The Muslim World in Modern South Asia

Francis Robinson

Description

Over the past two hundred years, two great processes have shaped Muslim societies: Western domination and the industrial capitalism that came with it, and the Islamic revival that preceded the Western presence but came to interact significantly with it. In this book, Francis Robinson considers the challenges Western dominance has offered key aspects of Muslim civilization, particularly in the context of South Asia, which in the nineteenth century moved from being a receiver of influences from the rest of the Muslim world to being a transmitter of influences to it.

Robinson also considers aspects of the Muslim revival and how they have come to shape, in various ways, Muslim responses to Western dominance. The role of the transmission of knowledge, both formal and spiritual, in forming Muslim societies is explored, and also the particular role of the transmitters in sustaining the Islamic dimensions of Muslim societies under Western dominance. Attention, too, is paid to the imposition of the modern state and the restriction of cosmopolitan spaces.
Acknowledgments
Transliteration
Glossary

Introduction

1. The Islamic World in the Age of Western Dominance

2. Global History from an Islamic Angle

3. Education in the Muslim World to the End of the Eighteenth Century

4. On How Since 1800 Islamic Societies Have Been Built from Below

5. Crisis of Authority: Crisis of Islam?

6. Strategies of Authority in Muslim South Asia in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

7. Islamic Reform and Modernities in South Asia

8. Iranian Influences on South Asia

9. South Asia and West Asia from the Delhi Sultanate to the Present: Security, Resources and Influence

10. The Memory of Power, Muslim 'Political Importance' and the Muslim League

11. The Modern State: Citizenship, Multiculturalism and Globalisation

12. What Ralph Russell Meant and Means to Me

13. Love on the Roof

14. Hunting the Tiger

15. The Garden of the Eight Paradises

16. Uses for Grass

17. The Muslim Commander Bond

18. Aromatherapy

19. Love of Mahal

20. Cosmopolis of a Shared Worldview

21. In Reverse

22. Women, Leadership, and Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority

Index

Sujets

• Islam
• History of religions
• History of Asia

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438483030
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Muslim World in Modern South Asia
The Muslim World in Modern South Asia
POWER, AUTHORITY, KNOWLEDGE
Francis Robinson
The Muslim World in Modern South Asia: Power, Authority, Knowledge by Francis Robinson was first published by Permanent Black D-28 Oxford Apts, 11 IP Extension, Delhi 110092 INDIA, for the territory of SOUTH ASIA.
Not for sale in South Asia
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2020 Francis Robinson
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Robinson, Francis, author
Title: The Muslim world in modern South Asia : power, authority, knowledge / Francis Robinson, author.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781438483016 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438483030 (e-book)
Further information is available at the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To
the late Ram Advani
bookseller extraordinary
who made it a pleasure to work
in Lucknow over forty years
Contents

Acknowledgments
Transliteration
Glossary
Introduction
1 The Islamic World in the Age of Western Dominance
2 Global History from an Islamic Angle
3 Education in the Muslim World to the End of the Eighteenth Century
4 On How Since 1800 Islamic Societies Have Been Built from Below
5 Crisis of Authority: Crisis of Islam?
6 Strategies of Authority in Muslim South Asia in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
7 Islamic Reform and Modernities in South Asia
8 Iranian Influences on South Asia
9 South Asia and West Asia from the Delhi Sultanate to the Present: Security, Resources and Influence
10 The Memory of Power, Muslim ‘Political Importance’ and the Muslim League
11 The Modern State: Citizenship, Multiculturalism and Globalisation
12 What Ralph Russell Meant and Means to Me
13 Love on the Roof
14 Hunting the Tiger
15 The Garden of the Eight Paradises
16 Uses for Grass
17 The Muslim Commander Bond
18 Aromatherapy
19 Love of Mahal
20 Cosmopolis of a Shared Worldview
21 In Reverse
22 Women, Leadership, and Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority
Index
Acknowledgments

The chapters in this book were first published in the following books, journals and magazines:
‘The Islamic World in the Age of Western Dominance’, Francis Robinson (ed.), Islam in the Age of Western Dominance , vol. 5, New Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 1–21.
‘Global History from an Islamic Angle’, James Belich, John Darwin, Margaret Frenz, and Chris Wickham (eds), The Prospect of Global History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 127–45.
‘Education in the Muslim World to the End of the Eighteenth Century’, Robert Irwin (ed.), Islamic Cultures and Societies to the End of the Eighteenth Century , vol. 4, New Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 497–531.
‘Crisis of Authority: Crisis of Islam?’, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , 3rd series, 19, 3 (July 2009), pp. 339–54.
‘Strategies of Authority in Muslim South Asia in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, Modern Asian Studies , 47, 1 (2013), pp. 1–21, and subsequently in Usha Sanyal, David Gilmartin, and Sandria B. Freitag (eds), Muslim Voices: Community and the Self in South Asia (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2014), pp. 16–36.
‘Islamic Reform and Modernities in South Asia’, Modern Asian Studies , 42, 2/3 (2008), pp. 259–81, and subsequently in Filippo and Caroline Osella (eds), Islamic Reform in South Asia (Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 26–50.
‘Iranian Influences on South Asia’, Journal of the Iran Society , vol. 2, no. 12 (September 2013), pp. 7–27.
‘South Asia and West Asia from the Delhi Sultanate to the Present: Security, Resources and Influence’, in Working Papers: Symposium on the Academic Chairs of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said and Their Contribution to the Development of Human Knowledge, 1–3 November 2010, Sultan Qaboos University (Muscat: Ministry of Higher Education, n.d.), pp. 74–86.
‘Memory of Power, Muslim “Political Importance” and the Muslim League’, R. Ahmad (ed.), Papers Presented at the Three-Day International Conference on the All-India Muslim League (1906–1947), 18–20 December 2006, Islamabad (Islamabad: National Centre for Historical Research), vol. 2, pp. 157–75.
‘The Modern State: Citizenship, Multiculturalism and Globalization’, Hassan Bashir and Phillip W. Gray (eds), Deconstructing Global Citizenship: Political, Cultural, and Ethnic Perspectives (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015), pp. 1–16.
‘What Ralph Russell Meant and Means to Me’, Annual of Urdu Studies , 24 (2009), pp. 242–48.
‘Love on the Roof’, Times Literary Supplement , 29 August 2008, p. 10.
‘Hunting the Tiger’, Times Literary Supplement , 18 January 2013, p. 11.
‘Uses for Grass’, Times Literary Supplement , 2 November 2007, pp. 7–8.
‘The Muslim Commander Bond’, Times Literary Supplement, 1 January 2010, pp. 24–5.
‘Aromatherapy’, Times Literary Supplement , 5 April 2013, p. 13.
‘Love of Mahal’, Times Literary Supplement , 14 May 2010, p. 9.
‘In Reverse’, Times Literary Supplement , 22 January 2010, pp. 7–8.
‘The Garden of the Eight Paradises’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3rd series, vol. 18, part I, January 2008, pp. 89–92.
‘Women, Leadership, and Mosques’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , 3rd series, vol. 23, part I, January 2013, pp. 142–4.
‘Cosmopolis of a Shared World View’, The Book Review , vol. XXXIX, no. 10 (October 2015), pp. 19–20.
Transliteration

F OR CONSISTENCY THE conventions of Encyclopaedia of Islam , 3rd edition, have been imposed on all texts, outside quotation marks. No macrons or underdots are inserted although the ain and hamza have been. Italics have been used only when strictly necessary.
Glossary

adab the rules of conduct, the Muslim idea of a harmonious life.
Akhbārīs the school of Shi‘a jurisprudence which rejects the methods of the Usulis and demands close adherence to the meaning of the akhbar, the hadith.
‘ ālim learned man; singular of ‘ulama’.
Dār al-iftā an office for delivering fatwas.
Dār al-‘ulūm a place of advanced religious learning, superior to a madrasa.
dawla earthly prosperity.
dīn religion in its broadest sense.
‘Eīd un-Nabī the Prophet’s festival, his birthday.
firmān an edict delivered by the Mughals or the Ottomans.
ḥ adīth tradition, the sayings and doings of the Prophet based on the authority of a chain of transmitters.
ḥ ajj the pilgrimage to Mecca.
ḥ ājjī one who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca.
ḥ akīm a practitioner of Greco-Islamic medicine; see Unani.
ḥ awza a circle of Islamic scholars, or place of Islamic studies, especially amongst the Shi‘a.
ijāza permission to transmit knowledge, e.g. hadith.
‘ilm knowledge, plural ‘ulum, of the texts in the madrasa curriculum.
inshā draughtsmanship, as practised by a bureaucrat.
i ṣ lā ḥ reform.
jāhilīyya ignorance of the message of God, a charge often made against secular governments in the modern world.
jihād legitimate war waged against non-Muslims by a mujahid, pl. mujahidin; personal struggle against one’s baser instincts.
Kayasth Hindu caste found in the north of South Asia.
kufr unbelief, the practices of a non-Muslim.
Khalīfa one who has received Khilafat from a Sufi pir.
Khatri a predominantly Hindu caste found in the north of South Asia.
Khilāfat the successorship to the Prophet Muhammad as the leader of the Muslim community; also the successorship to a Sufi pir giving permission to make disciples.
khums the tax of one-fifth of moveable property paid by Shi‘as to the public treasury each year.
madrasa a school for ‘ulama’.
maktūbat the collected letters of Sufi shaykhs or scholars.
malfūzat the recorded sayings and doings of a Sufi saint, usually by his disciples.
ma‘qūlāt the rational sciences in the madrasa curriculum.
marsiyā a largely Shi‘a genre of poetry in which the glories and sufferings of Husayn and the other Imams are evoked.
maslak a system of religious belief and worship.
mathnawī a poem in rhyming couplets, the classic example being the mathnawi of Jalal al-Din Rumi.
mawlānā ‘Our Lord’, a title given to a person respected for religious learning.
mawlawī title given to a learned man.
mawlid the anniversary of the Prophet’s birth, 12 Rabi al-Awwal.
Mohurram the first month of the Islamic year, in which the martyrdom of Imam Husayn is remembered.
mu ḥ alla neighbourhood within a city.
mujaddid renewer, title given to a major religious reformer.
mujāhidīn those waging jihad, a legitimate war against non-Muslims.
mullā Muslim functionary, member of the ‘ulama’, title of respect for a Muslim scholar.
mujtahid an ‘alim recognised as competent to give independent opinions on th