Imamis and Hindus

Shi‘i clerics exhibited intolerance of Hinduism, although the Awadh government co-opted rural Hindu elites and employed Hindus in the bureaucracy. Indeed, Shujacu'd-Dawlah's powerful eighteenth-century state owed as much to Hindu ascetic warriors as to the Shi‘i Qizilbash cavalry, as Barnett has shown. Awadh's rulers never resolved the contradiction between ulama hostility to Hindus and relative state tolerance of them. As the Shi‘i ulama began to influence state policy in the 1840s, however, their attitudes toward Hindus became important. Hindus constituted 87 percent of Awadh's population (which probably stood around ten million in the 1850s), and the mujtahids strove to keep Shi‘i practices pure and scriptural in this infidel environment. They also wished to bring Hindus into the Shi‘i fold, to offer them conversion or death.

The Shi‘i concern with Hinduism began at home, since Imami clerics had to define the limits of their community so as to exclude Hindus and their practices. In 1803 MawlavÏ Samic posed this sort of problem for Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali Nasirabadi, pointing out that most Muslims in India disregarded the laws of Islam. Some Shi‘i laymen mourned the Imam Husayn in the Indian manner. He noted that many Hindus, including courtesans, spent great amounts of money and energy to observe the rites of Muharram. He wanted to know whether such groups were ritually pure, allowing association with

[2] Max Weber, Economy and Society , 2 vols. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1978), 2:1174.

them. Nasirabadi replied that a born Muslim who could not be proved to reject any essential doctrines had to be judged a Muslim. But until one knew for sure that someone born an unbeliever had accepted all necessary beliefs, he had to be judged an infidel even though he mourned Imam Husayn.^[3]

Mawlavi Samic criticized the behavior of Shi‘i women, saying that most women and even some men, including some from the noble castes, associated with Hindus and followed their ways, believing in astrology and idol worship. Muslim women worshiped the goddess Kali Durga in secret when their children fell ill. Nasirabadi replied that a Muslim woman could only be considered an apostate after investigation had demonstrated her heresy conclusively. He further ruled that a Muslim with right views did not depart from Islam in merely adopting some Sufi or Hindu behavior, short of idol worship. On the other hand, a Hindu of illegitimate birth who converted to Shi‘ism would be saved and considered legitimate because of his love for the Imams. Nasirabadi drew the lines so as to make it hard to exclude a Shi‘i from the community, but possible though difficult to include a Hindu of even doubtful origins. His criteria for membership fell closer to the universality of a formal religious establishment than to the exclusivity of a sect.^[4]

The court eunuchs served as another interface between Hinduism and Shi‘ism. The nawabs and their begams enslaved these boys, most often sons of Hindu Rajput warriors captured in battles with the central government, castrating them and bringing them up in their own households. Owing to the patrimonial nature of the Awadh state, the notables often entrusted their eunuchs with official duties, such as managing their owners' estates or even tax-farming entire provinces, transforming them into a mamluk (slave-ruler) substratum of the government. The slave eunuch officials accumulated vast properties that legally belonged to their masters, although they often could influence the disposition of their property, maintaining close ties to their Hindu relatives. When, for instance, a British subject pressed claims against the great tax-farmer Almas ‘Ali Khan, whom Nawab Sacadat ‘Ali Khan owned, the ruler refused to intervene, on the grounds that if he put too much pressure on him the eunuch might transfer his property to Bahu Begam (the nawab's mother) in Faizabad, resulting in a serious loss to the nawab.^[5]

The Hindu origin of some important Shi‘i notables led to anomalous inheritance situations. Babu Bacchu Singh, Hindu grand-nephew of Darab ‘Ali Khan, owned the mosque and imambarah of Javahir ‘Ali Khan in Faiza-

[3] S. Dildar ‘Ali Nasirabadi, "Risalah dar radd-i mazhab-i sufiyyah," Kalam Shi‘ah, MS 111, foll. 5b-6a, Nasiriyyah Lib, Lucknow.

[4] Ibid., fol 8a; S Dildar ‘Ali Nasirabadi, "Najat as-sa'ilin," Fiqh Shi‘ah, MS 256, foll. 24a-b, 32a.

[5] Resident to Sec. Govt India, 24 Mar. 1806, FDPC, 1 May 1806, no. 25. For Almas, see Purnendu Basu, Oudh and the East India Company, 1785-1801 (Lucknow. Maxwell, 1943), pp. 8-13.

bad, where Shi‘is held holy day prayers.^[6] The case of Tahsin ‘Ali's estate further attests the continuing ties between the eunuchs and their Hindu relatives: The supervisor of Asafu'd-Dawlab's old harem in Faizabad, he held a land grant (jagir ) in addition to large amounts of movable property. In 1813 he fell seriously ill and informed the British resident that he wished to dispose of his property in a will and without the interference of the nawab. The resident recognized that the nawab had the right to resume his land grant, but at first supported Tahsin ‘Ali's attempt to pass on his movable property to Hindu nephews. He only later realized that according to Islamic law non-Muslims could not inherit from a Muslim. The nawab repossessed his slave's estate, though, under British pressure, he did give the Hindu nephews a stipend.^[7]

A second issue was the attitude of Shi‘i clerics, government officials, and laypersons toward Hindus. The clerical attitude can be easily summarized. Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali Nasirabadi harbored an almost violent animosity toward Hindus, arguing that the Awadh government should take stern measures against them. He divided unbelievers into three kinds, those (harbi ) against whom Muslims must make war, those (dhimmi ) who have accepted Muslim rule and pay a poll-tax, and those (musta'min ) whom their Muslim rulers have temporarily granted security of life.^[8] He insisted that Imami Shi‘ism accepted only Jews and Christians as protected minorities (dhimmis ), and even they could only achieve this status if they observed the ordinances governing it. He differed with Sunni schools that considered Hindus a protected minority.

He wrote that Muslims could only grant infidels personal security (aman ) in a country they ruled for one year, lamenting that the government had long treated as grantees of personal security the Hindus of northern India, who openly followed their idolatrous religion, drinking wine, and sometimes even mating with Sayyid women. He complained that the irreligious Sunni Mughal rulers of India neither made war against the Hindus nor forced them to accept Islam. Legally, nonetheless, the lives and property of Hindus could be licitly taken by Muslims. Nasirabadi shared this rather bloodthirsty attitude with other Muslim clerics, of course. The Sunni Naqshbandi thinker Shah Valiyu'llah (1703-62) wanted the Mughals to ban Hinduism.^[9]

The dependence of Muslim rule upon an alliance with Hindu landholders

[6] Gazetteer of the Province of Oudh 1.488.

[7] Resident to Sec. Govt. India, 24 Aug. 1813, FDPC, 3 Sept 1813, no. 33: Resident to Sec. Govt India, 28 Aug. 1813, FDPC, 10 Sept 1813, no 9, Resident to Sec. Govt India, 2 Dec 1813, FDPC, 31 Dec. 1813, no. 49; Resident to Sec. Govt India, 13 Dec. 1813, FDPC, 23 Dec. 1813, no. 7; Resident to Sec Govt India, 19 Feb 1814, FDPC, 4 Mar. 1814, no. 32

[8] Nasirabadi, "Risalah fi ahkam, al-aradin," Fiqh, Arabic MS 2182, foll. 56a-60b, Raza Lib, Rampur; cf. "Najat as-sa'ilin," fol. 23b.

[9] Saivid Athar Abbas Rizvi, ShahWali-Allahand His Times (Canberra Macrifat, 1980), p 227

rendered any such persecution of the majority community wholly impracticable. Short of that, the jurisprudents of the growing Usuli school attempted to throw up communalist barriers between Shi‘is and Hindus. Sayyid Muhammad Quli Kinturi, who worked in the British court at Meerut, wrote a treatise aimed at convincing Shi‘is to treat Hindus as ritually impure.^[10] Imami ritual law differed from the Sunni in stressing the pollution of many objects and persons, including non-Muslims. Kinturi explained that Shi‘is, many of them immigrants ignorant of their law, had fallen under the influence of more lax Sunni attitudes. Given that the most abased of Hindu guests would refuse to touch food or utensils in a Muslim home until they were ritually purified, he lamented, it ill beseemed Muslims with their millennium of wealth and rule to neglect to reciprocate this humiliating treatment.

In the 1830s one of Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali's sons ruled that a believer should avoid praying while wearing a ring fashioned by a Hindu, for washing it with water could only expunge its outward impurity. Such ideas percolated through the community, the Hindu origins of many Muslims leading them to practice ritual pollution in any case. Parkes's Muslim servant who married a Hindu widow around 1830 insisted that she convert to Islam because otherwise eating with her would defile him.^[11]

The ulama did allow Shi‘is to give food to Hindus. A Shi‘i, citing the qur'anic sentiment that a full believer should help a hungry neighbor, inquired of Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali whether only Muslim neighbors were meant. Lucknow's chief mujtahid replied that apparently the verse meant only Muslims, although he ruled it permissible to share food with an infidel on the verge of starving to death. One of his sons allowed Shi‘is to offer Hindu guests something to drink when they came for a visit during Muharram. Moreover, contact beneficial to Shi‘i ulama was permitted. Sayyid Husayn Nasirabadi (1796-1856), Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali youngest son and a major mujtahid, allowed Shi‘is to take money for teaching infidel children Arabic and Persian.^[12]

Sunni schools did not share the Imami conception of the ritual impurity of non-Muslims, developed originally in eighth-century Iraq. Ironically, the promulgation of a stronger sense of purity among Awadh's Shi‘is by the Usuli ulama helped integrate them more fully into one of the central ideologies of

[10] S Muhammad Quli Kinturi, Tathiral-mu'minincannajasatal-mushrikin (Lucknow: Matbac-i, Haydar, 1260/1844) The issue continued to be argued late into the century; see S. Husayn Musavi, Millat al-akhyarfiradd taharatal-kuffar (Lucknow Matbac-i Mazhar al-‘Aja'ib, 1893).

[11] Musharraf ‘Ali Lakhnavi, ed., Bayaz-imasa'il (Lucknow n p, 1251/1835-36), 1 218, Fanny Parkes, Wanderings of a Pilgrim (London Pelham Richardson, 1850), 1·170

[12] Nasirabadi, "Najat as-sa'ilin," fol. 23a, Musharraf ‘Ali Lakhnavi, ed, Bayaz-imasa'il 3:74, S. Husayn Nasirabadi, "Su'al va javab," Fiqh Shi‘ah, uncatalogued Persian MS, fol. 115b, Nasiriyyah Lib, Lucknow

the Indian social system.^[13] For Hindus, ritual purity and the elaborate rules for social relations it implied helped underpin the caste system. Awadh's Shi‘is became a sort of caste. Like Brahmins, they would give food to, although not accept food from, outgroups. Ritual purity was only one area in which the Imamis exhibited growing tendencies toward exclusivism and communalism under the impact of nawabi rule and the growth of a Shi‘i hierocracy.

On the other hand, Shi‘is and the Shi‘i government, although they often exploited Hindus, seldom violently persecuted them. Violence most often broke out between the two communities during the Shi‘i mourning month of Muharram, as in Jaunpur in 1776 or Lucknow in 1807.^[14] Some Awadh governments showed less tolerance of Hindus than others, those of Nasiru'd-Din Haydar (1827-37) and Amjad ‘Ali Shah (1842-47) being the most anti-Hindu. In 1829 the king forced a Brahmin boy to go through with circumcision even after his family changed their minds about having him convert to Shi‘ism. He told the outraged resident that he had a divine right to dispose of his subjects as he wished. Ricketts angrily retorted that the British Government recognized no such right. When, three months later, Hindus provoked violence by defiling a mosque in Rikabganj, the king vindictively sent troops into the area, who plundered, ripped nose-rings off the faces of Hindu women, and destroyed all forty-seven Hindu temples in that quarter, putting to flight its entire population of three thousand. When rioting threatened to spread to other quarters, the British resident intervened with the king, who reluctantly sent criers through the city warning that he would punish anyone found molesting a Hindu or insulting his temples.^[15]

Most Awadh governments considered order more important than keeping Hindus in their places. When, in November 1840, some Hindus defiled a zamindar's mosque with pig's blood, his sons rounded up a crowd of angry Muslims to exact revenge. On 3; December, at the order of the heir apparent, Amjad ‘Ali Mirza, the chief of police took the ringleaders to Sayyid Muhammad Nasirabadi, who ruled that the blasphemer should be apprehended and punished after conviction, but forbade vigilante action. The mob refused to listen to the mujtahid or the police chief. On 4 December two hundred Muslims killed cows, profaned temples, and damaged shops in Yahyaganj and ‘Ayshbagh. British administrator Colonel Sleeman saw such perils of com-

[13] Cf Louis Dumont, Homo Hiciarchicus. The Caste System and Its Implications , trans. Mark Sainsbury (Chicago Univ of Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 42-46.

[14] Khayru'd-Din Muhammad Ilahabadi "Tuhfah-'i tazah," MS 483, foll. 59a-63b, India Office; Resident to Lt. Colonel Thomas, 8 Mar 1807, FDPC, 26 Mar. 1807, no. 49; Resident to Sec. Govt Pol Dept, 13 Mar. 1807, FDPC, 26 Mar 1807, no 48

[15] Resident to See Govt India, 18 July 1829, FDPC, 18 Sept. 1829, no 42; Off Resident to Deputy Sec Govt India, 6 Oct 1829, FDPC, 23 Oct 1829, no 40; India Pol Dispatches to the Court of Directors, Consultation of 28 Aug., no. 17 of 1830.

munal violence as an argument for the Indian need of British government, but he exaggerated their frequency and severity.^[16]

The last three Awadh rulers initiated programs that enhanced the prestige and the power of the Usuli ulama in north Indian society. Proclerical Shi‘is remembered the twenty years before British annexation as a golden age. Sunni and Hindu writers, on the other hand, deplored the "sectarian narrow-mindedness and crooked religious policy" of such clericalist rulers as Amjad ‘Ali Shah (1842-47).^[17] As was seen in chapter 8, Amjad ‘Ali Shah enacted anti-Hindu policies, founding Shi‘i shops to drive Hindu merchants out of business, and rewarding Hindu officials who adopted Imami Shi‘ism. The provision of government welfare monies to only the Shi‘i poor encouraged thousands of Hindus to convert to Shi‘ism in the 1840s, according to clerical sources. Awadh's fiercely Usuli governments showed little understanding of their Hindu subjects, allowing communal resentments to fester, a policy that culminated in a major battle over a religious edifice in Faizabad, discussed later.

Although the Shi‘i ulama may have preached government violence against Hindus, they disapproved of mob action. The growth of a formal Shi‘i establishment and its intermeshing with state institutions like the judiciary · made it possible at times for the mujtahids to enact highly discriminatory policies toward Hindus, whom they viewed as idolaters. The ulama practiced exclusionary closure by urging Shi‘is to treat Hindus as ritually impure (reciprocating Hindu treatment of Muslims), making Shi‘is almost a caste. They used jobs and welfare money to convert Hindu civil servants and urban poor. Since the Usulis had campaigned so hard against Sufism, few Shi‘i pits existed to mediate among Hindu and Shi‘i disciples, and the ulama strove mightily to stop Shi‘is from patronizing Hindu holy men. The Usuli destruction of mediating groups between Muslims and Hindus aided the growth of communalism, of religion-based group identities hostile to one another.