Shi'a Islam in Colonial India

Religion, Community and Sectarianism

Justin Jones

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781107004603
• eBook ISBN: 9781139119740
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History
• Index: History

Interest in Shi'a Islam has increased greatly in recent years, although Shi'ism in the Indian subcontinent has remained largely underexplored. Focusing on the influential Shi'a minority of Lucknow and the United Provinces, a region that was largely under Shi'a rule until 1856, this book traces the history of Indian Shi'ism through the colonial period toward independence in 1947. Drawing on a range of new sources, including religious writing, polemical literature and clerical biography, it assesses seminal developments including the growth of Shi'a religious activism, madrasa education, missionary activity, ritual innovation and the politicization of the Shi'a community. As a consequence of these significant religious and social transformations, a Shi'a sectarian identity developed that existed in separation from rather than in interaction with its Sunni counterparts. In this way the painful birth of modern sectarianism was initiated, the consequences of which are very much alive in South Asia today.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Shi‘a Islam in Colonial India
• Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society 18
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures and maps
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Frequently used abbreviations
• Select glossary of terms
• Note on transliteration
• Introduction Writing on Indian Shi‘ism
• 1 Madrasas, mujtahids and missionaries Shi‘a clerical expansion in colonial India
• 2 Mosques, majalis and Muharram Marketplace Shi‘ism
• 3 Anjumans, endowments and Indian Shi‘ism The making of Shi‘a society
• 4 Aligarh, jihad and pan-Islam The politicization of the Indian Shi‘a
• 5 The tabarra agitation and Shi‘a–Sunni conflicts in late colonial India
• Conclusion and epilogue Shi‘ism and sectarianism in modern South Asia
• Appendix Select Shi‘a ‘ulama of colonial India
• Select bibliography
• Index