Indian Muslim Minorities and the 1857 Rebellion

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Indian Muslim Minorities and the 1857 Rebellion Page 28

by Ilyse R Morgenstein Fuerst


  emperor a pension. He was an Urdu poet, and while a majority of his works

  was destroyed in the Rebellion, a large collection exists and is titled Kullı¯yyat-

  i-Z

  _ afar. See: Muhammad Bahadur Shah. Kulliya¯t-i Z_afar. Dihlı¯: Mashvarah

  buk dipo, 1966.

  ˙

  21. Charles Raikes, Notes on the Revolt in the North Western Provinces of India

  (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts, 1858), 159.

  22. John Lawrence in P. Hardy, Muslims of British India, 63.

  23. Sir George Campbell, Memoirs of my Indian Career, vol. II (London and New

  York: Macmillan and Co., 1893) 398 – 9.

  24. Hardy, Muslims of British India, 68.

  25. As discussed more fully in the previous chapter, these changes include: the

  East India Company abolishment, the Queen’s assumption of full sovereignty

  over India, and India not only becoming constitutionally part of the Empire,

  but also beginning its transformation in a British imagination from far-most

  imperial frontier to jewel in the English crown. On this last point, see

  especially: Bernard S. Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge: The British

  in India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 118 – 19.

  26. Eric Stokes, “Traditional Elites in the Great Rebellion of 1857,” in The 1857

  Rebellion, ed. Biswamoy Pati (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007),

  NOTES TO PAGES 54–60

  175

  185; reprinted from Eric Stokes, The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian

  Society and Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University

  Press, 1978).

  27. I use “small-p protestant” following Winifred Sullivan’s astute observations.

  See: Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (Princeton,

  NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).

  28. Mufti, Enlightenment in the Colony: the Jewish Question and the Crisis of Postcolonial

  Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 2.

  29. Ibid., 94.

  30. Ibid., 1.

  31. Ibid., 93.

  32. Ibid., 111.

  33. Metcalf, The Aftermath of Revolt, 301 – 4.

  34. Mufti, Enlightenment in the Colony, 112, 140 – 53.

  35. Anne Norton masterfully takes on the theoretical labeling of Muslims as a

  problem. See: Anne Norton, On the Muslim Question, Public Square (Princeton,

  NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013).

  36. Christopher Hitchens, The Illusion of Permanence: British Imperialism in India

  (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), 80 – 2; Peter van der Veer,

  Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in Britain and India (Princeton, NJ:

  Princeton University Press, 2001), 13.

  37. William Wilson Hunter, The Indian Musalmans: Are They Bound in Conscience to

  Rebel against the Queen? (London: Tru¨bner and Co., 1872).

  38. Francis Robinson, Islam and Muslim History in South Asia (New Delhi: Oxford

  University Press, 2001), 37 – 8.

  39. Aaron Lazare, On Apology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 99.

  See also: Bruce Mccall, “The perfect non-apology apology,” New York Times, 22

  April 2001: WK, General OneFile, web, 23 December 2014, Document URL:

  http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.uvm.edu/ps/i.do?id¼ GALE%7CA7354287

  1&v¼2.1&u¼vol_b92b&it¼r&p¼ITOF&sw¼w&asid¼981b6e0280488

  3288df015fde3768f81. Accessed December 23, 2014.

  40. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 141.

  41. Ibid.

  42. Aryanism and theories of Aryan people and languages are complex and

  tangential concepts here. It is worthy of note that W. W. Hunter’s

  dissertation was on non-Aryan languages and literatures, titled: A Comparative

  Dictionary of the Languages of India and High Asia, with a Dissertation Based on the

  Hodgson Lists, Official Records, and Mss. (London: Tru¨bner, 1868). Available

  digitally: http://ebooks.library.ualberta.ca/local/comparativedicti00huntuoft.

  Accessed April 10, 2017.

  43. E.g., Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee of The House of Lords,

  appointed to enquire into the Present State of the Affairs of The East-India Company, and

  into the Trade between Great Britain, the East-Indies, and China, and to Report to the

  House (London: Parbury, Allen, and Co., 1830).

  176

  NOTES TO PAGES 60–64

  44. E.g., Correspondence relating to the Establishment of an Oriental College in London:

  Reprinted from the “Times,” with Notes and Additions (Edinburgh and London:

  Williams and Norgate, 1858).

  45. Thomas Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

  1994), 199.

  46. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 10.

  47. Gayatri Chakrabarty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Marxism and the

  Interpretation of Culture, Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, eds (Urbana:

  University of Illinois Press, 1988), 271 – 313.

  48. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 58.

  49. Ibid., 71.

  50. Harlan O. Pearson, Islamic Reform and Revival in Nineteenth-century India: the

  Tarı¯qah-i-Muhmammadı¯yah (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2008), 33, 44 – 5.

  51. E.g., Samira Haj, Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition: Reform, Rationality, and Modernity

  (Cultural Memory in the Present) (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009).

  52. Ibid., 84 – 6. Cf. Muin-ud-din Ahmad Khan, Selections from Bengal Government

  Records on Wahhabi Trials (1863 – 1870) (Dacca: Asiatic Society of Pakistan,

  1961); Muhammad Abdul Bari, “A Comparative Study of the Early Wahha¯bi

  Doctrines and Contemporary Reform Movements in Indian Isla¯m,”

  Dissertation: D. Phil. University of Oxford, 1954.

  53. Ibid., 11.

  54. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 10.

  55. There is, of course, nothing “natural” about legalism, nor any real evidence

  that Muslims are distinctively legalistic; this is a part of the nineteenth-

  century debates about race, ethnicity, and religion, where so-called Semitic

  religions (Judaism, Islam) produce racially unique actors (Jews, Muslims) who

  have particular characteristics, like legalism. See, as one example: Masuzawa,

  “Chapter 6 – Islam: a Semitic religion,” in The Invention of World Religions,

  179 – 206.

  56. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 10.

  57. Ibid., 10 – 11.

  58. Ibid., 43.

  59. Ibid., 11.

  60. Ibid., 15 – 16, 22 – 6, 36, 38, 39, 41 – 6, 86, 97, 105, 147, 151.

  61. Ibid., 24.

  62. Ibid.

  63. Ibid.

  64. Alex Padamsee, Representations of Indian Muslims in British Colonial Discourse,

  168 – 9.

  65. It is unclear precisely what Hunter means by “army.” In some cases, he moves

  between lamenting the problem of formal armies while simultaneously

  expressing scorn about the disorganized, chaotic nature of rebels; this is

  especially the case where he mentions the frontiers, a source of fear for him and

  concern for the Empire.

  NOTES TO PAGES 65–73

  177

  66. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 15.

  67. Ibid., 43.

  68. As one might expect, as imperial forces and subjects moved into new areas,

  these areas were called Frontier Settlements; thus, his use of that name does not />
  necessarily pinpoint his exact location. Based on the incidents described, and

  as stated, his career in the Bengal settlement, it is likely this is the region in

  question.

  69. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 44.

  70. Ibid., 48.

  71. Ibid., 50 – 1.

  72. This dyad is still operative in contemporary depictions of Muslims. See

  especially: Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold

  War, and the Roots of Terror (New York: Pantheon Books, 2004).

  73. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 15.

  74. Charles Allen, “The Hidden Roots of Wahhabism in British India,” World

  Policy Journal 22, no. 2 (Summer 2005), 87 – 8.

  75. Pearson, Islamic Reform and Revival in Nineteenth-century India, 39.

  76. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 73.

  77. Ibid., 66.

  78. Ibid., 70 – 1. Cf. “Jama Tafasıŕ,” Calcutta Review (Delhi: 1857), 391 – 3.

  79. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 78 – 9.

  80. Ibid., 115.

  81. Of course, Muslims do not believe that the Qur’an is comprised of

  Muhammad’s precepts, as Hunter states, but rather is the direct word of God,

  as heard (or recited) by Muhammad. Hunter’s technical understanding – or

  lack thereof – is inconsequential for our purposes.

  82. Hunter, n.p. Recall his prefatory statement to the 1872 reprint of Indian

  Musalmans: the government sanctioned his work, and he wrote it with use of

  the government’s archives, but it is merely “demi-official” in nature.

  83. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 1.

  84. Ibid., 109.

  85. Ibid., 110.

  86. Ibid., 122.

  87. Ibid. Hunter inserts dar-ul-islam as the second footnote on this page, rather

  than in the text, as I have.

  88. Ibid.

  89. Ibid., 124.

  90. Ibid.

  91. Ibid. My emphasis.

  92. Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, “Common Heritage, Uncommon

  Fear: Islamophobia in the United States and British India, 1687 – 1947,” in ed.

  Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America: Anatomy of Intolerance (New York:

  Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 35.

  93. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 125.

  178

  NOTES TO PAGES 73–79

  94. Ibid. Emphasis in original.

  95. Ibid., 133.

  96. Some transliterate Abdool Luteef following more contemporary conventions as

  Abdul Latif.

  97. Abstract of the Proceedings of the Mahomedan Literary Society of Calcutta at a

  Meeting held at the Residence of Moulvie Abdool Luteef Khan Bahadoor on

  Wednesday, the 23rd of November, 1870 (Calcutta: Erasmus Jones, Cambrian

  Press, 1871), n.p.

  98. E.g., Lester Hutchinson, The Empire of the Nabobs: A Short History of British India

  (London: Allen and Unwin, 1937); Ivor Lewis, Sahibs, Nabobs, and Boxwallahs, a

  Dictionary of the Words of Anglo-India (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1991).

  99. Ibid., n.p.

  100. Ibid., n.p.

  101. I purposefully mention both peace and Islam, because it is clear that these

  possible translations are at play, and the interplay between “Islam” and “peace”

  are not lost on Muslim commentators, but unbelievable for Hunter and

  British observers.

  102. Ibid., 1.

  103. Ibid., 4 – 5.

  104. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 125.

  105. Ibid.

  106. Ibid., 126.

  107. Ibid.

  108. E.g., Peter Gottschalk, Religion, Science, and Empire: Classifying Hinduism and

  Islam in British India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); Tomoko

  Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism was

  Preserved in the Language of Pluralism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

  1995).

  109. E.g., Carl W. Ernst, Following Muhammad (Chapel Hill: University of North

  Carolina Press, 2003), 3, 57 – 61; Bruce B. Lawrence, “The Eastward Journey

  of Muslim Kingship: Islam in South and Southeast Asia,” in The Oxford History

  of Islam, ed. John L. Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999),

  395 – 434.

  110. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 126.

  111. Abstract of the Proceedings of the Mahomedan Literary Society of Calcutta at a

  Meeting held at the Residence of Moulvie Abdool Luteef Khan Bahadoor on

  Wednesday, the 23rd of November, 1870 (Calcutta: Erasmus Jones, Cambrian

  Press, 1871), n.p.

  112. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 126.

  113. Ibid., 128.

  114. Ibid.

  115. Ibid.

  116. Ibid.

  117. Ibid., 131. FN 1: Bila´d-ul-Isla´m.

  NOTES TO PAGES 79–88

  179

  118. Ibid., FN 2: Farz-aìn.

  119. Ibid., 131.

  120. E.g., Mary A. Procida, Married to the Empire: Gender, Politics and Imperialism in

  India, 1883 – 1947, Studies in Imperialism (Manchester, UK: Manchester

  University Press, 2014).

  121. Ibid., e.g., 126.

  122. Ibid., 132. Emphasis in original.

  123. Ibid., 133.

  124. Ibid., 76.

  125. Jama Tafasıŕ, printed at Delhi 1867, 391. Cf. Hunter 70 – 1.

  126. Ibid., 137 – 8.

  127. Ibid., 139.

  128. Ibid., 140.

  129. Ibid.

  130. Ibid., n. p.

  131. Hunter, Indian Musalmans, 196.

  132. Ibid., 213.

  133. Ibid., 214.

  134. Ibid., 142.

  135. State-based and secular educations have long been tools of governance and

  dominance, across various imperial regimes and practices (albeit in differing

  and particular ways). See: Bernard Cohn, Colonialism and its forms of Knowledge,

  45, 47 – 53.

  136. P. Hardy, The Muslims of British India (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University

  Press, 1972), 62.

  Chapter 3

  “God save me from my friends!”: Syed Ahmad

  Khan’s Review on Dr Hunter

  1. Syed Ahmed Khan, B. D. R., C. S. I., Review on Dr Hunter’s Indian Musalmans:

  Are they Bound in Conscience to Rebel Against the Queen? The Original English

  Corrected by a Friend (Benares: Printed at the Medical Hall Press, 1872), 6.

  2. Ilyse R. Morgenstein Fuerst, “Sir Sayyid Ahmad Kha¯n,” in Biographical

  ˙

  Dictionary of Islamic Civilisation and Culture, ed. Mustafa Shah (London:

  I.B.Tauris, forthcoming).

  3. E.g., Sayyid Ahmed Khan, “Lecture on Islam,” in Modernist Islam: A Sourcebook,

  1840 – 1900, ed. Charles Kurzman (New York: Oxford University Press,

  2002), 291 – 313. Cf. Ali Qadir, “Between secularism/s: Islam and the

  institutionalization of modern higher education in mid-nineteenth century

  British India,” British Journal Of Religious Education 35, no. 2 (March 2013),

  125 – 139.

  4. As mentioned above, I use small-p protestant following Winifred Sullivan.

  She argues that protestant ideals are coded within Western conversations of

  180

  NOTES TO PAGES 88–93

  civilization, even if those conversations do not specifically reference

  Christianity. See: The Impossibility of Religious Freedom, 7 – 8.

  5. E.g., J. S. Bandukwala, “Indian Muslims: Past, Present and Future,” Economic

  and Political Weekly 41, no. 14 (2006), 1341 – 4.

  6. Fa
isal Devji, “Apologetic Modernity,” Modern Intellectual History 4, no. 1

  (April 2007), 64.

  7. Syed Ahmed Khan, principal Sudder Ameen of Mordabad, An Essay on the

  Causes of Indian Revolt (Agra: printed by J. A. Gibbons, Mofussilite Press,

  1859). See also: Cause of the Indian Revolt: Three Essays, ed. Salim al-Din

  Quraishi (Lahore: Sang-e Meel Publications, 1997).

  8. Syed Ahmed Khan, The Causes of the Indian Revolt, in Urdoo, in 1858, and

  translated into English by his two European friends (Benares: Benares Medical Hall

  Press, 1873).

  9. The closeness in dates and reprinting in English may signal a timely interest in

  these works, a need for dissenting critique of a normative depiction of Muslims

  as suspicious, a British champion of Sir Syed, or a combination of these factors.

  The closeness in publication in English certainly indicates, however, an

  English-speaking audience for these texts.

  10. This is reminiscent of the debates preceding the Charter Act of 1813, where

  numerous Britons warned against missionary involvement for reasons quite

  similar to the ones Sir Syed expressed some 45 years later. See chapter 1 for a fuller discussion.

  11. Sullivan, The Impossibility of Religious Freedom, 7 – 8. Because Khan does not

  specify denomination, I use “christianity” to highlight his broad-based

  conceptualization of the factors at play. Within the colonial, imperial, and

  civilizing missions at play within Khan’s historical moment, small-c christianity

  better captures these overlapping ideological trends as he experienced them than

  Sullivan’s small-p protestantism.

  12. Syed Ahmed Khan, The Causes of the Indian Revolt, in Urdoo, in 1858, and

  translated into English by his two European friends (Benares: Benares Medical Hall

  Press, 1873), 3.

  13. Ibid., 5.

  14. Ibid., 5, 6.

  15. Ibid., 7.

  16. Ibid., 10.

  17. Ibid., 15 – 16.

  18. Sanjay Sharma, “The 1837 – 38 Famine in U.P.: Some Dimensions of Popular

  Action,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 30, no. 3 (1993), 341. Cf.

  C. A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of

  British Expansion 1770 – 1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

  1983), 263 – 302.

  19. Khan, Causes of the Indian Revolt, 17.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Ibid., 19.

  NOTES TO PAGES 93–95

  181

  22. Ibid., 19 – 20. NB: Politics of language, its formalization, and its ties to

 

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