Everyday Islamic Law and the Making of Modern South Asia

Elizabeth Lhost

Description

Beginning in the late eighteenth century, British rule transformed the relationship between law, society, and the state in South Asia. But qazis and muftis, alongside ordinary people without formal training in law, fought back as the colonial system in India sidelined Islamic legal experts. They petitioned the East India Company for employment, lobbied imperial legislators for recognition, and built robust institutions to serve their communities. By bringing legal debates into the public sphere, they resisted the colonial state's authority over personal law and rejected legal codification by embracing flexibility and possibility. With postcards, letters, and telegrams, they made everyday Islamic law vibrant and resilient and challenged the hegemony of the Anglo-Indian legal system.

Following these developments from the beginning of the Raj through independence, Elizabeth Lhost rejects narratives of stagnation and decline to show how an unexpected coterie of scholars, practitioners, and ordinary individuals negotiated the contests and challenges of colonial legal change. The rich archive of unpublished fatwa files, qazi notebooks, and legal documents they left behind chronicles their efforts to make Islamic law relevant for everyday life, even beyond colonial courtrooms and the confines of family law. Lhost shows how ordinary Muslims shaped colonial legal life and how their diversity and difference have contributed to contemporary debates about religion, law, pluralism, and democracy in South Asia and beyond.

Sujets

• Islam
• India
• Asia
• History
• Fatw?
• South Asia
• Histoire

Informations

• Publié par: The University of North Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 10 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781469668130
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 34 Mo

Extrait

Everyday Islamic Law and the Making of Modern South Asia
Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks
Carl W. Ernst and Bruce B. Lawrence, editors
Highlighting themes with historical as well as contemporary significance, Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks features works that explore Islamic societies and Muslim peoples from a fresh perspective, drawing on new interpretive frameworks or theoretical strategies in a variety of disciplines. Special emphasis is given to systems of exchange that have promoted the creation and development of Islamic identities—cultural, religious, or geopolitical. The series spans all periods and regions of Islamic civilization.
A complete list of titles published in this series appears at the end of the book.
Everyday Islamic Law and the Making of Modern South Asia
ELIZABETH LHOST
The University of North Carolina Press   Chapel Hill
This book was published with the assistance of Dartmouth College .
© 2022 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Set in Charis by Westchester Publishing Services
Manufactured in the United States of America
The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
Complete Cataloging-in-Publication information for this title is available through the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4696-6811-6 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4696-6812-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4696-6813-0 (ebook)
Cover illustrations: Photo of the mufti's library at the Madrasa Aminiya in Delhi, with photos of fatwa files (upper left corner) and postcard stamps (background, center blue title square).
To everyone who has tried to make sense of the law
Contents Note on Translation and Transliteration Introduction Life, Law, and Legal History Part I Professionals Interlude I Rethinking Law, Religion, and the State 1   Becoming Qazi in British Bombay Imperial Expansion, Legal Administration, and Everyday Negotiation 2   Creating a Qazi Class Navigating Expectations between Company and Community 3   From Petitions to Elections Islamic Legal Practitioners and the Exigencies of Colonial Rule Part II Paperwork Interlude II Crown Rule in the Context of Noninterference 4   Personal Law in the Public Sphere Fatwas, Print Publics, and the Making of Everyday Islamic Legal Discourse 5   From Files to Fatwas Procedural Uniformity and Substantive Flexibility in Alternative Legal Spaces 6   Accounting for Qazis Negotiating Life and Law in Small-Town North India Part III Possibilities Interlude III Analyzing Shari ʿ a, State, and Society 7   Of Judges and Jurists Questioning the Courts in Islamic Legal Discourse 8   Whose Law Is It, Anyway? Navigating Legal Paths in Late Colonial Society Conclusion The Limits of Legal Possibilities Acknowledgments Glossary Notes Bibliography Index
Figures, Maps, and Table
Figures
0.1  Front page of the Bombay Chronicle , xviii
2.1  Sample text for a qazi sanad, 60
2.2  Facsimile of a qazi sanad, 61
3.1  Recommended register layout for recording Muslim marriages, 103
4.1  Printed fatwa from the Majm ū ʿ a-yi Fat ā w á -yi Ṣ ā briya , 128
5.1  Formal fatwa issued by the dar-ul-ifta of the princely state of Hyderabad, 141
5.2  Cover sheet for a fatwa file from the dar-ul-ifta of the Sadarat-ul- ʿ Aliya in Hyderabad, 143
5.3  Internal office memo, produced as part of a fatwa file in Hyderabad, 144
5.4  Draft fatwa, 145
6.1  Page from the registers of Muslim marriages produced by the qazis of Meerut, 1881, 173
6.2  Marriage register entry from Bharuch, 1859, 177
6.3  Marriage register entry produced by Qazi Bashir-ud-Din, 1919, 180
Maps
British India, xii
Bombay Presidency, xiii
British Empire, xiv
British India, marking places of interest, xv
Table
3.1  Fees collected by the qazi of Bombay, 87
Note on Translation and Transliteration
Transliteration follows Francis Joseph Steingass’s Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary . 1 For the sake of clarity, I have omitted the final hamza on many words that appear throughout the text (e.g., ift ā ʾ , istift ā ʾ ). When possible, I retain the original, archival spellings of names (e.g., Hyatoolakhan vs. Ḥ ay ā t All ā h Ḵ ẖ ā n) to reflect (and respect) orthographical difference across South Asia. 2 To aid the reader, I supplement these original spellings with full transliteration in brackets, acknowledging that access to multiple spellings can be beneficial for some readers. For place-names, I retain the historical spellings (e.g., Bombay vs. Mumbai) but have noted current or conventional spellings in brackets for clarity (e.g., Broach [Bharuch]). Other terms (e.g., kazi , kadi , cazy , cauzy , cazee , qazee , qadi , etc.) appear as written when taken from archival sources but otherwise appear according to Persian/Urdu pronunciation (e.g., qazi vs. qadi ) in the main text. For terms that have entered the English language (e.g., mufti, begum), I follow Merriam-Webster. All translations from Persian, Urdu, Arabic, and other languages are my own, unless otherwise noted.
British India, showing the presidencies of Bombay, Bengal, and Madras. Created by Jonathan W. Chipman, Dartmouth College.
The Bombay Presidency, showing regions and places of interest. Created by Jonathan W. Chipman, Dartmouth College.
The British Empire, showing the places where laws relating to Muslim marriages were enacted. Created by Jonathan W. Chipman, Dartmouth College.
British India, marking places of interest. Created by Jonathan W. Chipman, Dartmouth College.
Everyday Islamic Law and the Making of Modern South Asia
Introduction
Life, Law, and Legal History
FIGURE 0.1   Front page of the Bombay Chronicle , August 16, 1931, showing Mufti Muhammad Kifayatullah prominently featured in a photo array, along with several other leading members of the ʿ ulama (scholarly community).
Picturing Law
In August 1931 the Bombay Chronicle published a picture of Muftī Mu ḥ ammad Kif ā yatull ā h (ca. 1875–1952) alongside coverage of the Indian National Congress Working Committee’s recent meetings in Bombay ( figure 0.1 ). 1 Shortly after its publication, a reader of the Chronicle asked Kifayatullah about the photograph. 2 The reader likely knew about Kifayatullah’s work as an Islamic legal scholar and was perhaps also familiar with the Islamic legal opinions (fatwas; fat ā w á ) he had written—including fatwas against photography. 3 Was the mufti aware that his photograph had appeared in the Bombay newspaper, and did he consider its publication permissible ( j ā ʾ iz )? the reader inquired. Drawing attention to the photograph’s unexpected publication, the Chronicle ’s unnamed reader called on the mufti to account for his presence in the paper and to make sense of the rules he had seemingly broken.
Two months after the photograph appeared, in October 1931, Kifayatullah addressed the reader’s concerns by writing a fatwa for his own periodical, the Urdu-language newspaper Al-Jam ʿ ī yat , which was published by the organization he headed as president, the Jam ʿ iyat-ul- ʿ Ulama-yi Hind (Council of Indian Muslim Theologians): “I consider it impermissible [ n ā -j ā ʾ iz ] to take photos [ f ō ṭ ō l ē n ā ] or to have photos taken [ f ō ṭ ō banw ā n ā ],” he began, before continuing, “I did not give anyone permission to take my photo … I also do not know who took this photo or when it was taken.… These days, anyone’s photo might be taken with a hand[held] camera [ dast ī -kaimr ō ṉ s ē ] without him even knowing. That is how my photo must have been taken.” 4 More an explanation or justification than an edict or decree, the mufti explained that the publication of his photograph in the newspaper did not mean that he had granted the photographer permission, nor had he agreed to be photographed. Technology made it possible for the photographer to publish the photo without his permission.
Kifayatullah printed this fatwa in the “ Ḥ aw ā di s wa A ḥ k ā m” (Incidents and injunctions) column of Al-Jam ʿ ī yat . 5 It included the reader’s greeting, “Honored and respected Mufti, Sir, may your shadow never vanish,” and ended with the mufti’s sign-off, “Muhammad Kifayatullah, may God forgive him, Madrasa Am ī n ī ya , Dihl ī .” Sandwiched between these lines was a brief description of the incident, followed by the mufti’s response to it, presented in the form of a fatwa—a legal question and answer. Rooted in communication networks tied to the vibrant English and Urdu public spheres, the entire exchange represented the new character and contours of Islamic legal discourse in twentieth-century South Asia. It was, in other words, an example of everyday Islamic law. The reader’s question was simple, the mufti’s response straightforward, yet the exchange participated in a wider world of Islamic legal activity in which ordinary individuals (newspaper readers) and legal experts (muftis) played important roles; in which postcards, letters, and telegrams carried their exchanges; and for which expert opinions were as dependent on religious fundamentals as they were on changing circumstances and diverse experiences. In the context of nationalist movements and political change, this exchange stands out not for being unique or extraordinary but for being routine and ordinary. It was, and is, one of thousands of possible examples of everyday Islamic law and legal practice from this period.
Traveling from Bombay, where the Chronicle was published, to the Jam ʿ iyat’s headquarters in Delhi, the reader’s question tied English-language reporting on political events in one region to a legal opinion published in an Urdu-language newspaper elsewhere. It tied the political activities of the Indian National Congress to the status and reputation of Indian Muslim leaders and the institutions they ran; and it linked Kifayatullah’s writings on Islamic law, photography, and life in British India to the public sphere of English- and vernacular-language newspapers, periodicals, and th