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‘Fugitive Mullahs and Outlawed Fanatics’: Indian Muslims in nineteenth century trans-Asiatic Imperial Rivalries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2011

SEEMA ALAVI*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Delhi, New Delhi-110007 Email: alaviseema4@gmail.com

Abstract

This paper follows the careers of ‘outlawed’ Indian Muslim subjects who moved outside the geographical and political space of British India and located themselves at the intersection of nineteenth century trans-Asiatic politics: Hijaz, Istanbul and the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and Burma and Acheh in the East. These areas were sites where ‘modern’ Empires (British, Dutch, Ottoman and Russian) coalesced to lay out a trans-Asiatic imperial assemblage. The paper shows how Muslim ‘outlaws’ made careers and carved out their transnational networks by moving across the imperial assemblages of the nineteenth century. British colonial rule, being an important spoke in the imperial wheel, enabled much of this transnationalism to weld together. Webs of connections derived from older forms of Islamic connectivity as well: diplomacy, kinship ties, the writing of commentaries on Islam and its sacred texts in unique ways, oral traditions, madrasa and student contacts. These networks were inclusive and impacted by the tanzimat-inspired scriptural reformist thought in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. They were not narrowly anti-colonial in tone as they derived from a complex inter-play of imperial rivalries in the region. Rather, they were geared towards the triumph of reformist Islam that would unite the umma (community) and engage with the European world order. The paper shows how this imperially-embedded and individual-driven Muslim transnational network linked with Muslim politics rooted within India.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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20 Foreign Office (henceforth FO) 685/2, part II, Syed Hamid bin Syed Boobaker Moonuffer to Abdur Razzack, Vice Consul Jeddah, 27 October 1889. The dual status of such Arab émigrés often created problems for imperial powers as they saw such men as both suspect as well as possessing immense potential as trans-cultural middlemen. See the case of Syed Hamid bin Syed Boobaker Moonuffar who, clearly a Hadhramaut Arab, had lived in Calicut which he considered his home. In 1889 he petitioned to the Indian Government from Mecca asking for help to get back home to Calicut. He had lived in Mecca for 40 years and still yearned to get back to Calicut.

21 Buzpinar, Abdulhamid II and Sayyid Fadl Pasha, pp. 227–239.

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27 FO78/3615, L No. 230–1317, F. Loch, Political Resident Aden, to Sec. to Govt., Bombay, 20 November 1877.

29 Ibid., enclosure no 250–1556, F. Loch, Resident at Aden, to C. Gonne, Sec. to Govt. of Bombay, Pol. Dept., 22 November 1878.

30 Ibid., L No. 11/70 F. Loch, Political Resident at Aden, to Sec. to Govt. Bombay, 15 January 1878.

31 Ibid., Enclosure no 250–1556, F Loch, Resident at Aden, to C. Gonne, Sec. to Govt. of Bombay, Pol. Dept., 22 November 1878.

32 Ibid., Sayid Abdal Rehman bin Hosain bin sahl to Hasan Ali Rajab Ali, Agent to High Govt., 13th November 1878.

34 Ibid., L No. 11/70, F. Loch, Political Resident at Aden, to Sec. to Govt. Bombay, 15 January 1878.

35 Ibid., Al Ghurrah tribals were incensed at his harsh treatment to their tribe for practising magic. They revolted.

36 L No. 3–9, F. Loch, Resident at Aden, to C. Gonne, Sec. to Govt. of Bombay, Pol. Dept. 3 January 1879. Al Ghurrah also objected to his efforts to divert water away from their lands.

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39 Ibid., India Office to the Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office, 9 June 1879.

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42 Ibid., L No. 130, Lt. Col. W. F. Prideaux, Pol. Resident in the Persian Gulf, to T. H. Thornton, Offic. Sec. to Govt. of India, Foreign Dept, 18 May 1877. Lt. Col. S. B. Miles, Pol. Agent at Muscat, investigated into the claims of the Sultan over Dhofar. He doubted the veracity of these claims. Ibid., L No. 210, Lt. Col. S. B. Miles, Pol. Agent and Consul, Muscat, to Lt. Col. W. F. Prideaux, Officiating. Pol. Resident in Persian Gulf, 10 May 1877.

44 For an excellent account of the late Ottoman Empire see Hanioglu, M. S. (2008). A Brief History of the late Ottoman Empire, Princeton University Press, New JerseyGoogle Scholar.

45 Deringil, Legitimacy structures in the Ottoman state.

46 FO 78/3615, L No. 1098, Resident at Istanbul to Marquess of Salisbury, 12 February 1880.

47 Buzpinar, Abdulhamid II and Sayyid Fadl Pasha, p. 237. He argues that such overtures by Fadl were meant to please the British so that they could help him reclaim Dhofar.

48 FO 78/3615, L No. 1098, Resident at Istanbul to Marquess of Salisbury, 12 February 1880.

49 FO685/2 part II, L No. 15, Confidential, FO to Govt of India, 3 December 1888.

51 Ibid., L No. 15, Confidential, FO to Govt of India, 3 December 1888.

52 FO 78/3615, India Office to Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office, 12 March 1880.

53 Ibid., Sayyid Fadl Moplah, Governor of Dhofar, to Gov. of Aden, 1877.

54 For his stay as the guest of Abd al-Hamid II at Istanbul see Buzpinar, Abdulhamid II and Sayyid Fadl, p. 228.

55 FO 78/3615, L No. 192/916 of 1879, Aden Residency to Sec. to Govt. Bombay, 5 June 1879.

56 Ibid., Memorandum of Hugo Marometh, 30 August 1879, Istanbul.

57 Reid, A. (2005). Indonesian Frontier: Achenese and other Histories of Sumatra, Singapore University Press, Singapore, pp. 226248Google Scholar; Laffan, M. (2003). Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia. The Umma Below the Wind, Routledge, London, pp. 114141Google Scholar; Jalal, Self & Sovereignty, pp 190–194. Anthony Reid shows Caliph-centric pan-Islam as a colonial construct. Laffan shifts the focus away from the Caliph to Cairo where anti-British movement and French radical ideas invigorated Indonesian nationalists. In the case of India, Ayesha Jalal has convincingly argued the case for Muslim universalisms.

58 FO78/3615, Resident in Constantinople to Marquess of Salisbury, Constantinople, 7 April 1880. One Mr Ede, an Englishman in Istanbul, was always suspect in the Resident's eye because of his commercial dealings with Fadl and plans for trade with the Hadhramaut area.

59 Reid, Indonesian Frontier, pp. 237–238, 241. Zahir was a religious and legal reformer and had reached Acheh in 1864 after interesting stints in Europe, Egypt, Arabia, Malaya and India. Because of him, hopes of Ottoman help lingered. In 1890 a Turkish warship in Singapore created excitement as it revived hopes of protection. Letters from Acheh were sent to its Turkish commander but clearly nothing came out of this.

60 Ibid., p. 238. He pulled out an 1850 firman from the archives that declared Acheh as a protectorate of the Ottomans. This was effective face-saving for him. The Caliph very gently, in a non-persuasive way, stated his political sovereignty over Acheh. It was dismissed instantly by Holland. Soon the Porte dismissed Zahir with a minor decoration for himself and a Vizirial letter for his Sultan that summed up Turkey's attempts to help Acheh.

61 Ibid., p. 238. Some Singapore Arabs launched an appeal amongst their compatriots in the Straits Settlements and Java which was said to have raised 100,000 Spanish dollars for the Achenese cause by the end of 1874.

62 FO 78/3615, L No. 42–208, Brig. F. Loch, Political Resident Aden, to Sec. to Govt. of Bombay, Pol. Dept., 4 February 1879.

63 Ibid., Resident at Constantinople to India Office, 20 January 1881.

64 Dale, Moplahs of Malabar, pp. 166–167. It was this living martyr status coupled with the correspondence he engaged in with the people of Malabar that made him a suspect in the murder of Conolly.

65 FO/685/1, III Misc. 1873–1882, W. Logan, Commissioner Calicut, to Consul at Jeddah, 29 December 1881.

66 Dale, Moplahs of Malabar, p. 168. The nercca ceremony that commemorated the martyrs of 1848 was enacted at Fadl's father's shrine at Mambram every year until the early twentieth century.

67 FO/685/1, III Misc. 1873–1882., L No. 348, Chief Sec. to British Consul at Jeddah, 5 July 1881.

68 FO78/3615, L No. 307, Resident at Therapia to Earl Granville, 31 August 1880.

69 Ibid., Resident at Constantinople to Marquess of Salisbury, Constantinople, 13 December 1879.

70 Ibid., A Block to India Office, 14 December 1880.

71 Ibid., Resident Istanbul to India Office, 6 January 1881.

72 IOR L/P&S/3/252, L No. 156, Lord Dufferin to Granville, Constantinople, 4 March 1882.

73 Buzpinar, Abdulhamid and Sayyid Fadl, p. 239.

74 Powell, A. (1993). Muslims and Missionaries in Pre-Mutiny India, Curzon Press, Richmond, Surrey, pp. 221222Google Scholar. She argues that he and his father both had stints as mir-munshis in the service of Maharaja Hindu Rao. And the Maharaja had earlier given refuge to followers of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid. This may have influenced him towards their monist Tariqa-i-Muhammadiya ideology.

75 Ibid., p. 221. See for a detailed biographical account of him.

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81 Ibid., p. 318; Zafar, H. M. A. (2007). Rahmatullah Kairanwi aur un kei Muasareen, Takhleeqat Publishers, Lahore, pp. 480481Google Scholar.

82 Ibid., p. 319; Ibid, p. 461.

83 Adravi, Rahmatullah Kairanwi, pp. 322–323. He also notes here his royal welcome (shahana isteqbal) and the award of Rs. 5,000, and gifts of precious rosaries that he received from the Caliph.

84 Ibid., p. 324. This is Turkey's largest royal library which was established by Sultan Hamid Pasha. Kairanwi's brother was made the director of this library—a great honour, and he remained permanently lodged in Istanbul throughout his life.

85 Ibid., pp. 326–330.

86 FO 685/2, part I, British Consulate Jeddah to the Sec. to Govt. of India, 22 June 1883. In 1883 the British Consul in Jeddah received two letters from Kairanwi in which he pleaded that he wished to go back to India. The Consulate made enquiries into his case via dragomans and reliable Indian agents and found his behaviour during his residence in Mecca ‘perfectly unobjectionable’. Relying on two Indians—Hassan Johar and Hafizuddin, who knew Kairanwi for 12 years—they recommended to the government that Kairanwi be allowed to go back to India. The Consulate said that notwithstanding ‘his real or supposed share in 1857’ he had a very uneventful life and stint at Mecca. He is ‘much respected, it appears as a man the morality of whose life is in conformity with his religion’ he lives very ‘quietly and has no connection with public affairs religious or political’. The Consulate was of the view that this act of generosity would be appreciated not just by Kairanwi but also by influential people in Mecca.

87 Ibid., Junior Sec. to Govt of NWP & Oudh to Sec. to Govt. of India, Foreign Depts., 3 September 1883.

88 Ibid., Extract from the list of persons eminent for disloyalty in the district of the Meerut Division, 24th November 1858.

89 Col. P. D. Henderson's note, 21 July 1888, Foreign Dept., Secret I, Proceedings June 1889, Nos. 1–8, R/1/1/98.

90 Commins, Islamic Reform, pp. 24–29; For details of Siddiq Hasan see, Saeedullah, . (1973). The Life and Works of Muhammad Siddiq Hasan Khan. Nawab of Bengal, Ashraf Press, LahoreGoogle Scholar.

91 Makdisi, I. (2006). ‘Theatre and radical politics in Beirut, Cairo and Alexandria: 1860–1914’, Occasional paper, Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies. Edmund A. Walsh school of Foreign Service, GW University, pp. 8–18, 23–4.

92 Ibid., p. 12.

93 Laffan, Islamic Nationhood, pp. 114–141.

94 W-4087, Abdur Razzack, ‘Report on Mecca Pilgrims. Sanitation and Medical Report, 1879’, p. 121.

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96 This is the classic commentary by the Egyptian scholar Ibn Suyuti (1445–1505) that is used throughout the Muslim world.

97 Zafar, Rahmatullah Kairanwi, pp. 463–464.

98 Ibid., p. 463; Adravi, Rahmatullah Kairanwi, p. 313.

99 Ibid., pp. 465, 468–469.

100 Adravi, Rahmatullah Kairanwi, p. 313. Faiz Ahmed Khan of Aligarh gifted him a part of his house that he owned in Mecca. A Patna notable, Mir Wahid Husain, while on haj donated a substantial amount of money with which a hostel for 50 students was built. And Kairanwi bought the malba (debris) of a kutubkhana (library) located in the courtyard of the haram for Rs. 1,500.

101 Maulana Muhammad Masud Shamim Kairanwi, ‘Mecca Muazamah almi tareekh kaa eik roshan baab’, typescript, pp. 70–71. She had heard of Kairanwi because of his widely publicized debates held in Delhi and Agra with the Protestant missionary Padre Pfander. She agreed to donate lavishly to his madrasa when on a pilgrimage to the haram-sharif she heard that there was no other place except this madrasa where the children of muhajirs could have a decent education.

102 Zafar, Rahmatullah Kairanwi, pp. 474–475. The story goes that she dreamt that she was in a beautiful house in heaven but one which had no water provisions. And she experienced immense thirst and kept looking for water. This dream inspired her to donate the rest of her money to Kairanwi's madrasa for water supply.

103 For a discussion on the making of the Dars-i Nizamiyya in Awadh see, Robinson, F. (2001). The Ulama of Farangi Mahal & Islamic Culture in South Asia, C. Hurst, London, pp. 4655Google Scholar.

104 Zafar. Rahmatullah Kairanwi, pp. 472–473.

105 Robinson, The Ulama of Farangi Mahal, pp. 240–251.

106 Zafar. Rahmatullah Kairanwi p. 484.

107 Ibid., pp. 482–483, 521. Hazrat Thanawi of the Deoband fame, exercised his qirrat with guidance from Qari Abdullah. He became so good in practice that when he recited the Quran crowds collected below his window and people could not make out whether it was his voice or that of Qari Abdullah. The madrasa soon became a centre that encouraged students from all over the world to perfect the art of qirrat and use it as a global connector.

108 Ibid., p. 521. See list of 14 qaris. These include qari Abdul Rahman of Allahabad, maulvi Suleiman of Bhopal, qari Mizan Shah of Nadwat ul-Ulama, Lucknow and qari Abdul Malik of madrasa Furqania in Lucknow.

109 Ibid., p. 483. Citing the Safar-i-Hijaz of Maulana Sarf-ul Haq.

110 Ibid., p. 517.

111 Col. P. D. Henderson's note, 21 July 1888, Foreign Dept., Secret I, Proceedings June 1889, Nos. 1–8, R/1/1/98.

112 Zafar, Rahmatullah Kairanwi, p. 484.

113 Ibid., p. 473.

114 Laffan, Islamic Nationhood, p. 38.

115 Ibid., p. 61.

116 Zafar. Rahmatullah Kairanwi, pp. 518–20. See list of names of his students and their placements.

117 Ahmad, B. (nd). Tazkirah Haji Imdadullah Makki, Kitab Bhawan, Delhi, p. 50Google Scholar.

118 Ibid., pp. 51. Financial networks, between Indian Muslims and the Palestine waqfs as well as between trusts of Indian royalty and Shia ulema from Iraq and Iran, that provided the base for social relations and political manipulations across the imperial assemblages of the nineteenth century have been documented by Omar Khalidi and Meir Litvak respectively. See Khalidi, O. (2009–2010). Indian Muslims and Palestinian Awqaf, Jerusalem Quarterly, 40, 5258Google Scholar; Litvak, M. (2001). Money, Religion, and Politics: the Oudh bequest in Najaf and Karbala, 1850–1903, Journal of Middle East Studies, 33:1, 121Google Scholar.

119 Faruqi, N. A. (1979). Marqumat Imdadiyah, Maktabah-i-Burhan, Delhi, p. 77Google Scholar.

120 Zafar, Rahmatullah Kairanwi, pp. 502–503. He invited the son of maulana Nanatavi, maulana Hafiz Muhammad Ahmad, to come over and enrole at madrasa Saulatiya for further education.

121 Barkati, M. K. K. (1974). Faislah Hafte Maslah. Tausihhat wa Tashreehat, (Urdu Tr. Of Imdadullah Makki's book with the same title), Farooqia Book Depot, Delhi, p. 49Google Scholar. While at Mecca he wrote an extremely important book in Arabic called Faislah Hafte Maslah (Verdict on Seven Issues) that focused on issues of custom and ritual that were mooted and caused friction between different sects of Muslims. He identified seven such issues—five practical (amli) and two intellectual (ilmi)—that divided Muslims. He was very clear that he did not want Muslims to quarrel over these issues. He wanted no further discussion or debate (munazara) on these matters except a consensus because his movement (tehreek) for unity amongst Muslims was so obviously the need of the hour.

122 Zafar, Rahmatullah Kairanwi, p. 306.

123 Kairanwi, R. (1867). Izharul Haq, Imperial Printing Press, IstanbulGoogle Scholar. This was the Arabic edition first published in two volumes in Istanbul in 1867. The Urdu Translation titled, Bible sei Quran Tak, was translated by Maulana Akbar Ali. The Urdu version is used here. See Kairanwi, R.Izharul Haq, Tr. Ali, A. (1968). Bible sei Quran Tak, Maktabah Darul Ulum, Karachi, 1968, 2 Vols., Vol. 2, pp. 124Google Scholar. For instances of tehreef lavzi see pp. 90–101.

124 Kairanwi, R. (1876). Ibtalul Taslis, Mir Hasan Rizvi Press, Delhi, pp. 1064Google Scholar. This is a 64–page text in which Kairanwi takes on the missionary challenge and demolishes Christian beliefs about the Trinity and the idea of Christ as the Son of God via his reading of the Christian literature. He details the empirical fallacies, logic deficiency, and lack of scientific veracity in Christian literature as compared with the Islamic one.

125 Kairanwi, Bible sei Koran Tak, vol. II, Discussion on veracity and scientificity, pp. 270–273.

126 Ibid, pp. 191–194.

127 Robinson, F. (2000). ‘Religious change and the self in Muslim South Asia since 1800’, in Robinson, F., Islam and Muslim History in South Asia, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp. 105121Google Scholar.

128 Ibid., pp. 358–362, 380.

129 Ibid., p. 372.

130 Robinson, F. (2006). ‘Islam & the Impact of print in South Asia’ in Robinson, F.Islam & Muslim History in South Asia, Oxford University Press, New Delhi 2000, pp. 66104Google Scholar.

131 Saeedullah, The Life and Works of Muhammd Siddiq Hasan Khan, p. 84.

132 L No. 212, Foreign Dept. to Marquess of Hartington, Sec. of State for India, nd, ff 1251–1257, L/PS/7/26 part 6 1880 Pol. Sec. letters from India 1880.

133 Ozcan, A. (1997). Pan-Islamism. Indian Muslims, the Ottomans and Britain (1877–1924), Brill, Leiden, p. 18Google Scholar.

134 Adravi, Rahmatullah Kairanwi, p. 309.

135 Ibid.

136 Dale, ‘The Hadhraami Diaspora’, p. 179.

137 Buzpinar, Abdulhamid II and Sayyid Fadl, p. 239.

138 Ibid.

139 See 1882 Haj reports of Abdur Razzack, the British Vice Consul at Jeddah. FO/881/4845 and FO/881/5113.