ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA 4641
ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA
One in three Muslims today is of South Asian origin. With
a Muslim population of over 300 million, South Asia (India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh) is home to the largest concentration
of Muslims in the world. The significance of the regions vast
and diverse Muslim communities extends far beyond the
present-day political boundaries of South Asia. Over the cen-
turies, Muslims from the region have also emigrated, mostly
for economic reasons, to other parts of the world such as
Southeast Asia, East and South Africa, the Gulf states, Fiji,
and the Caribbean. In more recent decades, Muslims of
South Asian origin have come to constitute a substantial pro-
portion of immigrant populations in Europe, the United
Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
Notwithstanding their impressive numerical strength,
South Asias Muslims are a minority when considered within
the context of the subcontinents total population. Aware-
ness of this minority status has been an influential factor af-
fecting their history, particularly in contemporary times. In
the early decades of the twentieth century, the rise of nation-
alist movements to free India from British colonial rule was
marked by a growing anxiety among some Muslim intellec-
tuals and leaders about the status of Muslim minorities in
an independent postcolonial India ruled by a Hindu majori-
ty. Many feared that Muslims would not be able to practice
their faith and nurture their cultural traditions freely in a na-
tion governed by a non-Muslim majority. As prominent
Hindu and Muslim leaders began to conceptualize their re-
spective communities as constituting two separate nations,
demands increased for the partition of the subcontinent and
the creation of two states, India and Pakistan. The birth of
Pakistan in 1947, an independent nation-state in which
Muslims would form a majority, marked the first time in
modern history that a nation-state was founded to protect
a religious community.
Indo-Muslim civilization, contrary to the discourse of
some contemporary politicians and religious leaders, has not
been exclusively Muslim; adherents of other faiths as well
have played an important role in its formation and have been
deeply affected by it. In premodern India, for instance, Hin-
dus were well represented in the imperial bureaucracy of
Muslim rulers, holding coveted positions at courts such as
chief secretary, chief minister, treasurer, and commander of
the royal armies. Muslim royal patronage of Hindu poets,
writers, musicians, and artists was also quite common. At
present, Hindus and Sikhs in some parts of India still visit
the shrines of Muslim holy men in the hope of receiving spir-
itual blessing. During worship, they may sing devotional
songs composed by Muslim mystics. In a more secular con-
text, they attend poetry recitals where audiences enjoy listen-
ing to the ghazal, a form of Arabo-Persian mystical poetry
that enjoys widespread popularity all over the subcontinent.
The participation of non-Muslims in many aspects of Mus-
lim culture demonstrates that in South Asia peoples of differ-
ent religious affiliations could and did come together in pro-
found ways.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
THE EMERGENCE OF MUSLIM COMMUNITIES IN SOUTH ASIA
AND THE PROBLEM OF CONVERSION. The earliest Muslim
presence in the subcontinent can be traced to immigrants
who came to earn a living, to conquer, to teach religion, and
to seek refuge. According to tradition, the first Muslim im-
migrants were Arab traders who, as early as the eighth centu-
ry, settled in many of the seaports along the western and
southern coasts of India. Later, the descendants of these mer-
chant communities moved to major cities inland as well as
farther south to Sri Lanka. In 711 a small Arab expedition,
under the command of the seventeen-year-old general
Muh: ammad ibn Qasim, was sent to the Arabian Sea to sub-
jugate pirates who had been pillaging Arab trading ships. The
expedition conquered parts of Sind (southern Pakistan) and,
with the assistance of local allies, founded a state that sur-
vived for nearly three centuries. These early Arab mercantile
and political connections laid the basis for the strong affinity
of later Muslim communities in southern and southwestern
India with the Arab world and Arabian culture. In contrast,
in other regions of the subcontinent, especially the north and
northwest, the first contacts with Muslims were through var-
ious Central Asian tribes and clans, mostly consisting of
Turks who had been culturally Persianized. As a result of
political turmoil in Central Asia and Afghanistan in the tenth
century, groups of Turks and Afghans crossed the Himalayas
and entered India from the northwest. Initially, these groups
seem to have been interested in acquiring booty rather than
settling in the region. Over the next several centuries, howev-
er, they established kingdoms in North India, Bengal, the
Deccan, and western India. The most famous of these Cen-
tral Asian dynasties were the Mughals, founded in 1526 by
the Emperor Babur. With the strong support of local Hindu
allies such as the Rajputs, the Mughals were eventually able
to consolidate control over a vast portion of India, creating
an empire under whose auspices there was a veritable renais-
sance in Indo-Muslim literature, art, and architecture.
The establishment of sultanates and empires led to an
influx of a variety of classes of individuals. Some sought ad-
ministrative positions in the newly established states, while
others looked for appointments to legal positions such that
of qad: (judge). Poets and artists also flocked to the sub-
continent from Central Asia and Iran in search of royal pa-
tronage, especially after they experienced difficulties in secur-
ing patronage in their homelands. Religious scholars
( Eulama D) and preachers, both Sunn and Sh E , as well as
S: uf shaykhs and their disciples, were also attracted to the
new land.
While immigrant Muslims and their descendants played
a significant role in the development of the Islamic tradition
in the region, historically they constituted only a small frac-
tion of the entire Muslim population. The vast majority of
Muslims in South Asia are clearly of indigenous origin, al-
though some, for reasons of social prestige, may still claim
Arab or Persian descent. Unfortunately, the processes by
which they became Muslim are not well understood. Colo-
4642 ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA
nial, religious, nationalist, and communitarian agendas have
so influenced perspectives on this subject that, as British his-
torian Peter Hardy comments, to attempt to penetrate the
field of the study of the growth of Muslim populations in
South Asia is to attempt to penetrate a political minefield
(Hardy, 1979, p. 70). Traditionally, various theories have
been advanced: that people converted under duress at the
point of the sword, or to acquire political and economic pa-
tronage, or to escape the evils of the Indian caste system. Var-
ious S: ufs have also been regarded as missionaries who
were responsible for the peaceful spread of Islam through
their charismatic personalities, the miracles they performed,
and the religious folk songs and poems they composed.
Recent scholarship has raised important questions on
the issue of conversion to Islam. All the theories mentioned
above have been criticized for either being flawed or being
inadequately supported by convincing historical or sociologi-
cal evidence. In addition, scholars have disagreed about the
processes involved. For instance, Carl Ernst in Eternal Gar-
den: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Cen-
ter (1992) questions the idea that S: uf folk poetry was explic-
itly composed to convert people to Islam, observing that
some of these compositions are so heavily laden with Islamic
material that it is difficult to imagine them as devices to im-
part knowledge of Islam to non-Muslims (pp. 166168).
He argues that the verses could only have been directed at
an audience already familiar with the Islamic tradition. On
the other hand, Richard Eaton, in Sufis of Bijapur, 1300
1700 (1978), contends that the authors of Dakkani folk
songs, whose lyrics contained Islamic teachings, primarily
desired to secure for themselves the role of mediators or in-
termediaries between God and the people (Muslim and non-
Muslim) who recited these songs. If, he writes, in the process
of singing these songs local populations became familiar with
or acculturated to popular forms of Islamic practice, the phe-
nomenon should not be construed as conversion in the
sense of a self-conscious turning around in religious convic-
tion and belief. Nor should the authors be considered mis-
sionaries or self-conscious propagators, even though this is
the general context in which S: ufs tend to be viewed
(pp. 172173).
Complicating the discussion of why and how so many
South Asians became Muslim is the inadequacy of the term
conversion itself. In his book The Rise of Islam and the Bengal
Frontier, 12041760 (1993), Richard Eaton correctly points
out that the notion of conversion, with its presumption of
conscious intentionality and individual choice regarding reli-
gious belief, is derived from a Protestant missionary model,
and has been projected unconsciously on the historical con-
text of premodern South Asia. As he convincingly demon-
strates, the diffusion of Islamic ideas in premodern Bengal
took place at a mass level and was as much associated with
the clearing of forests and the spread of agrarian civilization
as with changes in doctrine and practice. The inadequacy of
the term conversion is further apparent when we observe
that, in many regions of South Asia, Islamic beliefs were
often expressed in ways that did not totally reject the concep-
tual and social framework of indigenous cultures. Intrinsic
to this approach was the acceptance of both indigenous be-
liefs and newer Islamic ones in an integrated manner. If an
individual retained previous beliefs and practices and saw
continuities between the old and the new, could this process
be called conversion, a term that usually implies complete
abandonment of the old in favor of the new? Given that the
religious identity of a community is fluid, is it more appro-
priate to view the process as one of acculturation, rather than
conversion, involving not a sudden act but rather a slow and
gradual process, perhaps over several generations, during
which adherents respond to changing contexts? Obviously,
these and many other unanswered questions concerning the
evolution of Muslim communities in South Asia will require
a great deal more research before we have satisfactory expla-
nations. In view of the historical, social, and cultural com-
plexities involved, what is clear is that a mono-dimensional
approach that limits explanations to a single factor is far too
simplistic to explain why so many South Asians today identi-
fy themselves as Muslim.
DIVERSITY OF TRADITIONS. Much contemporary political,
religious, and academic discourse on the Islamic tradition in
South Asia is dominated by the conception that Muslims of
South Asia form a single homogeneous Muslim community.
Typically in such discourses, the political fortunes of the
great Turko-Persian Muslim dynasties, such as the Mughals,
and the experiences of North Indian Persian- and Urdu-
speaking Muslim elite communities, have come to be the
only lenses through which Muslim experiences throughout
the subcontinent are perceived. Historically, the concept of
a single undifferentiated Muslim community is a relatively
recent development and its emergence is clearly a result of
the religiously based idiom of British colonial rule, the
growth of religious nationalism, and the politics of electoral
representation. Thus, the demand for the creation of Paki-
stan and its underlying premise of Muslims comprising a sin-
gle unified nation should not mislead us into thinking that
common religion (Islam) has always been a strong unifying
bond among diverse Muslim groups in South Asia.
Historically, socioeconomic status, class, caste, ethnici-
ty, and sectarian affiliation have been far more significant
identity-markers among South Asian communities, Muslim
and non-Muslim alike, than religious affiliation. Indeed
Muslims in South Asia are characterized by a rich diversity
that mirrors the diversity of the subcontinent itself. This di-
versity stems, on the one hand, from the different ethnic and
linguistic groups to which they belong. It is a cultural diversi-
ty that is reflected, for example, in the many Indic languages
and literary genres used in Muslim devotional literatures, in
musical genres such as the qawwal that are rooted in North
Indian musical traditions, and in the mosques that incorpo-
rate local traditions of design. Diversity may also be theologi-
cal, stemming from the many ways Muslims understand and
interpret their faith. Even within overarching categories,
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

such as Sunn, Sh Eah, or S: uf, there exist several subgroups ing Persian as the official language of administration, as well
and divisions with significant differences. A Sunn may be
Deobandi or a Brelvi; a Sh Eah may be IthnaEashar
(Twelver) or IsmaE l, either Nizar or MustaEl (Bohra); a Richard Eaton has aptly termed South Asias central Perso-
S: uf may belong to one of the major orders such as the
Chishtyah or Naqshbandyah, or not belong to an order at
all. In this way, the Islamic tradition in South Asia is com-
prised of multiple communities of interpretation. Each com-
munity has its particular way of conceiving Islam. Each is
shaped by its specific sociopolitical and cultural context in
the way it understands universally held Islamic beliefs, such
as the belief that the QurDan is the embodiment of divine rev-
elation or that the Prophet Muh: ammad is Gods final mes-
senger.
The plurality of traditions that characterizes Islam in
South Asia can best be explored within a framework that
takes into account the role of both cultural and doctrinal/
theological elements in creating competing definitions of
what is considered Islamic and non-Islamic. Historically,
the relationship between culture and religious doctrine
among Muslim communities has been such that in many
cases, as we shall see below, cultural and religious identities
are conflated. Frequently, socioeconomic factors such as class
and caste have played a significant role in this interaction.
DEFINING ISLAM: THE ROLE OF CULTURE. Several studies
of the Islamic tradition in South Asia have remarked on a
dichotomy within the tradition between two contradictory
facets. Frequently at odds which each other, the two facets
or strands represent radically different perspectives on what
it means to be a Muslim in the South Asian environment.
One facet looks to what are perceived to be universal norms
observed in the worldwide Muslim community, particularly
those represented by Arabo-Persian culture, for guidance and
inspiration. The other facet seeks to acculturate and root the
practice of Islam within the many local cultures of the sub-
continent. The dynamic interaction between these two fac-
ets, manifest in the thoughts and attitudes of Muslim think-
ers, statesmen, poets, and artists through the centuries,
provides a useful lens through which to view the complex in-
teraction between culture and religion in the determining of
identity.
The first facet, under the influence of a strictly legalistic
interpretation of Islam based on the classic traditions of
shar Eah and religious jurisprudence, appealed to Arabian
and Persian traditions to determine the religious and cultural
norms and mores for Muslim communities in South Asia.
On account of its extraterritorial ethos and legalistic outlook,
Annemarie Schimmel, the renowned scholar of South Asian
Islam, has characterized this facet as being Mecca-oriented
or prophetic. Historically, this facet was associated mostly
with the ruling and intellectual elite, often referred to as the
ashraf (nobility). In northern India, the ashraf were Per-
sianized Turks and Iranians who had come to South Asia
from Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran as soldiers, rulers,
traders, religious scholars, artists, poets, and refugees. Favor-
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA 4643
as of literary culture, they lived mostly in or near an axis
stretching from Lahore to Delhi to the Deccan, an axis that
Islamic axis. They also participated in an extensive transna-
tional and cosmopolitan nexus of Turko-Persianate culture
that, at least until the eighteenth century, connected them
with the elites of Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, and even
the Ottoman Empire. Beyond the Perso-Islamic axis, we
find, along the western and southwestern coasts of India, a
more Arab-centered tradition with closer historical and cul-
tural links to Arabia. Among Muslims communities, such as
the Mappil: l: as of Kerala, the category of ashraf included say-
yids, those who claimed descent from the Prophet
Muh: ammad, as well as populations of Arab origin whose an-
cestors had come to the regions as traders and merchants at
least as early as the eighth century, making them some of the
first Muslim immigrants to South Asia.
Conscious of their privileged status, as well as their eth-
nic and cultural difference from the subcontinents indige-
nous populations, the ashraf were anxious to prevent their
religious and cultural identity from being absorbed and over-
whelmed by an environment they considered to be alien and
antithetical to their values. In their desire to maintain the pu-
rity of their identity, they disparaged and rejected all Indian
cultural manifestationsfrom Indian languages, which they
considered unworthy of recording any Islamic literature, to
indigenous Indian Muslims, whom they contemptuously
called the ajlaf (mean, ignoble wretches). Al-Baran (d. c.
1360), a medieval historian, refers, in his chronicle Fatawa
Jahandar, to local converts as pigs, boars, and dogs who
ought not to be given too much education lest it bring
honor to their mean souls. Even today, it is hardly surpris-
ing that many South Asian families continue to assert their
superior social status by proudly claiming a Central Asian,
Iranian, or Arab ancestry and refusing to marry Muslims
with indigenous family roots, even though the ashraf have
lost effective political power.
To preserve and protect their religio-cultural identity
from encroachment by idolatrous Indian customs and be-
liefs, the ashraf cultivated a strong extraterritorial ethos, one
that appealed to the Islamic heartlands as a source of cultural
and religious norms and mores. We can discern this extrater-
ritorial ethos in the works of many of the subcontinents in-
fluential Muslim thinkers, scholars, and theologians. Thus,
the fourteenth-century Suhrawardi S: uf Makhdum-i
Jahaniyan Jahangasht (d. 1385) insisted that his followers use
Arabic terms such as Allah to refer to God, rather than Indic
vernacular terms (such as niranjan, the one without attri-
butes). Similar sentiments were echoed several centuries
later by Shah Wal Allah (17031762), one of the great re-
formers of South Asian Islam, who writes in his treatise Taf-
himat al-ilahiyya: We are an Arab people whose fathers have
fallen into exile in the country of Hindustan; Arab genealogy
and the Arabic language are our pride (vol. 2, p. 246). He
4644 ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA
further demanded that the Muslims of India substitute the
customs of the Arabs for the foreign customs they had adopt-
ed. These foreign customs, he felt, were not compatible with
their Islamic identity. The twentieth-century poet-
philosopher Muh: ammad Iqbal (18771938) also reflects
this ethos in his Urdu work, Bang-i dara, in which he sees
himself as a bell around the neck of the lead camel in the car-
avan of the Prophet Muh: ammad, calling the Muslim com-
munity of India to return to its true homeland in Mecca. The
conflation of an Islamic identity with Arabo-Persian culture
is also apparent in the emergence of such linguistic forms as
Arwi, a form of Tamil that is heavily influenced by Arabic.
Intensely at odds with this extraterritorial Arabo-Persian
facet is an assimilative and adaptationist aspect that may be
described as being local, or South Asiafocused, as well as
more mystically oriented. Representatives of this strand gen-
erally espoused an esoteric or mystical vision of Islam in
which external manifestations of culture, such as language,
were not seen as fundamental to being Muslim. Consequent-
ly, they not only were more open to, and tolerant of, the
South Asian cultural milieu, they also actively fostered inter-
pretations of Islam that could be more readily understood
within the contexts of indigenous religion and culture.
The shaykhs of the Chisht S: uf order, for instance, ac-
tively promoted the creation of devotional poetry on Islamic
mystical themes in local languages. In its ethos, expressions,
and similes, this poetry is strikingly similar to Hindu bhakti
(devotional) poetry. Beyond developing a common poetical
language, some S: ufs also adapted the Indian disciplines of
Yoga and meditation to practices inherited from the classical
Arabo-Persian S: uf tradition. In an identical spirit, the au-
thors of the extensive puth religious literature from medieval
Bengal attempted to incorporate various figures of Hindu
mythology, particularly Kr: s: n: a (Krishna), an avatara of the
Hindu deity Vis: n: u (Vishnu), into the historical line of
prophets that ends with the Prophet Muh: ammad. In Tamil
Nadu, Muslim authors such as Umaru Pulavar (d. 1703),
used the genre of the purana, conventionally employed to re-
count the deeds of various Hindu deities, to narrate in poetic
form the biography of the Prophet Muh: ammad, using tradi-
tional Tamil literary conventions and customs to create a dis-
tinctively Tamil flavor. In Sind and Punjab, S: uf poets ap-
propriated to an Islamic context the theme of viraha (love-in-
separation) and the symbol of the virahin (the woman
longing for her beloved), both associated in the Hindu devo-
tional traditions with the longing of the gops (cow-maids),
particularly Radha, for the deity Kr: s: n: a. Following the con-
ventions of Indic devotional poetry, these S: uf poets repre-
sented the human soul as a longing wife, or bride, pining for
her beloved husband or bridegroom, who may be God, the
Prophet Muh: ammad, or the S: uf shaykh.
Although such localized or acculturated understandings
of Islam have frequently been characterized as syncretistic,
mixed, or heterodox, they are perhaps better understood as
attempts to translate universal Islamic teachings within
local contexts. The validity of approaching vernacular
Muslim poetry through the lens of translation theory, as
articulated by Tony Stewart (2001), is confirmed by the fact
that communities who recite and sing vernacular religious
poems frequently regard them as texts that encapsulate the
teachings of the Arabic QurDan. For instance, Sindhi-
speaking Muslims in southern Pakistan consider Shah
EAbdul Lat: fs poetic masterpiece in the Sindhi language, the
Risalo, to be a revered book that contains within it the es-
sence of the spiritual teachings of the QurDan. Through his
exegetical remarks on dramatic moments and events in pop-
ular Sindhi folk romances, Shah EAbdul Lat: f is perceived to
be conveying in the Sindhi vernacular QurDanic ideas on the
spiritual significance of the human situation. In the Punjab,
poems attributed to Punjabi S: uf poets such as Bullhe Shah
(d. 1754) and Varis: Shah are also commonly regarded as
spiritual commentaries on QurDanic verses, particularly those
associated with Sufism or Islamic mysticism. Similarly, the
ginans of the Khoja IsmaE l communities of western India
and Pakistan, composed in various vernacular languages such
as Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, and Sindhi and embodying the
teaching of IsmaE l preacher-saints, have also been regarded
as secondary texts embodying the inner signification of the
QurDan.
Of the two facets, the prophetic and Mecca-oriented
and the mystical and South Asiacentered, it is the latter,
by advocating that there was no contradiction between being
a Muslim and fully embracing indigenous cultures, that has
always stressed the common cultural links that South Asian
Muslims share with their non-Muslim compatriots. With
their contradictory attitudes toward the South Asian milieu
and differing definitions of what constitutes an Islamic iden-
tity in a predominantly non-Muslim environment, it was in-
evitable that representatives of the two strands would come
into conflict with one another. Indeed, one approach to in-
terpreting the history of Islam in South Asia is through an
analysis of the constant interplay and interaction of these two
facets.
SUNNI ISLAM. The vast majority of Muslims in South Asia
are Sunn, relying on Sunn Eulama D, or religious scholars,
for guidance on matters of faith. Generally speaking, the
ShafiE school of jurisprudence prevails among Sunn com-
munities in southern and southwestern India and Sri Lanka,
whereas the Hanaf school is widespread elsewhere in the
subcontinent. Little is known of the coming of Sunn
Eulama D to the early Muslim settlements established by Arab
traders on the southwest coast of India. Although the six-
teenth-century Malayali author Zayn al-Dn al-MaEbar sug-
gests in his Tuh: fat al-mujahidn (Gift of the holy warriors)
that preachers from Arabia founded the first mosques in Ker-
ala, he does not indicate specific dates. In 1342 the Moroc-
can Arab traveler Ibn Bat: t: ut: ah found in the region mosques
and qad: s of the ShafiE school of law being supported by
Muslim seamen and merchants. There are several indications
that Sunn Eulama D were already established in northern
India in the eleventh and twelfth centuries: the presence of
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

the scholar-S: uf Shaykh EAl al-Hujwr in Lahore, where he ing to the particular Eulama D group they follow: the Deo-
died between 1072 and 1077; the travels of Fakhr al-Dn
al-Raz (11491209), the theologian and exegete, in the
Punjab; and the praise heaped by Muslim historians on vari-
ous rulers for establishing mosques and encouraging scholars
to move to India. The Mongol devastation of cities in the
Middle East and Central Asia in the mid-thirteenth century
triggered a further migration of Sunn scholars to India,
making easier the task of appointing qad: s for the growing
number of Muslim-ruled states in northern India. This new
influx may partially explain why the Hanaf school of law
supplanted the ShafiE school as the dominant Sunn rite in
northern India.
During the earlier periods of Muslim history in North
India, the teaching centers of Sunn Eulama D appear to have
been informal schools attached to mosques rather than sepa-
rate madrasahs, or religious colleges. The same can be said
of Bengal, where inscriptions from the thirteenth to the fif-
teenth centuries also refer to madrasahs being attached to
mosques. Although the first independent madrasah was es-
tablished in 1472 at the city of Bidar in the Bahmanid state
in the Deccan by the Persian minister Mah: mud Gawan, it
is only in the eighteenth century that institutions such as the
Farang Mahal in Lucknow and the Madrasa-i Rah: miyya
in Delhi began to enjoy widespread fame as centers of Sunn
scholarship. The Farang Mahal developed into a leading re-
ligious college after it received substantial financial support
in 1691 from the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (d. 1707). Its
curriculum, the dars-i Niz: am, heavily emphasized theology
and philosophy as opposed to colleges in Delhi, such the Ma-
drasa-i Rah: miyya, founded by Shah Wal Allahs father shaykhs, many took pride in claiming an ancestry outside
Shah EAbd ar-Rah: m, which were repositories of h: adth
studies. The nineteenth century was the age of the madrasah
in South Asia, because Sunn Eulama D responded to British
colonialism and the spread of Western-style education by set-
ting up a network of colleges to provide an alternative Islamic
education to Muslim youth. Most significant among these
was the Dar ul-EUlum at Deoband, created to train Eulama D
who could promote and uphold correct Islamic belief and
practice within Muslim communities. A bastion of Sunn
learning to this day, Deoband continues to attract students
from all over the world. Historically, it had a network of affil-
iate branches established at places such as Muradabad, Saha-
ranpur, and Darbhanga. Later, colleges founded in such
widely separated centers as Madras, Peshawar, and Chitta-
gong regarded themselves at Deobandi. An alternative cur-
riculum to that of Deoband was offered at Nadwat
al-EulamaD, founded in Lucknow by Shibl NuEman equal of scholars fluent in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu.
(d. 1914), allowing its students to combine traditional Islam-
ic subjects with secular Western subjects, including En-
glish. However, this institution was not successful in meeting
its educational goals, for its curriculum soon reverted to the
traditional dars-i Niz: am model.
Sunn Islam in South Asia has evolved into several
strands so that Sunn Muslims are often categorized accord-
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA 4645
bandis uphold the interpretation of the four classical schools
of Sunn jurisprudence, developed in the late ninth and
tenth centuries, as constituting orthodox Islam; the Barelws
are more accepting of popular practices, such as visiting
tomb shrines, and other S: uf rituals that the Deobandis
would disapprove of; the Ahl-i H: adth, particularly strong
in certain regions of Pakistan, are more right wing and puri-
tanical in their interpretation, which is strongly influenced
by the Wahhabs.
The Sunn Eulama D obtained material support from a
variety of sources. All Muslim rulers in South Asia appointed
qad: s, royal tutors, khat:bs (mosque preachers), and imams
(mosque prayer leaders) and paid them in cash or by income
from tax exempt land. Others received income from waqfs,
or endowments. EUlama D who did not enter service (for
which they were often more respected) relied on gifts from
the faithful, fees in money or kind for private tuition, or in-
come from cultivation or trade, though this latter case was
uncommon. Sometimes a noted scholar would accept a royal
pension or subvention from a government official, without
the obligation to perform a public function. The Eulama D of
the Dar ul-EUlum at Deoband broke new ground under Brit-
ish rule: they opened subscription lists and drew voluntary
contributions from Muslims at all social levels, though chief-
ly from the well-to-do.
The social status of the Eulama D was high. Indeed, at all
times, though not at all places, a good proportion of them
belonged to families with a history of being appointed to
prominent political and religious positions. As sayyids and
South Asia, reaching back to seventh- or eighth-century Ara-
bia. Some openly despised Muslims with indigenous roots.
To maintain their social status, Eulama D married within ex-
tended families, or at least within the elite circles of the
ashraf. Sometimes the pursuit of a recognized course of study
according to recognized methods could enable a Muslim
from a lower social class or even a convert to gain acceptance
among the general body of the Eulama D. Such social mobility
is more fully documented in modern than in medieval times:
for example, the family of Sayyid H: usayn Ah: mad Madan
of Deoband was thought to have been weavers; Mawlana
EUbayd Allah Sindh, also a prominent Deobandi Ealm, was
born a Sikh. Of course, the high status of an Ealm might
have very local recognition: the rural mulla and maulaw in
many parts of South Asia is often not learned in Arabic and
would not be recognized outside his neighborhood as an
SHIEI ISLAM. Sh E communities, of both IsmaE l and
IthnaEashar (Twelver) varieties, are a minority comprising
approximately ten percent of the total Muslim population
in South Asia. It is not, however, unusual to find them con-
centrated within certain urban neighborhoods and cities,
thus forming local majorities. Although reverence for the
family of the Prophet Muh: ammad has been strong in South
4646 ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA
Asia, the public articulation of a Sh E identity waited on fa-
vorable political and social developments, both in the larger
Muslim world as well as in parts of South Asia.
IsmaE l communities. The earliest Sh E communities
in South Asia were IsmaE l. Regarded as subversive by the
Abbasids of Baghdad and by Sunn warlords who took effec-
tive control of the eastern Muslim world by the middle of
the ninth century CE, IsmaE ls nevertheless managed in the
tenth century to establish strongholds in Sind, the area
around Multan, as well as Gujarat. There is evidence that the
IsmaE l dynasty that ruled Sind during this period had con-
nections with the Fatimids in Egypt, a dynasty that claimed
the Sh E imamate and caliphate on the basis of its direct de-
scent from the Prophet. Judging by information from histor-
ical chronicles, these early IsmaE l communities were perse-
cuted by Turko-Persian Sunn warlords who began to invade
South Asia from the tenth century onwards. In 1094 the
IsmaE ls split into two branches, the MustaEls and the
Nizars, over the issue of succession to the Fatimid imamate.
In South Asia, the MustaEls are popularly known as the
Bohras, a term probably derived from the Gujarati vohora
(trader), while the Nizars are often called Khojas, from the
Persian khwaja (lord, master), or Aga Khanis, based on the
fact that they follow the guidance of the Aga Khan, a honor-
ific title used by their living imams. Both IsmaE l communi-
ties, concentrated mostly in Gujarat and Sind as well as in
some of the major urban centers of South Asia, have been
heavily involved in trade, commerce, and the professions.
Bohra communities were probably in existence in Guja-
rat by the middle of the twelfth century and certainly before
the conquest of Gujarat by the Delhi sultan that began in
1299. Their origins can be traced to a series of preachers who
came to the region from Yemen, an important center of
MustaEl history. Because Bohras believe that their imam is
in occlusion, the affairs of the community are run by his rep-
resentative, the da E mut:laq, who controls all activities of the
community. He is assisted by shaykhs, mullas, and Eamils
(agents) who are, however, only executive functionaries
and do not participate in the formulation of doctrine and
principles of right conduct. For several centuries, the head-
quarters of the da E mut:laq was in Yemen. In the sixteenth
century, however, as a result of a major dispute over the issue
of succession to the office of da E mut:laq, the Bohras split
into two factions: the Sulaiman and the DaDud. The former
owe allegiance to a da E still based in Yemen, whereas the lat-
ter pledge loyalty to a da E , often called syedna (our mas-
ter), whose headquarter is in Mumbai.
The history of Khoja communities can be traced at least
to the eleventh and twelfth centuries when, according to tra-
dition, Nizar IsmaE l imams, then resident in Iran, sent appointed to positions of great influence while her niece,
da E s to Punjab, Sind, Gujarat, and possibly Rajasthan, to
preach the IsmaE l faith. Also known as prs, these preacher-
saints composed ginans, hymn-like songs in various vernacu-
lar languages through which they elaborated a highly devo-
tional and mystical understanding of the Sh E concept of
imam. Particularly interesting was the attempt to explain the
concept of the imam within the framework of Vaisnavite
Hindu thought. The ginans continue to be the mainstay of
Khoja devotional life today. In the 1840s the living imam of
the Nizars, H: asan EAl Shah, Aga Khan I, moved from Iran
to India and asserted his leadership over the Khoja commu-
nity. This resulted in some schisms among the Khojas, but
the majority continued to pledge their allegiance to the Aga
Khan and, after him, his descendants who, as living Sh E
imams, have absolute power of decision over belief and prac-
tice. Sultan Muh: ammad Shah, Aga Khan III (d. 1957), uti-
lized this authority to institute a wide range of religious and
social reforms, some of which, such as abolishing the veil and
promoting female education, were aimed at improving the
status of IsmaE l women. His successor, Karm Al-H: usaini,
Aga Khan IV, has continued the transformation of the com-
munity in South Asia by making it part of a transnational
network of social, economic, and educational institutions
that links it with Nizar IsmaE l communities in other parts
of the world. Known as the Aga Khan Development Net-
work, it seeks to improve the standard of living of IsmaE l
and non-IsmaE l communities in the countries in which it
operates.
Twelver or IthnaEashar communities. Unlike Isma-
E l Shiism, Twelver Shiism in South Asia has often enjoyed
official patronage by certain rulers and states. In the fifteenth
century, following a substantial migration of Twelver Sh Eahs
from Iran to the court of the Bahmanid Sultanate in the Dec-
can, the Bahmani sultan Ah: mad I (14221436) declared
himself to be Sh E , though the dynastys public position
continued to be ambiguous. Of the successor states to the
Bahmanis, Bijapur supported the Twelver Sh E position
from 1510 to 1534 and again between 1558 and 1580;
Golkondas Qut: b Shahi dynasty was Sh E from its founda-
tion under Qul Qut: b al-Mulk (14961543); and the king-
dom of Ahmadnagar supported Twelver Shiism from the
reign of Burhan I (15091553). The establishment of Mug-
hal rule made northern India a safer place for Sh E scholars.
The Sh E Safavid Shah of Iran, T: ahmasp I (15241576), as-
sisted the emperor, Humayun (d. 1556), in reestablishing
the Mughal position in eastern Afghanistan by 1550, and
Sh E Persians formed an important element of the Muslim
elite of the Mughal Empire. They became particularly prom-
inent during the reign of the Mughal emperor Jahangr
(d. 1627) when many Twelver Sh E poets and scholars emi-
grated from Iran seeking positions at the Mughal courts. In
1611 Jahangr married Mihrunnisa, also called Nur Jahan,
the daughter of an Iranian nobleman. Because the emperor
was not too interested in matters of state, Nur Jahan became
the de facto ruler of the empire. Her father and brother were
Mumtaz Mahal, was married to the emperors son
Shahjahan. The most famous monument of Indo-Muslim
architecture, the Taj Mahal, was erected in Mumtaz Mahals
memory. After the collapse of the Mughal empire, Twelver
Shiism continued to be favored by certain regional dynasties.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

In the eighteenth century, under the nawabs of Awadh,
Lucknow became the Twelver Sh E cultural and educational
capital in South Asia.
While the official acceptance of Sh E Islam in court cir-
cles attracted prominent Sh E scholars and theologians to
India, there was always the danger that they could be perse-
cuted when there were shifts in the political climate at courts.
Shah Fat: hullah Shiraz (d. 1589) and Qad: Nurullah
Shustar (d. 1610) rank among two prominent Twelver
Sh E scholars who experienced mixed fortunes in India.
Shah Fat: hullah Shiraz, an important Iranian scholar who
was invited to Bijapur by the Sh E ruler EAl EAdil Shah I
(d. 1580), initially enjoyed great respect at the court. EAl
EAdil Shahs successor, however, was not favorably disposed
to Shiism. Consequently, Shah Fat: hullah found himself im-
prisoned. Shortly thereafter he was invited to join the more
tolerant court of the Mughal emperor Akbar where he be-
came one of the leading intellectuals. He played an influen-
tial role within the emperors inner circle, being appointed
to several significant administrative and political posts. Qad:
Nurullah Shustar, one of the greatest scholars of Twelver
Shiism in his time, came to India in 1584 seeking a position
at the court of Akbar. Two years later, on the basis of his ex-
cellent knowledge of Arabic and command over both Sh E
and Sunn jurisprudence, he was appointed qad: of Lahore,
earning for himself the reputation of being an impartial and
honest judge even in cases involving Sunn law. His fame ap-
parently incited the jealousy and anger of some of his Sunn
rivals who instigated the Mughal emperor, Jahangr, to have
him flogged to death. He is thus sometimes called the third
martyr of Twelver Sh E Islam.
THE S: UFI ORDERS. Religious authority in post-Prophetic
Islam is legitimized by appealing to different sources. The au-
thority of the Eulama D, of whatever persuasion, as interpreters
of Islam flows from recognition of their learning. The au-
thority of the Sh E imams is based on esoteric knowledge ac-
quired on the basis of physical descent from the Prophet
Muh: ammad. The authority of the S: uf masters flows from
the recognition that they have had (or are preparing them-
selves and others to have) direct, intuitive experience of di-
vine realities and that divine grace might endow them with
special spiritual powers. These powers, often believed to con-
tinue after physical death, are seen as evidence of them hav-
ing attained the status of awliya D (friends [of God]). By the
twelfth century CE, seekers on the mystical path had devel-
oped distinct spiritual disciplines and methods and formed
themselves into fraternities organized around khanqahs
(hospices). Each fraternity was headed by a shaykh, or pr,
responsible for guiding disciples on the path, appointing
deputies, admitting novices to full discipleship, training and
investing a successor, and possibly controlling a network of
centers.
The arrival of S: uf orders. Although Shaykh EAl
al-Hujwr, the author of the famous S: uf manual Kashf
al-mah: jub (The disclosure of the veiled) settled and died in
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA 4647
Lahore in 1071, the arrival of members of S: uf orders in
South Asia was broadly contemporary with the Ghurid inva-
sions at the end of the twelfth century. One of the earliest
was the Chisht order from Afghanistan, introduced by
Khwajah MuE n ad-Dn who settled in Ajmer (Rajasthan)
in the 1290s. His successor, Qut: b ad-Dn Bakhtiyar Kak
(d. 1235), spread Chisht influence to Delhi. Bakhtiyar
Kaks chief disciple, Fard ad-Dn, called Ganj-i Shakar
(the treasury of sugar; d. 1265), settled in Pakpattan by the
Sutlej, thus consolidating a Chisht position in the Punjab.
During the lifetimes of the two great shaykhs of fourteenth-
century Delhi, Niz: am al-Dn AwliyaD (12381325) and
Nas: ir ad-Dn Mah: mud, Chiragh-i Dihl (the lamp of
Delhi, 12761356), branches of the Chisht order were es-
tablished in other regions: in Bengal by Shaykh Siraj ad-Dn
(d. 1357), in Daulatabad by Burhan ad-Dn (d. 1340), and
in Gulbarga by Sayyid Muh: ammad Gisu Daraz (of long
locks, 13211422). Other Chisht mystics settled in Malwa
and Gujarat. The Suhrawardyah were the other principal
group of S: ufs active in sultanate South Asia, antithetical in
their rituals and practices to the Chishtyah. Their spiritual
headquarters were in the southwest Punjab: at Multan where
Shaykh BahaD ad-Dn ZakaryaD (11821262) resided, and
at Uchch where Sayyid Jalal ad-Dn Surkhpush (red-
dressed) Bukhar (d. 1292) and his grandson Jalal ad-Dn
Makhdum-i Jahaniyan (lord of the mortals, 13081384)
lived. In Bengal, a leading Suhrawardi master was Shaykh
Jalal ad-Dn Tabrz (thirteenth century). In Kashmir, the
intellectually influential Kubrawyah order gained a foothold
through a visit by Sayyid EAl Hamadan between 1381 and
1384. An offshoot of this order, the Firdawsyah, attained
fame in Bihar through Sharaf ad-Dn ibn Yah: ya Maner
(12631381).
From about the middle of the fifteenth century on-
wards, other S: uf orders made their appearance in South
Asia, notably the Qadiryah, the Shat: t: aryah, and the
Naqshbandyah. Muh: ammad Ghawth (d. 1517), claiming
to be tenth in succession to the founder of the Qadiryah,
EAbd al-Qadir al-Jlan (10771176), settled at Uchch, but
before that Qadiri S: ufs had settled at Bidar about the time
it became the capital of the Bahmani sultanate in 1422. The
Bijapur sultanate also became a major center for the
Qadiryah. The Shat: t: aryah was another order that became
influential in the Deccan as well as North India. Introduced
from Iran by Shaykh EAbd Allah al-Shat: t: ar (d. 1485), the
order spread to Gujarat under the guidance of Muh: ammad
Ghawth of Gwalior (14851562/3), attracting the attention
of the Mughal emperors Humayun and Akbar. The
Naqshbandyah, a conservative Central Asian S: uf order, be-
came prominent from the seventeenth century onwards
when its members began to challenge the established forms
and practice of Sufism in South Asia. It was introduced by
Khwajah Muh: ammad al-Baq Billah (1563/41603), who
initiated, in his last years, the most influential member of the
order in South Asia, Shaykh Ah: mad Sirhind (15641624).
4648 ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA
Qalandars. Another important category of Muslim
holy men consisted of a variety of wandering mendicants,
who were distinguished from respectable S: ufs by scanti-
ness of dress and the wearing of bizarre iron insignia, and
who oftentimes exhibited aggressive attitudes toward S: ufs
belonging to the mainstream orders. They went by a variety
of namesqalandars, H: aydars, Madars. Because they Perhaps these responses were related to the way in which
seemed to be indifferent or antagonistic to the observance of
prescribed religious and social norms, they have been termed
be-shar E, that is, those who are outside religious law. Some
of them, like the Madars (so called after a Jewish convert,
Shah Madar, who migrated to South Asia from Syria),
smearing their naked bodies with ashes, using hashish, and
ignoring Muslim religious duties, seemed to be indistin-
guishable from Hindu ascetics and yogis. Yet certain great
shaykhs of the orders, notably the Chisht, recognized some
of them as men of genuine intuitive experience. Although so
evidently outside the Muslim religious establishment, it is
possible to regard them as being important in communicat-
ing some identifiable Islamic religious beliefs and practices
among Muslims and non-Muslim populations in rural and
urban areas. The most famous of these qalandars was LaEl
Shahbaz (Red Falcon, d. 1325), the subject of one of the
most popular S: uf praise songs in South Asia. His tomb
shrine at Sehwan in Sind still attracts thousands of pilgrims,
including many be-shar E dervishes, although many of the im-
moral and illegal activities that historically gave this shrine
notoriety have now been purged.
Religious and social roles of S: ufs. As a mystical phi-
losophy, Sufism has deeply impacted the lives of Muslims as
well as non-Muslims in the Subcontinent. Beyond the realm
of religious thought and practice, Sufism has influenced so-
cial, economic, cultural, and even political dimensions of ev-
eryday life. The development of literary and musical tradi-
tions in many South Asian languages bears the deep impress
of Sufism. Not surprisingly, members of S: uf orders have
been regarded, by some scholars, to be bridge-people, in-
terpreting and adjusting Islamic concepts and practices to the
psychology of different populations. They have also been re-
sponsible for introducing new emphases and rites into the
Islamic tradition. By the time that S: uf orders came to the
Subcontinent, Sufism had become more of a devotional than
a mystical movement, embracing a collection of cult associa-
tions that centered on the shaykh, or pr, who was more ap-
proachable to the masses than the Ealm, or religious scholar.
To be sure, discussions of more speculative and philosophical
formulations of Sufism were taken up toward the end of the
fourteenth century, yet these were limited to elite inner cir-
cles of disciples. At a popular level, a shaykh/pr was seen as
playing an intercessory role between humans and the divine.
This role was often understood to be a physical manifestation
of their special charisma, inherited through a silsilah
(spiritual chain) going back to the Prophet Muh: ammad.
Rather than adhering to the classical conception of his role
as that of as a teacher and guide along the path to personal
experience of divine truths, the shaykh had became a charis-
matic figure with special spiritual powers and energies. The
dargah, or tomb-shrine, began to supplant the khanqah
(hospice, retreat) in the popular imagination. Exclusive
membership in, or allegiance to, particular orders became less
importantindeed some adepts now belonged to more than
one order. Some orders gained appeal; others fell from favor.
members of particular orders responded to the local cultural
environment. Traditionally, MuE n ad-Dn Chisht is repre-
sented as having gained many followers after promoting the
use of music in his khanqah. No doubt, too, willingness to
use the local vernacular for devotional poetry would enhance
a shaykhs appeal. S: ufs belonging to larger S: uf orders ap-
pear to have been more willing than the Eulama D to found
khanqahs away from the principal centers of political power
and thus seem to have drawn more of the allegiance of the
rural and small-town populations to themselves. Certain or-
ders, notably the Qadiryah and the Shat: t: aryah in Bijapur,
were more urban-based.
Rulers of the day quickly recognized the popular appeal
of shaykhs/prs among Muslim populations and wished to
turn that appeal to their own advantage. Shaykhs were offered
pensions and tax-free lands. Most S: uf orders were willing
to accept royal largesse. For example, the Suhrawardyah in
the Punjab have always enjoyed state patronage, while the
Qadiryah and Shat: t: aryah accepted land grants in seven-
teenth-century Bijapur. The Chisht order, in particular, at-
tracted a great deal of royal patronage. Ironically, the early
Chishts were vehemently against any close association with
those in political power, for they considered such contact to
be detrimental to a persons moral and spiritual well-being.
By the early fourteenth century, however, the order began
to rise in prominence precisely on account of the enormous
royal patronage it was attracting. As Muslim rulers of Turko-
Persian ancestry began to establish kingdoms in the subcon-
tinent, they associated their own personal fortunes and those
of their dynasty with that of the Chisht order. A ruling
dynastys patronage of Chisht dargahs could strengthen its
claims of legitimacy in the eyes of the local population and
also bestow upon it spiritual blessings for continued prosper-
ity and success. As a consequence, a pattern of growing polit-
ical patronage of Chisht shrines emerged in many parts of
northern India, from Gujarat to Bengal. Naturally, the
mother dargah at Ajmer where MuE n ad-Dn Chisht, the
founder of the order, is buried, received a great deal of royal
attention, all the more so due to its frontier location.
The most generous and loyal patrons of the Chishtyah
were members of the Mughal dynasty who were firmly con-
vinced their worldly success was due to the blessings of the
Chisht shaykhs. As a result, not only did Mughal emperors
bestow lavish endowments for the support of the Ajmer
dargah and sponsor several construction projects, they also
actively involved themselves in its management by appoint-
ing its administrators and titular heads. The emperor Akbar
(d. 1605) was a particularly ardent devotee, undertaking
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

fourteen pilgrimages to the shrine, several of them on foot.
Two of these pilgrimages, those of 1568 and 1574, were
made immediately after conquering Chittor and Bengal, re-
spectively, victories he attributed to the blessings of MuE n
ad-Dn Chisht. Akbars reverence for and devotion to the
Chishts increased significantly when Shaykh Salm Chisht,
a descendant of MuE n ad-Dn, correctly predicted the birth
of the emperors son. In gratitude, he performed a pilgrimage
to Ajmer, walking on foot all the way from Agra. He also had
his new capital city, Fatehpur Sikri, built near Salm
Chishts khanqah as a tangible way of symbolizing the close
Mughal-Chisht alliance that continued for the next two
generations. In the seventeenth century the Naqshbandyah,
a Central Asian S: uf order, vied against the Chishtyah for
the attention of the Mughals, for they had great political am-
bitions to influence aspects of state policy. Clearly, it is diffi-
cult to accept fully the contention that S: uf orders represent-
ed an organized religious establishment in medieval India
independent of different political establishments.
MUSLIM RELIGIOUS LIFE IN SOUTH ASIA: THE CULTS OF
PERSONALITY. The character of Muslim piety in South Asia
has been predominantly person-centered. As in other parts
of the Muslim world, a central focus of person-centered
piety has been the figure of the Prophet Muh: ammad. Not
only is the Milad an-nab, his birthday, widely celebrated,
but shrines housing relics, such as his footprint or his hair
(e.g., Hazratbal in Kashmir), attract many pilgrims. The
Prophet has commonly been venerated through an extensive
corpus of poems and songs in major South Asian languages,
some even composed by Hindu poets. Although love for him
and appeals for his intercession are common themes, many
of these poems accord him a superhuman, or mystical status
that at times appears to compromise strict notions of mono-
theism. The poems often reveal a Prophet who has been ac-
culturated to specific regional contexts and perceived
through lenses that have been influenced by a variety of liter-
ary conventions. Thus, epics in medieval Bengali puth litera-
ture see him as an avatara, and poems in Tamil address him
as a baby, while Sindhi poems beseech him as a bridegroom
for whom the bride lovingly longs. Devotion to him has be-
come the hallmark of a Muslim identity, defining the bound-
ary between Muslim and non-Muslim, so that attacks on his
character and personality have frequently sparked riots. It is
hardly surprising that revivalists who sought to strengthen
Muslim identity in the eighteenth and nineteenth century
identified themselves as members of the T: arqah-i-
Muh: ammadyah (the Muh: ammadan Path) and appealed
for a renewed commitment among Muslims to the Prophetic
paradigm.
Several religious figures and personalities have been
heirs to the Prophets authority and/or charisma, giving rise
to different types of person-centered devotionalism. For
example, the Prophets immediate family members, particu-
larly his grandson H: usayn, tragically martyred at Karbala in
680 CE, have come to be widely venerated in South Asia, es-
pecially during the month of Muharram, not only by Sh E
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA 4649
communities but by Sunn Muslims as well. In many locali-
ties, Hindus, too, have participated in the commemorative
Muharram processions. H: usayn and some of the martyred
Sh E imams and the family of the Prophet have been the sub-
ject of many elegies composed in several languages, including
Urdu, Sindhi, and Gujarati.
Most ubiquitous in South Asia is the devotion to the
S: uf shaykh/pr. Belief in the supernatural powers of S: uf
shaykhs/prs, deceased or living, has led to the proliferation
of dargahs and mazars (tomb-shrines) all over South Asia,
frequented by devotees seeking to cure illnesses, ward off evil,
fulfill desires, or gain admission to paradise. In some cases,
these tomb shrines are associated with mythical figures (such
as Khwajah Khiz: r or the Nau Gaz [Nine Yard] pr). So
strong is the shrine tradition in South Asia that even a leg-
endary S: uf such as EAbd al-Qadir al-Jlan (d. 1166), who
is actually buried in Baghdad, has many shrines dedicated to
him all over southern India. Interestingly, the dargah in
South Asia has not remained an exclusively Muslim institu-
tion; Muslim and non-Muslim alike participate in common
rituals and ceremoniessuch as kissing or touching the
tomb, offering flowers, and lighting incensein the hope of
receiving spiritual blessing. It has also provided the only
space where Muslim women can participate in public wor-
ship because as a rule in South Asia they do not attend
mosques.
Of a different character and nature are a variety of
movements centered around persons who have acquired reli-
gious authority on the basis of claims to a prophet-like status.
Because these movements pose a challenge to the central au-
thority of the Prophet Muh: ammad, they have often been
controversial. Many of these movements have been millenar-
ian in nature. For instance, in the late fifteenth century, Say-
yid Muh: ammad of Jaunpur (14431505) declared himself
to be the Mahd (guided one) of the Sunn tradition who
would lead the world to order and justice before the day of
resurrection. His followers, who eventually formed the
Mahdaw community, claimed for him a rank equal to that
of the Prophet and clustered around him as though around
a pr. Needless to say, the group was intensely persecuted by
Sunn Eulama D, who saw the Mahd as a threat to their au-
thority. Bayazd Ans: ar (15251572/3), born at Jallandar in
the Punjab, was a Pathan who claimed to be a pr-i raushan
(a luminous master) in direct communication with God,
who shone his divine light upon him. Bayazds followers re-
garded him as combining perfections of the paths of law,
mysticism, and wisdom attained through gnosis. In the last
stage of their spiritual ascent, these disciples were allowed to
exempt themselves from some of the obligations of the
shar Eah. Gathering support from among his fellow Pathans,
Bayazd Ans: ar became the head of a religio-political move-
ment that seriously challenged Mughal authority in north-
west India. In 1581 the Mughal court itself was the setting
of a personality cult around the figure of the Emperor Akbar,
the so-called din-i ilah (divine religion), which some have
4650 ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA

declared to be an apostasy from Islam. More of a mystical to factors that were internal and external to the communities
order with limited membership in which the emperor was concerned. Internally, there seems to have been a widespread
viewed as insan-i kamil (the perfect man), the din-i ilah need to cure a spiritual and religious malaise that some felt
eclectically combined lofty ideas from various religious tradi- had affected the way in which Islam was being practiced. Ex-
tions as well as Sunn ideas of the caliph and the just ruler ternally, the establishment of European, particularly British,
to present Akbar as the earthly homologue and symbol of colonialism and the emergence of nationalism presented a
Gods truth and justice. Interestingly, Akbar himself seems whole new set of challenges: new lifestyles, new educational
never to have directly made any claims to prophecy or systems, and new economic, social, and political structures.
divinity. The arrival of Christian missionaries intent on converting
Muslims (and Hindus) posed another kind of threat. For
Even a figure such as Shaykh Ah: mad Sirhind
Muslim elites in North India, the collapse of Mughal rule
(d. 1624)considered the bastion of religious conservatism
during the reign of Akbars son, Jahangrgave himself pro- in the face of onslaughts from the Marathas, Sikhs, and the
phetic airs. Because he arrived in India as the expected reno- British was also traumatic for it meant a loss of political and
vator of Islam at the beginning of the second Islamic millen- economic power. Many among the elite interpreted disem-
nium, Sirhind was popularly referred to as the mujaddid-i powerment as a sign of Gods displeasure and a sign that
alif-i than. He claimed that the perfections of Prophet- Muslims needed to reinvigorate their relationship with Islam
hood, which had disappeared after the death of the Prophet in the face of rapid change.
Muh: ammad, would reappear in deserving persons, such as Early revivalist movements. The first attempts to ad-
himself, because they were the Prophets heirs. He also re- vocate sociopolitical reform using Islam as a basis can be
garded himself as the qayyum, an intermediary between man traced to Shah Wal Allah (d.1762), the great theologian of
and God through whom flowed all spiritual and material Delhi, who believed himself to be a renovator (mujaddid) of
benefits. On account of his elevated status, he considered it Islam. As mujaddid, he was the Prophets vice-regent with
his duty to point out in his many letters to the Emperor the special duty of purifying religion from infidel practices
Jahangr and the Mughal nobility various un-Islamic prac- such as visiting tomb-shrines. Through his numerous writ-
tices that were being tolerated in the realm. These letters, de- ings, the most important being H: ujjat Allah al-Balighah
scribed by Jahangr in his memoirs, Tuzuk-i Jahangr, as a (The perfect proof of God), Shah Wal Allahs ideas had a
bunch of absurdities, earned Sirhind a short spell in pris- deep impact on later generations of reformists, ranging from
on so that, as the emperor puts it, his disturbed disposition conservatives to modernists. He believed himself to be called
and confused mind would calm down a little. upon by God to demonstrate that a harmony of apparently
The reaction to the emergence of these personality cults different views existed or could be achieved among a whole
has often been in the form of a call for the reassertion of the range of religious sciences. A strong advocate of Muslim
paradigmatic role of the Prophet Muh: ammad and his com- unity in the face of loss of political power, he attempted in-
panions. Yet these types of movements have continued to tellectually to reconcile differences between Sunn schools of
emerge in South Asia to our day, the most recent being the jurisprudence and competing philosophies of mysticism
Ah: madyah, founded by Mrza Ghulam Ah: mad (1835 (wah: dat al-wujud [unity of existence] and wah: dat
1908). Influenced by the mujaddid and mahd traditions, ash-shuhud [unity of vision]), although his ecumenism did
Ghulam Ah: mad claimed that he was a non-legislative not extend to Sh E communities. Shah Wal Allah felt
prophet whose responsibility it was to ensure the correct im- strongly that Muslims would be better able to resolve their
plementation of the message revealed by the legislative sociopolitical problems if they lived in accord with the pre-
prophet, that is, Muh: ammad. Viewed within the historical cepts of their faith. In this regard, they needed to understand
context of other movements, his ideas were not so strange the QurDan for themselves without relying on the secondary
or idiosyncratic. However, when his followers expressed interpretations of commentaries. To make the scripture
them within the context of a Pakistani nation that was in- more accessible, he translated it into Persian, paving the way
creasingly moving to an Islamist political ideology, they for a later translation into Urdu by his sons. To deal with
stirred a violent backlash from religious conservatives. In the loss of political power, he wrote a number of letters invit-
1974 the Pakistani legislature passed a bill that declared the ing neighboring Muslim rulers, such as Ah: mad Shah Abdal,
followers of Ghulam Ah: mad to be non-Muslim. It believed to reestablish Muslim rule in North India. Unfortunately,
that a line had been crossed and that the state had to take Shah Wal Allahs Afghan friends and religious brethren
on the role of defining legitimate religious identity. plundered and looted Delhi after they conquered it!
MOVEMENTS OF ISLAMIC RENEWAL AND REFORM. The No doubt inspired by Shah Wal Allahs activism, his
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed a mushroom- grandson, IsmaE l Shahd (d. 1831), became the theoretician
ing of movements for reform and change among Muslim for the energetic mujahidn reformist movement of the early
communities in several regions of South Asia. While the na- nineteenth century initiated by Ah: mad Barel (Ah: mad of
ture and character of these movements varied according to Rai Bareilly; d. 1831), a charismatic preacher who wanted
regional contexts, they were, broadly speaking, in response to purge Islam of its accretions and corruptions. IsmaE l

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION


Shahds work Taqwiyat al-iman (Strengthening of faith)
calls Muslims to righteous action in accord with Gods com-
mand in order to improve their situation in this world and
the next. Preaching a type of reformed Sufism, purged of
polytheistic practices, the mujahidn movement, in keep-
ing with the ideology of the T: arqah-i-Muh: ammadyah, em-
phasized the importance of the Prophet Muh: ammad as a
paradigm. Following the example of the Prophets hijrah
(emigration) from Mecca to Medina, in 1826 Ah: mad
Barel led a group of mujahidn from British India to Pathan
borderlands, from where they waged jihad against the Sikhs
in a futile attempt to create an Islamic state in the Punjab
modeled after the Prophets Medina. Both reformers were
killed by Sikh forces at the battle of Balakot in 1831. (The
hold of the Prophet Muh: ammads hijrah over Muslim senti-
ment was to be further demonstrated in 1920 when, on the
urging of mosque imams and prs, about thirty thousand
Muslims from the province of Sind and the Frontier Prov-
ince migrated to Afghanistan as their dar al-Islam, or abode
of Islam.)
Regional revivalist movements. Reform and revivalist
movements were not simply confined to areas traditionally
associated with Muslim political power in North India.
There were significant ones in regional contexts as well. By
way of illustration, we will cite three cases.
In Bengal, Hajj Shar Eat Allah (17811840) initiated
the FaraDid: movement. Having lived in the Hejaz in Arabia
for about eighteen years, he sought to teach Bengali Muslims
the correct way to observe the obligatory duties (fara Did: ) of
Islam, to abandon reverence for prs, and to forsake Hind-
uized life ceremonies. On the grounds that there were no
properly constituted Muslim rulers and qad: s in nineteenth-
century India, the FaraDid: s abandoned Friday and E d
(festival) prayers. Under Hajj Shar Eat Allahs son Dudu figure to argue that the changes Muslims were experiencing
Miyan (18191862) violence broke out between the move-
ments largely peasant following and their landlords.
Throughout the nineteenth century, a variety of Sunn
scholars and teachers, including Karamat EAl Jawnpur
(d. 1873), a follower of Ah: mad Barel willing to accept Brit-
ish rule, devoted themselves to trying to get rid of polytheis-
tic attitudes and practices among Muslims in Bengal, while
disagreeing among themselves about the acceptability of Su-
fism or about which school of Sunn jurisprudence should
be followed.
In the far south, among the Mappil: l: as, as the Muslims
of Kerala are called, Eulama D such as Sayyid EAlaw
(d. 1843/4) and his son Sayyid Fad: l (d. 1900), though creat-
ing no formal organization, perpetuated among Mappil: l: a
peasant farmers a tradition of resistance to Hindu landlords.
Among Mappil: l: a urban classes who had lost employment
and suffered a decline in trading because of European colo-
nial rule, the movement became anti-British. Throughout
the nineteenth century, Mappil: l: a grievances were expressed
through riots, culminating in the Mappil: l: a rebellion of 1921,
which was brutally squashed by the British. In demanding
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA 4651
the formation of Moplastan, a separate state for Mappil: l: a
Muslims in south Kerala, these leaders, like the mujahidn
in the north, employed an idiom that invoked the first Mus-
lim community created in Medina by the Prophet
Muh: ammad in 622 CE.
In the west, in Sind, the nature of the revival movement
took on a less overtly political and more spiritual and literary
hue. Under the influence of a reformist movement initiated
by members belonging to the conservative Naqshband S: uf
order, various poets undertook to instruct people about the
basic duties of Islam using simple verse forms. In doing so,
they sought to avoid the emotional expressions of piety
found among more intoxicated S: uf groups. Miyan AbuD1
H: asan (d. 1711) composed the Muqaddimat as-S: alat, a
long didactic poem on Islamic ritual prayer. Another
Naqshband, Makhdum Muh: ammad Hashim (d. 1761) was
a prolific author of several works that explained the essentials
of Islam in didactic Sindhi verse. His principal works includ-
ed: the Fara Did: al-Islam (The obligations of Islam), dealing
with Islamic law and correct behavior; Tafsir Hashim, a
rhymed commentary on the last part of the QurDan; and Qut
al- EAshiqn (The nourishment of the lovers), which describes
the virtues and miracles of the Prophet Muh: ammad.
RESPONSES TO BRITISH COLONIAL RULE. In the aftermath
of the 1857 rebellion and the failed attempt to overthrow
British control, Muslim elites in North India were forced to
come to terms not only with British political supremacy, but
also with the growing presence of Western cultural institu-
tions, particularly churches, schools, and colleges. Their reac-
tions took various forms, the principle division being be-
tween modernists and conservatives.
Modernists: The Aligarh movement. The first major
in the nineteenth century were compatible with Islam was
Sir Sayyid Ah: mad Khan (d. 1898). As a young man, Sir Say-
yid was well trained in theology in the tradition of Shah Wal
Allah as well as in MuEtazilah rationalism. In keeping with
the spirit of the T: arqah-i-Muh: ammadyah, with which he
was affiliated, the book he wrote to help Muslims examine
the life and exemplary of the Prophet Muh: ammad lacked the
customary hagiographic elements. He was convinced that in
order to progress under colonial rule, Muslims must accept
a future shaped by absolute loyalty to British power. Further-
more, he felt that Muslims should participate fully in the
Western-style educational system being established by the
British in India so that they would not become a social and
economic underclass. As a Muslim, he wished to demon-
strate that God was not being mocked when young Muslims,
attending British-influenced schools and colleges in hope of
advancement, were being taught a natural science that ap-
peared to contradict divine revelation. He argued that the
word of God and the work of God, revelation and nature as
understood by nineteenth-century Western science, are
wholly in harmony. Apparent discrepancies between the
QurDanic account of the natural world and that of Western
4652 ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA
scientists are, in fact, attributable to misunderstandings of
the language of the QurDan. He also advocated a rational ap-
proach to the QurDan based on fresh ijtihad, since Islam, in
his interpretation, is a religion that accommodates historical
change. The mandates of the shar Eah, as interpreted by gen-
erations of religious scholars, needed to be reexamined to de-
termine whether they were, in fact, the essential mandates
of faith. To promote his ideas and provide young Muslims
with Western-style higher education, he fought for and even-
tually founded the Anglo-Muhammadan College, which
later became Aligarh Muslim University.
Sayyid Ah: mad Khans approach enjoyed the support of
several important personalities who formed the basis of the
so-called Aligarh movement. Among its members were sever-
al prominent literati who wrote Urdu poetry and prose to
disseminate its ideas. Most prominent among these was Alt: af
H: usayn H: al (d. 1914), the author of Madd wa gazr-i Islam
(The ebb and flow of Islam), a epic poem considered to the
Aligarh movements most enduring literary monument. Pop-
ularly known as the Musaddas, after its six-line stanzas, it
contrasts the past glories and achievements of Islamic civili-
zation with the miserable status of Muslims of H: als time.
Among the other notable members of the Aligarh circle were:
Naz: r Ah: mad (d. 1912), a pioneer in the development of the
Urdu novel, who highlighted the need to educate Muslim
women in his fiction; Mumtaz EAl, the publisher of Tahzb
al-niswan, a journal dedicated to womens issues; Ameer EAl
(d. 1928), the author of The Spirit of Islam, a book intended
primarily for British readers, emphasizing the essential com-
patibility between Islam and Western liberalism; and
Chiragh EAl (d. 1895), a modernist interpreter of the
QurDan, who, among other things, demonstrated that the Is-
lamic scripture was actually intended to ameliorate the posi-
tion of women and implicitly prohibited polygamy. Chiragh
EAls most controversial stand was in regards to the h: adth
literature, which he considered entirely fabricated and there-
fore unworthy as a basis of Islamic jurisprudence.
Sir Muh: ammad Iqbal. The poet-philosopher Sir
Muh: ammad Iqbal ranks among the most significant thinkers
of modern Islam. Because he was the first to advocate the
idea of a separate Muslim homeland, he is also widely per-
ceived as the spiritual founder of Pakistan. He has became
such a towering figure that every religious, political, and so-
cial movement in contemporary Indo-Muslim thought has
turned to his writings in order to find justification for its po-
sition. In addition to receiving training in Islamic studies (he
was influenced by Sir Sayyid Ah: mad Khan and Shibl, two
significant figures in the Aligarh movement), he studied phi-
losophy at the Universities of Cambridge and Munich.
Through his prose and poetic works, he reveals a unique way
of interpreting and expressing Islamic concepts and ideas
through a skillful combination of Western and Eastern intel-
lectual and literary tools. He offered a conception of the
God-human relationship through which he intended to in-
spire Muslims to action. The life goal of the individual ego,
he believed, should be that of actualizing in thought and
deed the infinite possibilities of the divine imagination. Hu-
mans, he believed, as vicegerents of God on earth, have an
active duty to develop themselves to the highest potential.
Some of his ideas, such as the call to free the interpretation
of Islam from the fetters of tradition and the scholarship of
Eulama D, and the demand for ijtihad, were typical of Islamic
reformers. His claim that human beings can actively partici-
pate within a dynamic creation, his call for individual action
and responsibility, and his conception of the QurDan as reve-
lation that unfolds in time and eternity were unusual and for
some controversial. Yet his thought had a tremendous appeal
for those Muslims who were searching for leaders with an in-
tellectual and political vision.
Conservatives: The Deobandi Eulama D. The theologi-
cal school of Deoband, founded in 1867 by Rashd Ah: mad
Gangoh (d. 1905) and Muh: ammad Qasim Nanawtaw
(d. 1880), represented a conservative response among Sunn
Eulama D to the establishment of British rule and the spread
of Western culture. Although the theologians of Deoband
accepted the British as rulers, they found Western culture to
be wanting and inappropriate for the faithful to emulate.
The objective of the school was thus to establish and main-
tain a correct standard of Islamic practice for (Sunn) Mus-
lims to follow at a time when they were exposed to many
non-Islamic influences. The theologians of Deoband prided
themselves in upholding the authority of the four traditional
schools of Sunn jurisprudence, and in time, their school ac-
quired an outstanding reputation, enrolling students from
many parts of the Islamic world. Deobandi leaders assumed
the status of S: uf shaykhs and initiated disciples, but the spe-
cial miracles that were attributed to them were depicted as
being exercised to influence people to follow the sunnah, the
custom of the Prophet. In this regard, they were strongly op-
posed to anything that was not in keeping with Prophetic
tradition, such as worship at S: uf shrines, belief in the inter-
cession of prs, or elaborate birth, marriage, and death rituals.
Deobandi theologians vigorously defended the need to ac-
cept the interpretations and consensus of earlier Sunn schol-
ars and jurists and attacked all dissenting voices. Rashd
Ah: mad Gangoh, for example, dismissed Sir Sayyids pro-
Western and neorationalist approach as deadly poison.
Muh: ammad Qasim acquired a stellar reputation for his po-
lemical disputations with Hindu and Christian missionaries.
A later Deobandi scholar, Ashraf EAl Thanw (d. 1943)
achieved fame for his work Bihisti zevar (Heavenly jewelry),
a conservative guidebook for the education of Muslim
women. The prestige of Deoband as the guardian of Sunn
Islam was enhanced in the late nineteenth and early twenti-
eth centuries when its scholars played a leading role in refut-
ing the claims of Ghulam Ah: mad, the founder of the
Ah: madyah movement, particularly his challenge to the fi-
nality of Muh: ammads prophethood.
Other groups. The emphasis on the Prophetic para-
digm as a source of guidance for Muslims facing change
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

formed the focal point of another reformist group, Ahl-i
H: adth, led by Siddiq H: asan Khan (d. 1890), a religious
scholar who had married, in the midst of much controversy,
the widowed princess of Bhopal. Though the Ahl-i H: adth
stressed the exclusive primacy of the QurDan and the h: adth
as fundamental guides in life, they rejected the interpretive
authority of the founders of the four Sunn schools. Their
treatment of the h: adth as a form of implicit revelation that
elaborated authoritatively the explicit revelation of the
QurDan led them into conflicts with two groups. On the one
hand they opposed members of the Aligarh movement who
exhibited skepticism toward the authenticity of the h: adth;
not surprisingly, they dubbed Sayyid Ah: mad Khan the
modern prophet of nature-worshippers, and the latest insti-
gator of evils in Muslim society. On the other hand, they en-
gaged in a vitriolic polemical war with a counter-group led
by EAbdullah Chakralav and called the Ahl-i QurDan. As its
name suggests, this movement advocated total reliance on
the QurDan as the most perfect source of guidance; the
QurDan according to them contained all the basic injunctions
for Muslims and left them free to decide on other matters.
For example, they regarded the call to prayer and the perfor-
mance of E d and funerary prayers as not essential Islamic ob-
ligations because they are not mentioned in the QurDan. A
third important group was comprised of those Eulama D who
did not see the need to change or modify the various customs
and practices that had developed among Sunn Muslim
communities in South Asia. Led by Ah: mad Rid: a Khan
(d. 1921), with their major centers at Bareilly and BadaDun,
they accepted a variety of intercessory figures in Islam, from
the Prophet Muh: ammad to the shaykhs and prs of the
dargahs. The Barelws, as they came to be called, observed
the birthdays of the Prophet and of the S: uf prsa practice discourse. For instance, Muslims with personal names de-
that the Deobandis and others found objectionable on the
grounds that such celebrations implied that the dead were
present. An important offshoot of the Deobandi movement
is the Tablighi-jamaEat, founded in the 1920s by Mawlana
Muh: ammad Ilyas (d. 1944). Its principal objective is to
reach out to ordinary Muslims individually and provide
guidance on matters of faith through a network of self-taught
teachers traveling from house to house. Initially conceived
as a response to the efforts of Hindu movements such as the
Shuddhi and Sangathan to forcibly convert Muslims, it has
become one of the most influential grassroots religious
movements in South Asia, with considerable influence at the
international level as well.
DEFINING MUSLIM IDENTITY IN COLONIAL INDIA. It is in
the nineteenth century, during the establishment of British
colonial rule over South Asia, that we witness a gradual evo-
lution of cultural distancing and alienation between Muslim
and non-Muslim. The very idiom of British rule was com-
munalist, systematically institutionalizing South Asia into a
nation of communities defined along religious lines. The
census and ethnographic surveys conducted under British
auspices highlighted religious markers of identity to the det-
riment of others, forcing people to identify themselves pri-
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA 4653
marily in religious terms. Through such colonial instru-
ments, South Asian Muslims from diverse socioeconomic,
ethnic, and sectarian backgrounds, began, for the first time,
to perceive themselves as belonging to a distinct community
and, eventually, to a nation distinct from the subcontinents
non-Muslim population.
As the variety of revivalist and reform movements dis-
cussed above began to clarify their respective positions as to
what it meant to be a Muslim under the circumstances of
colonial rule, they offered a wide spectrum of definition con-
cerning Islamic identity. These definitions sought to differ-
entiate more sharply the Muslim from the non-Muslim by
turning for guidance to scriptural sources such as the QurDan,
the sunnah of the Prophet Muh: ammad, and the tradition of
the historical past. In the process, any practices considered
to be syncretistic and accommodating to local custom were
suspect. Significantly, none of the definitions allowed for
Muslims to observe customs or rituals that were part of the
South Asian cultural environment. Practices, customs, and
ideas that were prevalent among Muslims and recognized as
local or indigenous were deemed to be un-Islamic. This
was contrasted to the Islamic values represented by Perso-
Arabic culture.
A suspicion of the local as un-Islamic, or Hindu,
and a privileging of the Arabo-Persian as Islamic, com-
bined with a conception of Islam and Hinduism as closed
systems of thought, couched in communalist and nationalist
terms, radically changed perceptions of different elements of
South Asian culture. As literature, music, dance, and lan-
guage came to be viewed through religious lenses they be-
came politicized within the realms of colonial and nationalist
rived from local Indian systems of nomenclature began
changing them in favor of Arabic or Persian ones to reflect
their Muslim identity. Dramatic changes occurred in how
languages were perceived: there were attempts to Islamicize
Indic vernacular languages and literatures, such as Bengali,
by injecting into them more words of Arabic and Persian ori-
gin and using the Perso-Arabic script to write them. Urdu,
written in the Perso-Arabic script and with a highly Persian-
ized vocabulary, was increasingly perceived as a symbol of Is-
lamic identity, while Hindi, written in the Devanagari script
and with a highly Sanskritic vocabulary, became a symbol of
Hinduism. In this emotionally charged atmosphere, it be-
came politically and culturally difficult, if not impossible, for
many Hindu writers to continue writing in Urdu, or for
Muslim writers to cultivate Hindi.
The twin processes of Islamicizationdefined in this
case as the adoption of Perso-Arabic cultural elements and
moresamong Muslims and Sanskritization among Hindus
resulted in a cultural distancing between Muslim and Hindu
in many regions of the subcontinent. Muslim groups realized
that their status as Muslims depended on their cultural dis-
tinctiveness from Hindu groups and vice versa. As sociologist
Imtiaz Ah: mad correctly observes in Exclusion and Assimila-
4654 ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA
tion in Indian Islam (1976) the ultimate result of this vari-
ety of Islamicization was disjunction; it had profound signifi-
cance in shaping interaction among Muslims and Hindus by
sharpening cultural differences between them. Ultimately,
cultural distancing facilitated the rise of the two-nation theo-
rythe idea that Muslims and Hindus constitute two sepa-
rate cultures and nationsand the demand for partition. It
also partially explains why the lack of a shared common cul-
ture has intensified the Muslim-Hindu violence that has
marked the history of contemporary South Asia.
POST-PARTITION SOUTH ASIA. The emergence of the two-
nation theory as the political platform on which Muh: ammad
EAl Jinnah: (d. 1948) and the Muslim League were able to
garner support for the idea of Pakistan was not unexpected,
for it had historical roots. The seeds for its germination had
already been sown decades earlier. Sir Sayyid Ah: mad Khans
advocacy for separate political rights for Muslims; Sayyid
Ah: mad Shahds mujahidn movement and the quest for a practices that it determined as being Islamically correct
dar al-Islam; the Khilafat movement of the 1920s and its fu-
tile attempt to preserve the Sunn caliphate and the ideal of
Muslim political sovereignty; Sir Muh: ammad Iqbals call for
a consolidated Muslim state within a federal Indiaall can
be seen, retrospectively, as paving the way for the creation
of Pakistan. Nevertheless, many Eulama D, including a signifi-
cant number of Deobandis, were opposed to the idea of Paki-
stan on two grounds: firstly, they did not trust the western-
ized elite who led the Pakistan movement and secondly, they
considered nationalism to be a Western ideology that was
detrimental to transnational Muslim unity. Not surprisingly,
H: usayn Ah: mad Madan, a leader of the Deoband Eulama D,
issued a fatwa forbidding Muslims to support the idea of Pa-
kistan and declared Jinnah: , who was popularly called
Quaid-i A Ez: am (The Great Leader), to be Kafir-i A Ez: am
(The Great Infidel). Among other opponents were AbuDl
Kalam Azad (d. 1958), a scholar and commentator on the
QurDan and an ardent proponent of a composite Hindu-
Muslim nationalism; and Maulana Mawdud (d. 1979), who
founded the JamaEat-i Islam to counter the Muslim League
and the drive for a Muslim homeland. Ironically, the
JamaEat-i Islam was able to fully express its political program
only after it became actively involved in Pakistan, the very
state whose creation Mawdud had opposed.
Ostensibly founded to allow Muslims a safe haven in
which to practice their religion and nourish their cultures
without fearing the tyranny of a non-Muslim majority, Paki-
stan has, since its foundation, grappled with the problem of
defining the role of Islam in the organization of the state.
Muh: ammad EAl Jinnah: , the founding father, had a vision
of a Muslim state that was secular and liberal. It was Is-
lamic in that it was to be devoted to nurturing and protect-
ing the cultural, social, and political interests of Muslims. In
this vision, the state did not interfere with the religious be-
liefs and practices of its Muslim (and non-Muslim) popula-
tion. In contrast, groups such as Mawduds JamaEat-i Islam have campaigned for Islam to become the ideology of the
envisioned an Islamic state whose underlying political ide-
ology was religious and whose function it was to ensure that
Islam (meaning, of course, their interpretation of it) was
being correctly followed and implemented. Over its fifty odd
years of existence, the Pakistani polity has become the battle-
ground for struggles between secularists, modernists, and Is-
lamists, and has oscillated between different visions of the
role of Islam in public life. To promote national unity, the
state had at its foundation appealed to religion as a binding
ideology to hold together different ethnic groups. Yet, as the
secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in the bloody civil war
of 1971 demonstrates, religious ideology alone is not suffi-
cient to hold Muslim communities together. Ethnic and lan-
guage loyalties are much stronger forces than faith in foster-
ing community. Today, ethno-nationalist tensions between
Sindhis, Muhajirs, and Punjabis continue to plague Pakistan.
In the 1980s General Z: ia ul-H: aqq, with the support of
the JamaEat-i Islam, was able to implement programs of Is-
lamicization, in which the government enforced religious
and proscribed those that it considered incorrect. Although
instituted to promote national unity through uniformity,
these programs have proven to be divisive as there is no con-
sensus in Pakistani society on basic questions such as what
is true Islam, who is a Muslim, or even who is, in fact, re-
sponsible for the enforcement of religious codes. As a result
of Islamicization policies, tensions between Sh Eah and
Sunn have intensified, frequently leading to violence. Dis-
cord between different groups, even within the majority
Sunn community, has heightened because it has been im-
possible to reach agreement over which interpretation of
Islam should be the basis for state policy. Many changes in
personal and family law, introduced as part of the Islamiciza-
tion program, have been detrimental to the status of Muslim
women, leading to opposition from womens rights organiza-
tions. Groups such as the Ah: madyah, who claim to be Mus-
lim, have been proclaimed a non-Muslim minority by the
state and subjected to persecution. Although constitutionally
protected, Christian and Hindu minority communities in
Pakistan live apprehensively in a nation that has yet to come
to terms with ethnic and religious pluralism.
The situation in Bangladesh has been different from
that of Pakistan, mainly because the state emerged as an ex-
pression of Bengali ethnonationalismthe majority of
Bangladeshis being speakers of Bengalinot common reli-
gion. Nevertheless, since its foundation, the role of Islam in
this Muslim-majority state has become a topic of debate and
contention. The first constitution in 1972 affirmed the secu-
lar character of the state and prohibited political parties
founded on the basis of religious affiliation. Three years later,
after a military coup, the government of Ziaur Rahman
(19751981) began to replace secularist ideals with more re-
ligious ones, eventually resulting in the declaration of Islam
as a state religion in 1988. Religious political parties, princi-
pally the JamaEat-i Islam, following the pattern in Pakistan,
state. So far they have been unable to win widespread elector-
al support for their cause.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

As for India, in the aftermath of the partition Muslim
communities there have been consistently perceived as the
other, especially as the nation-state of India was itself
formed in opposition to the Islamic otherPakistan. Con-
sequently, many Muslims have experienced a steady margi-
nalization economically, socially, and politically, especially as
the nations politics have come to be increasingly influenced
by right-wing Hindu ideologies. At various times, the situa-
tion of Muslim minorities has been precarious as they have
been victimized by bloody pogroms provoked by Hindu ex-
tremist groups. The demolition of the Babri mosque in De-
cember 1992 and the riots that followed, as well as the massa-
cres of Muslims in Gujarat in 2003, have severely shaken the
self-confidence of many of Indias Muslims in the supposedly
secular nature of the state.
Surveying the history of Muslim communities in South
Asia, it is clear that religiously based nationalisms and the
politics of communalism in the contemporary period have
been detrimental to the composite culture that Muslims have
shared for many centuries with other religious groups. As
previously shared cultural elements have become increasingly
politicized along religious lines, the divide between Muslims
and Hindus has widened. In the politically charged atmo-
sphere created by the rise of religious right-wing political par-
ties in India and Pakistan, and to a limited extent in Bangla-
desh, traditions of inter-religious and intra-religious
pluralism have been jeopardized. Religious intolerance and
stereotyping are on the rise. As a result, the history of Islam
in South Asia has been grossly misrepresented. Perpetuated
by Muslim and non-Muslim groups alike, these stereotypes
and distorted interpretations of history and doctrine have
had the unfortunate consequence of creating a marked in-
crease in the dehumanization of the otherwhether Mus-
lim or Hindu, Sh E or Sunn.
SEE ALSO Ah: madiyah; JamaEat-i Islam; T: arqah.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The most comprehensive and scholarly handbook is Annemarie
Schimmels Islam in the Indian Subcontinent (Leiden, Neth-
erlands, 1980), which has full bibliographies. Muh: ammad
Mujeebs The Indian Muslims (London, 1967) is a sensitive
interpretation of Muslim responses to the South Asian set-
ting. Indias Islamic Tradition, 7111750, edited by Richard
Eaton (New Delhi, 2003), and Beyond Turk and Hindu: Re-
thinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia, edited by
David Gilmartin and Bruce Lawrence (Gainesville, Fla.,
2000), contain important essays on Muslim and Hindu in-
teractions in premodern South Asia in regional contexts, the
dynamic overlapping of religious cultures, and the fluid na-
ture of constructions of religious identity. These essays are
a marvelous antidote to the strictly communalist and nation-
alist readings of history favored in some circles. Finally, Tony
Stewarts In Search of Equivalence: Conceiving the Mus-
lim-Hindu Encounter through Translation Theory, History
of Religions 40, no. 3 (2001): 260287, represents a signifi-
cant contribution to the study of vernacular Muslim
literature.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA 4655
Sufism in South Asia has attracted a great deal of attention from
scholars, some of whom have axes to grind. Important
studies include the various works by Khaliq Ahmad Nizami;
Yohanan Friedmanns Shaykh Ahmad Sirhind: An Outline
of His Thought and a Study of His Image in the Eyes of Posterity
(Montreal, 1971); Richard Eatons Sufis of Bijapur, 1300
1700: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India (Princeton, N.J.,
1978); Muslim Shrines in India: Their Character, History, and
Significance, edited by Christian Troll (Delhi,1989); and
Carl Ernsts Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics
at a South Asian Sufi Center (Albany, N.Y., 1992).
Important studies on minority Muslim communities include
S. A. A. Rizvis A Socio-Intellectual History of the Isna EAshari
Shi Eis in India, 2 vols. (Delhi, 1986); Azim Nanjis The
Nzar Isma E l Tradition in the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent
(Delmar, N.Y., 1978); Juan Coles Roots of North Indian
Shi Eism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh, 1722
1859 (Berkeley, Calif., 1988); Yohanan Friedmanns Prophe-
cy Continuous: Aspects of Ahmadi Religious Thought and Its
Medieval Background (Berkeley, Calif., 1989); Vernon Schu-
bels Religious Performance in Contemporary Islam: Shii Devo-
tional Rituals in South Asia (Columbia, S.C., 1993); and
Jonah Blanks Mullahs on the Mainframe: Islam and Moderni-
ty among the Daudi Bohras (Chicago, 2001).
Among the growing number of studies that focus on the regional
development of Islamic traditions, the most significant are
Stephen Dales Islamic Society on the South Asian Frontier
(New York, 1980); Asim Roys The Islamic Syncretistic Tradi-
tion in Bengal (Princeton, N.J., 1983); David Gilmartins
Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan (Berke-
ley, Calif., 1988); Rafiuddin Ahmeds The Bengal Muslims
18711906: A Quest for Identity (Delhi, 1991); and Richard
Eatons The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 12041760
(Berkeley, Calif., 1993).
For modern developments, the standard survey is Azz Ah: mads
Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, 18571964 (Lon-
don, 1967); dated but still a classic is Wilfred Cantwell
Smiths Modern Islam in India: A Social Analysis, rev. ed.
(New York, 1972). Imtiaz Ah: mad discusses in detail the im-
pact of Islamicization on Muslim-Hindu relations in his Ex-
clusion and Assimilation in Indian Islam, in Sociocultural
Impact of Islam on India, edited by Attar Singh (Chandigarh,
India, 1976), pp. 85105. More specialized studies on indi-
vidual figures or movements include Christian Trolls Sayyid
Ahmad Khan: A Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology (New
Delhi, 1978); Annemarie Schimmels Gabriels Wing: A
Study into the Religious Ideas of Sir Muh: ammad Iqbal (Leiden,
Netherlands, 1963); Barbara Metcalfs Islamic Revival in
British India: Deoband, 18601900 (Princeton, N.J., 1982);
Gail Minaults The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbolism
and Political Mobilization in India (New York, 1982); and
S. Vali Reza Nasrs Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Re-
vivalism (New York, 1996).
The experiences of Muslim women in South Asia are long overdue
for scholarly attention. Among a few pioneering works are
Patricia Jefferys Frogs in a Well: Indian Women in Purdah
(London, 1979); Separate Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South
Asia, edited by Hannah Papanek and Gail Minault (Colum-
bia, Mo., 1983); Gail Minaults Secluded Scholars: Womens
Education and Muslim Social Reform in Colonial India (Delhi,
4656 ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
1998); and Shemeem Abbass The Female Voice in Sufi Ritu-
al: Devotional Practices of Pakistan and India (Austin, Tex.,
2002).
ALI S. ASANI (2005)
ISLAM: ISLAM IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
Southeast Asia is in some respects a forgotten world of Islam,
for much the same reasons as its counterparts in West and
East Africa. Neither its arrival nor its development there was
spectacular, and the languages of the local Muslim commu-
nities did not become vehicles for works of universal and
commanding stature as had Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and
some of the vernaculars of the Indian subcontinent. Yet,
Islam in Southeast Asia has its own styles and its own temper
and intellectual traditions. It merits full recognition as a
major cultural zone of the domain of Islam in its own right.
Its sacral practices and folk beliefs that color and live along-
side the profession of Islam no more invalidate that basic al-
legiance than do the sacral practices and folk beliefs of Mus-
lims elsewhere, including those in the Middle East. Indeed,
Southeast Asia is the home of at least one-fifth of the worlds
Muslims. Indonesia alone, with over 130 million Muslims,
is the largest such community in the world.
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY. Southeast Asia is best described
as a great archipelago, a huge land mass that juts southward
between the Indian subcontinent and China and then frag-
ments at its extremity into a complex of thousands of islands,
the largest of which are Sumatra, Borneo (Kalimantan), Java,
and Mindanao, while the smallest hardly registers on the
map. Today this region is identified with the modern nation-
states of Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea, Thailand,
Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
All of these nation-states have Muslim communities. In
Myanmar, Kampuchea, and Vietnam they are insignificant
minorities. In Thailand, the Muslim community, though
still a minority, has a distinct profile. In Malaysia, Indonesia,
and Brunei, on the other hand, Islam has an imposing posi-
tion. Farther to the east, in the Philippines, it constitutes a
significant cultural minority that is in some respects a part
of the Philippine nation, but in others, the nucleus of a na-
tional entity attempting in various ways to establish its au-
tonomy, if not independence.
Structures in transition. In seeking to understand the
historical evolution and contemporary significance of these
communities, it is necessary to distinguish between the mod-
ern nation-states of the contemporary world, and the tradi-
tional distribution of centers of power in Southeast Asia.
These new nation-states, emerging in the wake of decolon-
ization, were largely set within the borders established by the
colonial powers that had created them. The capital cities of
such states, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta for example, are a
focus of the national personality of the political entities in
which they are set. They are the gateway, the immediate
point of identification, the seat of government, to which
their inhabitants turn. They have a status that defines the
other parts of the nation as provinces.
Nevertheless, and although it might seem, from a con-
temporary perspective, that these nations have always existed
in some form or another and that their present role derives
simply from the expulsion of colonial powers and the recov-
ery of a national sovereignty that has been lost, the reality
is far more complex and the results of decolonization more
radical. In fact, the creation of such states has turned the tra-
ditional world of Southeast Asia on its head. The role of such
capital cities with a strong central authority dominating the
political, economic, and religious life of the region is very
recent.
Traditionally, centers of political power in Southeast
Asia were distributed among a wide range of focal points that
served as harbors for the exchange and transshipment of
goods; these points became the sites of port cities, which
from time to time grew strong enough to wield an extensive
political authority. Such sites were diverse, discrete, numer-
ous, scattered, and largely unstable centers of activity; they
had relations with each other on the basis of rivalry and self-
interest, without the direct hegemony of a central authority
or any stable and continuing point of reference. Unlike the
great cities of the Middle East and South Asia, which enjoyed
stability over centuries, if not millennia (one need only men-
tion Cairo, Alexandria, Damascus, Baghdad, or Delhi), cen-
ters of power in traditional Southeast Asia rarely maintained
their position for more than a century, and the authority they
enjoyed was very different from that of the modern capital
cities in the region. The historiography of the region, in its
many languages, reflects this character in the emphasis that
it lays on genealogy of founders and traditional rulers in its
accounts of the origins of settlements.
These circumstances have important implications for an
understanding of Islam and the processes of Islamization in
the region. On the one hand, its origins need to be seen in
the planting of numerous local traditions of Islam at focal
points in the archipelago. In the course of time, these tradi-
tions coalesced and emerged for a while as Islamic city-states
or fissiparated and disappeared as significant entities, to be
succeeded by new ones. On the other hand, the establish-
ment of modern nation-states with single centers of authority
has laid the foundation for a new kind of Islamic tradition
with a national character, and these centers in turn have exer-
cised a normative influence on the development of such tra-
ditions.
The diversity of Southeast Asia. From earliest times,
Southeast Asia has been a region with a variety of peoples,
social structures, means of livelihood, cultures, and religions.
Denys Lombard, admittedly writing of the modern period,
puts it this way:
We are in fact dealing with several levels of mentali-
ty. . . . The thought processes of fringe societies in
which potlatch is a prevailing custom (the Toraja);
those of concentric agrarian societies (the Javanese
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION