Ashraf Ali Thanawi: Islam in Modern South Asia (Makers of the Muslim World)

147 Pages·2007·0.81 MB·English

by  Muhammad Qasim Zaman

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MAKERS
of the
MUSLIM
WORLD
Ashraf ‘Ali Thanawi
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SELECTION OF TITLES IN THE
MAKERS OF THE MUSLIM WORLD SERIES
Series editor:Patricia Crone,
Institute for Advanced Study,Princeton
‘Abd al-Malik,Chase F.Robinson
Abd al-Rahman III,Maribel Fierro
Abu Nuwas,Philip Kennedy
Ahmad ibn Hanbal,Christopher Melchert
Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi,Usha Sanyal
Al-Ma’mun,Michael Cooperson
Al-Mutanabbi,Margaret Larkin
Amir Khusraw,Sunil Sharma
El Hajj Beshir Agha,Jane Hathaway
Fazlallah Astarabadi and the Hurufis,Shazad Bashir
Ibn ‘Arabi,William C.Chittick
Ibn Fudi,Ahmad Dallal
Ikhwan al-Safa,Godefroid de Callatay
Shaykh Mufid,Tamima Bayhom-Daou
For current information and details of other books in the
series,please visit www.oneworld-publications.com
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MAKERS
of the
MUSLIM
WORLD
Ashraf ‘Ali Thanawi
Islam in Modern South Asia
MUHAMMAD QASIM ZAMAN
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ASHRAF ‘ALI THANAWI
A Oneworld Book
Published by Oneworld Publications 2007
Copyright © Muhammad Qasim Zaman 2007
All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available
from the British Library
ISBN-13:978–1–85168–415–1
Typeset by Jayvee,Trivandrum,India
Printed and bound in India for Imprint Digital
Oneworld Publications
185 Banbury Road
Oxford OX2 7AR
England
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For Bruce Lawrence
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
A Note on Transliteration, Abbreviations, and Other Conventions xi
INTRODUCTION 1
Contestation in the religious sphere 2
Contrasting trajectories 8
1 LIFE 13
The intellectual milieu of Deoband 15
A madrasa career 17
A spiritual crisis? 21
At the Sufi lodge 25
The Khanaqah’s scholars 29
Overlapping communities 31
2 MUSLIM NATIONHOOD 35
Indian politics in the early twentieth century 35
Thanawi and the Khilafat Movement 39
Muslim separatism in India 45
The prophet and the king 52
3 COLONIAL LAW 57
Apostasy in British India 57
The Consummate Stratagem 62
The fight against custom 65
Conflicting authorities 69
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viii ASHRAF ‘ALI THANAWI
4 SUFISM IN A TIME OF CHANGE 79
The Sufi and the jurist 79
The rhetoric of reconciliation 84
Ambiguity and flexibility 87
Training the wayfarer 90
A shared language 95
5 THE AMBIGUITIES OF A LEGACY 105
Sufism 105
Law 107
Politics 116
Thanawi and the Deobandi scholarly tradition 121
Bibliography 127
Index 135
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Ihave greatly benefited from the help and encouragement of many
people in working on this book.I am grateful to Patricia Crone for
inviting me to contribute a volume to the Makers of the Muslim
World series and for her perceptive comments on an earlier draft.
David Gilmartin read an earlier version of the book with his custom-
ary thoroughness,generously sharing his time and learning,and pro-
viding much astute feedback.I am also indebted to the outside reader
for very helpful comments,to Mike Harpley and Kate Smith,my edi-
tors at Oneworld,for expertly shepherding the manuscript through
various stages of preparation and production,and to Meg Davies for
skillful copy-editing.It would have been difficult to bring this work
to fruition without the counsel and support of Shaista Azizalam.I am
most grateful to her,and to our children,Zaynab and Mustafa,for
their love,patience,and understanding.
Bruce Lawrence read an earlier version of this book with great
sensitivity and offered suggestions that helped make this a better
book.His encouragement,advice,and support have long been cru-
cial to my work,and his example as a scholar has continued to guide
me.It is to him that I dedicate this book.
I began work on this project while at Brown University in
Providence, Rhode Island, and completed it at the Institute for
Advanced Study in Princeton,New Jersey.I am grateful to both insti-
tutions for their financial support and to their library staff for much
assistance.
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