.htm).

Chanting of Arabic religious poetry is customary in private or public gatherings, and at

II. TEACHING OF ARABIC AS A LANGUAGE OE RELIGION

16. See Kaur, Madrasa Education, 253.

non-denominational universities,^'' This phenomenon is less significant from a sacred lan-

III. ARABIC ISLAMIC NOMENCLATURE

IV. ARABIC INSCRIPTIONS OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE:

Indian Muslim rulers utilized Arabic to inscribe religious texts—particularly Qur'an

V. ARABIC RELIGIOUS VOCABULARY INCORPORATED AND

VI. COMPOSITION OF RELIGIOUS WORKS IN ARABIG AND OF WORKS

60. Khan, The Arabian Poets of Golconda, 121-22.

VII. SECULAR-SCHOLARLY USAGES INFLUENCED BY RELIGION

73. tdrrs, al-Adab al-'arablfl shibh al-qärra al-hindiyya, 15-16.

VIII. MARGINAL NATURE OF NON-RELIGIOUS,

80. Desai, Centres of Islamic Learning, 11. ,

ARABIC AND PERSIAN USAGES IN INDIA COMPARED

USAGE ARABIC PERSIAN

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