2
Shi‘i State Formation in Awadh and the Ulama

The Emergence of Successor States to the Mughals

The eighteenth century witnessed the disruption of political order in much of the Islamic world and the emergence of regionally based successor states to the three great Islamic empires that had held sway from the sixteenth century. The Ottoman Empire met frequent defeat in military encounters with European states, and the Mamluks in Egypt and Iraq showed independence from the Ottomans in the second half of the eighteenth century. In Iran, Afghan tribal armies invaded and defeated the imperial forces. Out of the chaos emerged Nadir Shah (1736-47), who reunited Iran, assaulted Ottoman Iraq, and invaded India. The Mughal center at Delhi, already weak, never recovered from this blow, thereafter suffering Afghan incursions, attacks from south Indian Maratha armies, and assaults by the British East India Company.

The political decline of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals cannot be explained monocausally, though it seems likely that economic forces played a major part. But as Owen argued in the case of the Ottomans, political decline does not necessarily imply that an absolute economic decline occurred (as opposed to a relative economic backwardness compared with Europe).^[1] In Iran, the silk trade declined in the eighteenth century, but the decline was caused by rather than being the cause of insecure conditions during tribal and elite contests for central power. Halil Inalcik has suggested that, just as

[1] Roger Owen, The Middle East in the World Economy, 1800-1914 (London: Methuen, 1981), pp 1-56.

the introduction of cannon early in the sixteenth century had a centralizing effect, so the spread of hand-held firearms among the general populace in subsequent decades contributed to decentralization.^[2] For India, Irfan Habib argued that the Mughal nobles progressively overtaxed their peasantry, provoking peasant revolts in the eighteenth century, which proved so costly to put down that they permanently weakened the system. M. Athar All, among others, has suggested that such macroeconomic phenomena as the influx of New World silver and the depreciation of currency could help explain the simultaneous political weakening of the Mughals, the Safavids, and the Ottomans^[3]

From the early 1970s some historians began suggesting an alternative to finding causes for the political decline at the center in the three empires. They began to see political decentralization not as a decline of the center but as a rise of the region. Thus, the appearance of independent-minded elites in eighteenth-century Egypt was depicted as a consequence of increased wealth among the Egyptian notable, merchant, and ulama classes, deriving from the coffee trade and other economic activities.^[4] In Iran, Thomas Ricks found that eighteenth-century regional elites showed a marked continuity even during instability at the center, and John Perry showed how the Zands, based in southwestern Iran, parlayed their regional power into national dominance.^[5] Barnett has discussed how, with the rise of successor states to the Mughals in India, more revenue remained in the provinces, with local benefits.^[6] The successor states often provided adequate security to allow long-distance trade and local agriculture to flourish. This approach shows the regional and

[2] Halil Inalcik, "The Socio-Political Effects of the Diffusion of Fire-Arms in the Middle East," in Parry and Yapp, eds., War, Technology, and Society in the Middle East (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1975), p. 211; for an application of the argument that the spread of handguns among tribes in Iran contributed to the tribal resurgence, see Nikki R Keddie, Roots of Revolution. An Interpretive History of Modern Iran (New Haven Yale Univ. Press, 1981), ch. 2.

[3] Irfan Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India (1556-1707) (London: Asia Publishing House, 1963), M. Athar Ali, "The Passing of Empire: The Mughal Case," Modern Asian Studies 9 (1975): 385-96: for price rises (at an average annual increase of 1.93 percent, 1591-1750) in the Mughal period, see Irfan Habib, "Monetary System and Prices," in Raychaudhuri and Habib, Cambridge Economic History of India 1:360-81. As Habib notes, in a precapitalist economy even this relatively small rate of increase may have been unsettling.

[4] For the coffee trade, see André Raymond, Artisans et commercants au Caire au XVIIIe siecle , 2 vols. (Damascus: Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, 1973); for other possible factors, see Peter Gran, The Islamic Roots of Capitalism (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1979); and D. Crecelius, Roots of Modem Egypt (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1981).

[5] Thomas M. Ricks, "Politics and Trade in Southern Iran and the Gulf, 1745-1765," (Ph.D. diss., Indiana Univ., 1974), esp. pp. 55-60; John Perry, Karim khan Zand (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1979).

[6] See for instance Richard Barnett, North India Between Empires (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ: of California Press, 1980); Philip B. Calkins, "The Formation of a Regionally Oriented Ruling Group in Bengal, 1700-1740," Journal of Asian Studies 29 (1970)' 799-806, Bernard S. Cohn, "Political Systems in Eighteenth-Century India: The Banaras Region," Journal of the American Oriental Society 82 (1962): 312-19; Karen Leonard, Social History of An Indian Caste: The Kayasths of Hyderabad (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1979).

limited perspective of the image of unmitigated decline projected upon all of eighteenth-century northern India by Delhi-based Mughal historians as well as by contemporary Europeans.

In India, several successor states to the Mughals emerged. Bengal became increasingly independent, failing to a Shi‘i Muslim elite, until its nawab succumbed to the British in 1757. The Durrani Afghan state swallowed Kabul and much of the Punjab and Kashmir. The old Mughal province of Awadh, southeast of Delhi and northwest of Bengal, with the Himalayas and the Jamuna River as its natural boundaries, became a regional base for the powerful Nishapuri family. In the south, Hyderabad became the autonomous realm of the Nizam, a Mughal-appointed governor and the Hindu Maratha federation ruled much of the Deccan.

The social and urban history of eighteenth-century India supports the argument that the decline of the Delhi-based Mughal Empire and the rise of a regional elite in Awadh, for instance, reflected a shift in resources rather than monolithic decline. H. K. Naqvi described how urban centers west of the Jamuna River, in the regions near the Mughal seat of power, lost population in the course of the eighteenth century, whereas the area (Awadh) east of the river became more urbanized.^[7] C. A. Bayly demonstrated that the decline of Delhi, Agra, and Lahore (each with populations of about 400,000 in 1700, down to 100,000 in 1800) was partially offset by the rapid emergence of Awadh's Lucknow and Banaras, both with populations of 200,000 or more in 1800. He found about sixty towns of more than 10,000 in eighteenth-century. North India, the number remaining stable from 1730 to 1800, though some declined and others grew. Again, tile small centers (qasabahs ) of about 3,000 suffered losses in the west, but many new settlements grew up in Awadh during that period. Bayly further showed that climatic changes speeded the shift of resources from Delhi and Agra to Lucknow and Banaras, the area west of the Jamuna suffering dry spells in the late eighteenth century while in Awadh the fertile Baiswara area received ample rainfall.^[8]

State formation in many of the successor states to the Mughals involved new local ruling coalitions and the promotion of regional culture. In Awadh, the ethnically Iranian ruling house and many of the notables associated with it favored the Imami Shi‘i branch of Islam. As the province became increasingly autonomous, Shi‘i notables more openly supported the scholars and institutions of their religious community. The declining Sunni elites in Delhi saw both the Awadh nawabate and Shi‘ism as manifestations of decadence, when in reality a shift simply occurred in cultural resources.

[7] H. K Naqvi, "Progress of Urhanisation in the United Provinces, 1550-1800," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 10 (1967) 84-85

[8] C. A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen, and Bazaars (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983), pp. 111-13.

Map 2
The Nawabate of Awadh in 1785

The Rise of the Awadh Successor State

In the period 1722-75 three nawabs reigned through several phases of state formation in Awadh. The. state has been described as "a distinct realm of structured political relations that is defined by contention along its boundaries and among politicians and bureaucrats who, in competing for office and influence, rework social and economic conflict into political terms," and emphasis has shifted in the scholarly study of state making from static institutions to the "structured relations between the state and other spheres of society."^[9] The question arises of what social forces influenced the rise of the nawabs to regional autonomy in Awadh. As Iranian Shi‘is, the nawabs, originally temporary Mughal appointees, seem at first glance an elite group unlikely to assert strong authority over the Hindu peasants and Sunni townsmen of Awadh. How they made Shi‘i rule at all palatable to Awadh's population must occupy us as a central question. Moreover, it might be asked if there arc any parallels between the rise of Shi‘i rule in Awadh and that of the Safavids earlier in Iran.

The emergence of the province of Awadh as a Shi‘i-ruled state depended in part on developments at the Timurid court, where the Mughal administrative elite allowed Iranian Shi‘i immigrants to rise as provincial governors. On the one hand, pohtical instability in Iran encouraged large numbers of Iranian notables to go to India; on the other, the mood at court after the passing of Awrangzib (d. 1707) grew decidedly more tolerant of Shi‘ism. Awrangzib's successor, Bahadur Shah (d. 1712), leaned heavily toward Shi‘i Islam.^[10] The Shi‘i Barhah Sayyids, mere Delhi courtiers, made and unmade Mughal emperors, further demonstrating growing Shi‘i power. Greater tolerance at court allowed more elite recruitment of avowed Shi‘is to high office,

The Iranians made an impact, not only on the Delhi court, but on North India as a whole. Mir Muhammad Amin Nishapuri (d. 1739), the first nawab of Awadh, began a dynasty that ruled for 136 years. Nishapuri. known as Burhanu'l-Mulk, derived from a family of Islamic judges (qazis ) in Khurasan, whom Shah Ismacil Safavi of Iran transplanted there from Najaf as part of his campaign to make Iran Shi‘i.^[11] Nishapuri came to India in 1708, where he worked himself up the bureaucratic ladder to emerge as a power broker in Delhi. He helped free the Mughal emperor, Muhammad

[9] Charles Bright and Susan Harding, eds., Statemaking and Social Movements Essays in History and Theory (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984), p. 4.

[10] Sayyid Ghulam Husayn Tabataba'i, Siyar al-muta'akhkhirin 2 vols. (Calcutta. n.p., 1248/ 1832), 1:78; S. A A. Rizvi, Shah Wali-Allahand His Times (Canberra: Ma'rifat, 1980); Satish Chandra, Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court, 1707-1740 (Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim University, 1959)

[11] Ghulam ‘Ali Naqavi, ‘Imadas-sa cadat (Lucknow: Naval Kishor, 1897), pp. 5, 8-10.

Shah, of the political control of the Barhah Sayyids in 1720, receiving as a reward the governorship of Agra.^[12]

In 1722, after Burhanu'l-Mulk failed to subdue peasant uprisings, the emperor demoted him to the less remunerative governorship of Awadh. There he overcame and co-opted the Sunni Shaykhzadah landholders based in the strategic town of Lucknow, who then collaborated in the emergent Awadh state. Awadh never achieved a high degree of governmental centralization, making the cooperation of such local elites essential to political stability. Burhanu'l-Mulk then brought within his orbit the Hindu Rajput Mohan Singh of Tiloi, who dominated the southern part of Rai Bareli. The Nishapuri satrap spent the next decade and a half establishing stronger central rule in Awadh, greatly increasing its revenue. In something of a declaration of independence, he resisted the Mughal emperor's one attempt to transfer him to the governorship of another province, Malwa.^[13]

In January of 1739 Nadir Shah of Iran took Lahore, invading through Afghanistan. Burhanu'l-Mulk brought his forces into the fray on the side of the Mughal emperor, but was defeated and captured. The nawab, after negotiating an Iranian withdrawal, felt disappointed by the Mughal emperor's subsequent political appointments and treasonably suggested to Nadir Shah that it would be quite Facile and highly rewarding to take Delhi. The Iranian conqueror, delighted to take up the suggestion, victoriously marched into the city, the savage looting of the capital later perpetrated by his troops constituting one of the century's great disasters. Nadir reduced the Mughal emperor to a vassal of Iran, making Burhanu'l-Mulk imperial regent. The nawab of Awadh committed suicide on 19 March 1739, either because of his debilitating leg cancer or because Nadir Shah humiliated him.^[14]

Unlike Ismacil the Safavid. Burhanu'l-Mulk did not acquire his country, solely by conquest. His authority derived from a Mughal appointment, and he used Mughal troops to assert his power. He gradually did achieve an autonomy of sorts, and his behavior with Nadir Shah indicates rather weak loyalty to the Mughal court. But his attempts to restructure Awadh society

[12] Tabataba'i, Siyar al-muta'akhkhirin 1:38-58; A L Srivastava, The First Two Nawabs of Awadh (Agra: Shiva Lal Agarwala and Co., 2d ed. 1954), pp. 10-21, Barnett, North India Between Empires , pp. 23-27.

[13] Naqavi, ‘Imad, pp. 7-17; Kamalu'd-Din Haydar Mashhadi, Savanihat-isalatin-iAvadh (Lucknow Naval Kishor, 1896), pp 34-38; Srivastava, The First Two Nawabs , pp. 30-35; W. C. Benett, Report on the Family History of the Cheer Clans of the Roy Bareilly District (Lucknow. Oudh Government Press, 1870), pp 38, 40-41, Rustam ‘Ali Shahabadi, Tarikh-iHindi in The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians The MuhammadanPeriod , trans and ed. H M. Elliot and John Dowson, vol. 8 (Allahabad Kitab Mahall, repr 1964): 45-46, 56-57 For the Kakori Shaykhs, who later provided personnel for the Awadh administration, see Muhammad Fayzbakhsh, "Risalah dar ahval-i zamindaran-i Kakori," Curzon Coll., Persian MS 87, Asiatic Society Lib, Calcutta

[14] Naqavi, ‘Imadas-sacadat , pp. 24-28, Muhammad Shafic "Varid" Tihrani, Tarikh-iNadirshahi (Tehran: Bunyad-i Farhang-i Iran, 1349 s. 1971), pp. 160-90; Shahabadi, Tarikh-iHindi 8:60-65; Srivastava, The First Two Nawabs , pp. 61-75

took place within the framework of Mughal administrative traditions. He co-opted local large landholders instead of strongly dominating or destroying them, which allowed a polyglot cultural system rather than the wholesale conversion to Shi‘ism undertaken by the Safavids. But Burhanu'l-Mulk did make an assault on Sunni ulama and Sufi holders of revenue-free land grants.

Changes in the Status of Sunni Institutions

Secular opposition to the accumulation of religious lands, as Weber noted, often arose in preindustrial societies.^[15] The new nawab's determination to carve out a personal power base in Awadh, his Shi‘ism, and the region's exceptionally numerous Sunni revenue-free holdings, all contributed to the conflict. An eighteenth-century observer wrote that in the latter part of the seventeenth century Mughal rulers granted many Muslim scholars in the provinces of Awadh and Allahabad stipends and land revenues (madad-i macash ) for their support. Mosques, seminaries. and Sufi centers proliferated, and great scholars and teachers arose. "Students went in droves from town to town and were everywhere received with helpful sympathy."^[16]

The writer, Bilgrami, asserted that when Burhanu'l-Mulk of Nishapur became the governor of Awadh and much of Allahabad under Muhammad Shah, he confiscated the stipends and land grants of both the old established and the parvenu families. The Muslim notables grew anxious about their affairs, financial worries compelling many students to forsake the classroom for full-time employment. The decline in learning and in the state subvention of education continued under Burhanu'l-Mulk's successors, who extended the confiscations to all of Allahabad, ruining many madrasahs, or Muslim institutions of higher learning. Another historian described Burhanu'l-Mulk's 1728 resumption of land grants supporting old Sunni families and institutions in the southern district of Jaunpur.^[17] Major exceptions to the Nishapuri family's policy of disendowing Muslim schools included Salon and Lucknow's Farangi Mahall, which received their revenues from Mughal grants throughout this period.^[18] Such cities as Allahabad, Lucknow, and Banaras also continued to possess important schools.

[15] Max Weber, Economy and Sociely 2 (Berkeley and Los Angeles Univ of California Press, 1978): 1181-83

[16] Ghulam ‘Ali Azad Bilgrami, Ma'athiral-kiram , vol. 1 (Agra: Matbac-i Mufid-i ‘Amm, 1910). 221-22 Habib estimated that in Akbar's rime the revenue-flee grants to scholars and Islamic officials were concentrated especially m Delhi, Allahabad, Awadh, and Agra, though the grants made up a small proportion of total land revenues m each province (front 5 4 to 3.9 percent) (Habib, Agrarian System , pp. 313-14)

[17] Khayru'd-Din Muhammad Ilahabadi, "Tadhkirat al-‘ulama'," Society Coil, Persian MS 203, foll 3a-5a, Asiatic Society Lib., Calcutta. For the historical background of Jaunpur, see Mian Muhammad Saeed, The Sharqi Sultanate of Jaunpur. A Political and Cultural History (Karachi Univ. of Karachi Press, 1972) For occasional Mughal resumption of revenue-free grants, see Habib. Agrarian System , pp 310-11, 314-16

[18] See, for Salon, Board of Revenue, Oudh General File 1557, Uttar Pradesh State Archives, Lucknow, and for Farangi Mahall, Muhammad Riza Ansari Farangi-Mahalli, Bani-yidars-i Nizami (Lucknow: Nami Press, 1973). pp. 176-78

The Nishapuris' policy of establishing their regional control by calling in land grants to Sunni educational and mystical institutions that had become hereditary hurt the Muslim notables and medium landholders, who relied on these institutions for the training necessary to manage their estates, practice their religion, and celebrate their culture. Yet, as was noted, some prominent Muslim schools survived, chief among them the Farangi Mahall.

The school earned the sobriquet of the "Europeans' Mansion" among the inhabitants of Lucknow's chowk bazaar area because Dutch merchants first built it. In 1692 a group of landholders from his own village murdered Mulla Qutbu'd-Din Sihalavi, a Sunni religious scholar of Sihala near Lucknow, in a dispute over land and the mulla's influence at the Mughal court. In compensation, the Mughal emperor Awrangzib bestowed the Farangi Mahall on the martyr's orphans. One of the younger sons, Nizamu'd-Din Ahmad, a major Sunni scholar, taught with his relatives at home and received land grants and stipends from Mughal emperors. Partially because the nawabs put pressure on the school to train bureaucrats, many of them not Sunni, the students might be Shi‘is or even Hindus, though the teachers, as descendants and disciples of Mulla Qutbu'd-Din, adhered to Hanafi Sunnism. The method of teaching perfected by Mulla Nizamu'd-Din, emphasizing the rational sciences, wore a nonsectarian aspect. Mathematics and Avicennian metaphysics could, after all, be studied with profit by persons from all backgrounds.^[19]

The works most often used in the Nizami method are analyzed in table 1. Most of the works or commentaries and glosses used in the Nizami method were written in Iran between A.D. 1200 and 1600. Also represented were some seventeenth-century north Indian figures.^[20] This method, concentrating on thought rather than on rote learning, evoked admiration for the speed with which it allowed a student to complete the course of study and for its ability to train Muslim ulama, judges, and administrators to think clearly and to derive solutions to problems.^[21] The highly rationalist emphasis of the study list reflects the seminary's latent function of producing bureaucrats for land-

[19] Ansari Farangi-Mahalli, Bani , pp 26, 67, 171-76, 264-65, Azad Bilgrami, Ma'athir 1 209-10; cf. Ghulam ‘Ali Azad Bilgrami, Subhatal-marjan (Bombay Malik al-Kitab, 1303/ 1885-86), p. 76; for the scholarly traditions of Farangi Mahall, see Francis Robinson, "The ‘Ulama' of Farangi Mahall and Their Adab, " in Barbara Daly Metcalf, ed., Moral Conduct and Authority The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam (Berkeley and Los Angeles. Univ. of California Press, 1984), pp. 152-83

[20] Although there was no set syllabus, works typically used are given in M Mujeeb, The Indian Muslims (London: George Alien & Unwin, 1967). pp. 407-8 They include books by such medieval Iranian scholars as Nasiru'd-Din Tusi, Athiru'd-Din Abhari, ‘Ali al-Jurjani, Sacdu'd-Din Taftazani, Bihari, Baha'u'd-Din ‘Amili, and Sadru'd-Din Shirazi, and by such Indian Muslims as Muhibbu'llah Bihari and Mahmud Jaunpuri

[21] Ansari Farangi-Mahalli, Bani , pp. 259-63.

revenue administration. The middle landholders, Shaykh and Sayyid families based in the small towns of North India, wanted some of their sons to go into government service. As nawabi rule grew more regionally centered and more autonomous from Delhi, and as the province's revenues increased, more opportunities arose for government service locally. Farangi Mahall produced a rationalist culture useful to the Muslim and Islamized Hindu notable and service classes who administered their own estates or served in the bureaucratic arm of the prebendal state, and its method spread widely in India.

The first phase of Awadh state formation saw the Mughal appointment of an Iranian Shi‘i governor, who used Mughal troops to assert military power in the region and made the province a personal power base from which he refused to allow the Mughal center to dislodge him. He co-opted local big landed elites by drawing them into revenue administration. He released revenue to his government by resuming on a large scale revenue-free grants of land made by Mughal rulers to Sunni scholarly and mystical families, making a frontal assault on the privileges of the Sunni clerical notables. This policy in some respects recalls that of the Safavids. Burhanu'l-Mulk pursued it, however, not primarily for religious purposes, but for financial and administrative ones. He freed up alienated land for distribution as patronage, and for an enlarged tax base. His Shi‘i faith, however, probably made him less loathe to institute such changes, which were damaging to Sunni institutions. The policy was not a blanket one, as the survival of Farangi Mahall and other Sunni-staffed institutions attests, nor is there evidence of Burhanu'l-Mulk's having promoted Shi‘i schools in the stead of the Sunni ones.

Patrimonial Bureaucracy versus Tribal Conquest

Could the Nishapuris become something other than mere foreign governors appointed over Awadh temporarily from the Mughal center? To do so would require them to establish their legitimacy among regional Sunni and Hindu elites, to build their own bureaucracy and military, and to meet the outside challenge of Maratha Hindu warriors, of pastoral invaders from Afghanistan, and of Bangash and Ruhilah Afghan tribespeople settled in the upper Doab.

Burhanu'l-Mulk paid Nadir Shah Rs. 20 million to assure the succession to Awadh's governorship for his nephew, Safdar Jang. That one family could retain control over a Mughal subah, or province, for two successive generations, rare during the zenith of the Mughals' agrarian bureaucracy, shows the decline of the central government. Earlier, Mughal emperors rotated provincial governors at will, preventing them from building up a regional power base, and although local bureaucracies and elites existed, the center retained control over decisions involving revenues· Hereditary Nishapuri rule in Awadh ultimately allowed the family to become independent of the Mughals altogether.

Safdar Jang established his power base by fighting and co-opting the Rajputs in Awadh from 1739 to 1741. He acquired an armed force loyal to himself by hiring six or seven thousand Shi‘i Qizilbash cavalrymen away from Nadir Shah's army before the latter withdrew from India.^[22] In Lucknow, he cultivated the local elite, so trusting the Farangi Mahall that he required even Shi‘is to present a diploma from it before he would hire them in the bureaucracy. He appointed members of the Farangi-Mahalli family to judicial posts.^[23] Leaders of the Shaykhzadahs in the capital, such as Muci zzu'd-Din Khan and Qutbu'd-Din Muhammad Khan, became Shi‘is in order to cement their relations with the nawab.

The Mughal emperor called Awadh's nawab to Delhi in 1743, promoting him the following year and adding to his responsibilities the governorship of Kashmir. Many Shi‘is from Kashmir joined his military, affecting Persian language and dress but receiving less pay than the Qizilbash horsemen. In February 1745 Safdar Jang showed his mettle when he and his forces accompanied Muhammad Shah against tile Ruhilah Afghan ‘Ali Muhammad Khan, whose growing power north of Awadh and east of Delhi posed a threat to both. The Ruhilahs, Sunni Puhktun tribespeople, emigrated from the mountain fastnesses around Peshawar down into the lush Gangetic plain

[22] Naqavi, ‘Imad , pp 30-32, Muhammad Fayzbakhsh, Memoirs of Delhi and Faizabad, Being a Translation of the Tank Farahbakhsh , trans. William Hoey, 2 vols. (Allahabad: North-West Provinces and Oudh Government Press, 1888-89), 2:246-47; Srivastava, First Two Nawabs , pp. 91-101

[23] B. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1982), p. 30; Rahman ‘Ali, Tazkirah-'i‘ulama-yiHind (Lucknow Naval Kishor, 1914), pp. 219-20.

throughout the medieval period. Safdar Jang's impressive show of force intimidated the Ruhilah, who came to terms with the emperor. His legitimacy as the emperor's standard-bearer also helped him: the ulama of North India gave legal rulings in favor of the emperor's cause, influencing some Ruhilahs to desert their leader.^[24]

The year 1748 gave India a new Mughal emperor, Ahmad Shah Timuri, and a new chief minister, Safdar Jang. In the first years of his ministry he struggled against the Afghani Bangash clans settled in the Doab, who, in the summer and fall of 1750, occupied Awadh.^[25] The martial Bangash, Pukhtuns like the Ruhilahs, had also emigrated into village North India from largely pastoral Afghanistan. Safdar Jang put together a new political confederation against the Bangash tribes, receiving unexpected support in this campaign from Awadh's urban Sunni Shaykhzadahs, who conducted a remarkable citizens' revolution against the invading tribesmen. The Bangash Afghans who occupied the important Awadh town of Bilgram treated its notables roughly and sacked the town when the locals retaliated by wounding some Afghans. In the streets and quarters, people prepared to defend themselves. In Lucknow, fearful Iranians stored their wealth with Shaykhzadah leader Mucizzu'd-Din Khan, and the haughtiness of the new conquerors and the harshness of their exactions provoked sanguinary riots between the Afghans and the Shaykhzadahs. After a night of rioting in one quarter of the city, seven hundred Afghans assembled against four hundred Shaykhzadahs, the citizens of Lucknow routing the Bangash men and suffering a third fewer casualties.

The Shaykhzadah leader Mucizzu'd-Din Khan, a Shi‘i with strong ties to the Iranians and a man particularly close to Safdar Jang, called a conference of notables, raising an army of live to six thousand men and forcing the Afghans to withdraw. Mucizzu'd-Din Khan then wrote his clansmen in other large towns, detailing the incident and warning of possible Bangash reprisals. In Lucknow and Hardoi districts the "republican" influence of the many large towns historically diluted landed power, leading to a scarcity of very large landlords and a proliferation of small holdings.^[26] The urban-based Shaykhzadah middle landholders expelled the Afghans and formed an army to fight for Safdar Jang's restoration.

Once again, the ulama rallied to the imperial forces. Maliku'l-‘Ulama' gave a ruling in favor of the emperor at Safdar Jang's behest. In Sandilah the Shi‘i logician Mawlavi Hamdu'llah, although he did not join the militia,

[24] Tabataba'i, Siyar 2.16-23, Murtaza Husayn Bilgrami, Hadiqatal-aqalim (Lucknow: Naval Kishor, 1879), pp 140-41; Naqavi, ‘Imad , pp. 45-50, Srivastava, First Two Nawabs , pp. 102-25.

[25] Tabataba'i, Siyar 2:23-24, 30-34; M. H. Bilgrami, Hadiqatal-aqalim , pp. 135-36; Srivastava, First Two Nawabs , pp. 126-65.

[26] Gazetteer of the Province of Oudh , 3 vols. (Lucknow: Oudh Government Press, 1877), 2:40. In the nineteenth century, five of Awadh's most populous towns were m Hardoi.

publicly espoused the nawab-vizier's cause, under the banner of which the town's newly militant citizenry gradually rid it of Afghans. The same pattern recurred in Bilgram and Kakori. Safdar Jang completed the task of expelling and overcoming the Bangash forces by forming an alliance with the Hindu Marathas and jointly subduing North India.^[27]

The conflict at one level centered on whether Awadh would be incorporated into a patriarchal state presided over by Bangash clansmen or would continue to evolve as a semiautonomous satrapy with a patrimonial-bureaucratic administration inherited from the Mughal Empire. The Sunni middle landholders based in small towns chose the Shi‘i Safdar Jang over the Sunni Bangash tribesmen because his rule offered more continuity of political culture and revenue structure than did that of the coarse new conquerors. However new and alien the development of nawabi Shi‘i rule in Lucknow may appear against the backdrop of Mughal traditions of tight Sunni rule from the center, the nawabs were perceived to participate in Mughal legitimacy as the appointees of the emperor. The first minister, though victorious, squandered his remaining years in office on a fruitless power struggle in Delhi, which he lost to the Turanian forces.

The second phase of Awadh state formation saw the further definition of state boundaries through conflict with outside forces. The Awadh state developed its own, distinctively Shi‘i-tinged military. Further political bonding of local Sunni political elites to the ruling Nishapuri house occurred through an independent social movement of Muslim townsmen to defend Nishapuri Awadh from extraregional military attackers. The struggles with the Ban-gash demonstrated to the Nishapuri family that they could successfully defend a regional, hereditary power base with the aid of their Qizilbash Shi‘i cavalry and Muslim and Hindu troops, and that a dependable coalition against outsiders could be built with local elites, such as the Shaykhzadahs. The destructive struggles in the Mughal capital, along with growing Durrani Afghan and Maratha challenges, cast doubt on the value of devoting so much time to the affairs of the center. Nishapuri. Awadh began to be born.

State Formation and Sunni-Shi‘i Tension

In the third stage of Awadh state formation, the intervention of a new outside power, the British East India Company, proved decisive. Military conflict with the Europeans further demarcated Awadh's borders to the south and east, and military defeat at the hands of the EIC imposed limitations on the Awadh military that led both to internal decentralization and to external dependence on the alliance with the British. The process of subordinating Sunni

[27] Naqavi, ‘Imad , pp. 50-52, 58-60, 64; Tabataba'i, Siyar 2:34-37; Srivastava, First Two Nawabs , 165-95.

religious institutions to Shi‘i priorities continued, witnessed especially in conflict between the regional court and the Farangi Mahall. Finally, nawabi patronage began subventing Shi‘i scholars and institutions.

Shujacu'd-Dawlah, Safdar Jang's eldest son and deputy governor of Awadh in Lucknow, succeeded his father as nawab in 1754. In the first half of his reign he joined with Ahmad Shah Durrani of Afghanistan in defeating the Marathas, became Mughal chief minister in his own right, added the province of Allahabad to his power base, and attempted to expel the British from Bengal. In the last fateful endeavor he failed, and from that defeat in 1764 he showed increasing willingness to make an autonomous Awadh his power base, forsaking any dream of reinvigorating the Mughal Empire in Delhi. The British imposed restrictions on the size of his military that made him increasingly dependent upon them for Awadh's security, and required from him payments of tribute that eventually mortgaged his realm to them.^[28]

From 1766 Shujacu'd-Dawlah changed his provincial capital from Lucknow to nearby Faizabad and instituted an ambitious building program, with his engineers and workers completing many of these projects within two years. The establishment of a provincial court of great wealth at Faizabad constituted a major cultural and social event. Artisans and scholars flocked there from all over India, its bazaars attracting numerous long-distance traders from Iran, central Asia, China, and Europe. With the peasant-generated tax monies of Awadh and Allahabad flowing into the city, its tax-farming notables and highly paid administrators helped support masses of skilled workers and retailers, who provided them with luxury goods. The new capital grew with remarkable rapidity during the last nine years of the nawab's life.^[29]

The nawab's attack in 1774 in concert with the British on the neighboring Afghan Ruhilah ruler Hafiz Rahmat Khan defanged a potential military threat to the north, filled state coffers with booty, and added to the territory under his control.^[30] Shujacu'd-Dawlah's governorship, from 1754 to 1775, marked a watershed in the emergence of a semiautonomous, Shi‘i-ruled state in Awadh and Allahabad. Sunni religious leaders became less secure. Although Shi‘i scholarship and institutions showed no efflorescence in the first half of the reign, in the Faizabad period substantial patronage became available to scholars belonging to the ruler's branch of Islam.

The French traveler Laureston found Bengal and North India remarkably free of sectarian rancor in the 1750s. He wrote:

[28] For a summary and analysis of the political history of these years, see A. L. Srivastava, Shuja-ud-Daulah , 2 vols. (Agra: Shiva Lal Agarvala and Co, rev ed 1961), and Barnett, North India , chaps 2, 3.

[29] Fayzbakhsh, Tarikh-ifarahbakhsh , Hoey trans., 2:3-9; Srivastava, Shuja-ud-Daulah 2:168-69.

[30] Naqavi, ‘Imad , pp. 114-18; Tabataba'i, Siyar 2:90-93: Fayzbakhsh, Tarikh-ifarahbakhsh , Hoey trans., 2:10-11, Srivastava, Shuja-ud-Daulah 2 248-54.

Muslims are enthusiastic about their religion, but here the sectarian followers of ‘Umar and ‘Ali never dispute among themselves for the purpose of establishing which was the true successor to the caliphate. There are few mosques, even fewer mullas, and the nobles, although they are punctual enough in performing their own devotions, hardly ever go to the mosques.^[31]

This idyllic portrait may have been accurate in the 1750s, but Sunni-Shi‘i disputes increased as the Awadh state took on a Shi‘i aspect.

Though Farangi Mahall retained its intellectual leadership, the school's relationship with the government sometimes grew troubled. After Mulla Nizamu'd-Din's passing in 1748, his young son ‘Abdu'l-‘Ali gradually asserted himself as head of the institution. About ten years later, Sunni-Shi‘i tensions in Lucknow put his life in danger. With a Shi‘i potentate ruling the province from Lucknow, ‘Abdu'l-‘Ali felt that he could expect no governmental support against the militant partisans of Imam ‘Ali, and when the Sunni Ruhilah chief of nearby Shahjahanpur, Hafiz Rahmat Khan, offered him patronage, he accepted it.^[32]

The challenge of rising Shi‘i militancy in the old Sunni stronghold of Lucknow, coupled with the political dominance of a Shi‘i ruling house, also bedeviled the next head of the school, Mulla Hasan Farangi-Mahalli. At the height of his eminence in Lucknow, Shi‘i-Sunni tensions again rose, two students being killed in rioting sometime after 1766. Mulla Hasan led a delegation of teachers to the new capital, Faizabad, where they protested to Nawab Shujacu'd-Dawlah the government's failure to stop the violence. When the delegation proved unsuccessful, Mulla Hasan decided to join Mulla ‘Abdu'l-‘Ali in Shahjahanpur rather than continue to risk his life in Lucknow.^[33]

During Shujacu'd-Dawlah's rule Sunni-Shi‘i clashes ostracized two successive leaders of the major Sunni-staffed institution of learning in his dominions. In both cases the government sided, at least tacitly, with the Shi‘is. Although neither of these major Sunni ulama could be assured of their own lives and property under Shujacu'd-Dawlah, most Farangi-Mahallis remained in Lucknow, future leaders accommodating themselves better to an Imami government.

Barnett has outlined the major criteria of regional autonomy in

[31] Jean Law de Laureston, Mémoire sur quelques affaires de l'empire mogol, 1756-1761 (Paris: Edouard Champion and Emile Larose, 1913), p. 272 My translation.

[32] Valiyu'llah Farangi-Mahalli, Al-Aghsanal-arbacah li'sh-shajarah at-tayyibah (Lucknow Matbac-i Karnamah, 1881), pp 121-26, Rahman ‘Ali, Tazkirah-'i‘ulama-yi Hind , pp 122-23, Ansari Farangi-Mahalli, Bani , pp 103-25, M Shafic, "Bahr al-‘Ulum," EI.,

[33] V Farangi-Mahalli, Al-Aghsan , pp. 8-9, 13, Qiyamu'd-Din Muhammad ‘Abdu'l-Bari Farangi-Mahalli, Atharal-awwal min ‘ulama'FaranjiMahall (Lucknow: Matbac-i Mujtaba'i, 1321/1903-4), pp. 10-11, 24-25, 27, Ansari Farangi-Mahalli, Bani , pp 132-34, Ghulam Husayn Khan-i Zaman, Gulzar-iAsafiyyah (Hyderabad. Muhammadi Press, 1260/1844), p 418; ‘Ali, Tazkirah-'i‘ulama-yiHind , p 218. Bahru'l-‘Ulum's thought might be considered an example of neo-orthodox Sufism, see Arnold Green, The Tunisian Ulama, 1873-1915 Social Structure and Response to Ideological Currents (Leiden. E.J Brill, 1978), pp 57-62.

eighteenth-century India.^[34] Tile governor acquired the ability to appoint his own revenue officials and successors to the governorship; governors seldom remitted revenues to the center and began to conduct independent diplomatic activity. Then regional ruling families established provincial courts with a distinctive architecture. Finally, coins were minted in the name of the local ruler, and the emperor's name was deleted from the sermon (khutbah ) at the Friday congregational prayers. In Awadh, all but the last two criteria for independence had been met by 1775.

Shujacu'd-Dawlah as regional governor in Awadh from 1754 to 1775 remitted very little revenue to the imperial center. A combination of adverse economic conditions and destructive Iranian, Afghan, and Maratha incursions had enervated the power of Delhi. Until his death in 1775 Shujacu'd-Dawlah "still minted coins and had the Khutbah read in the Emperor's name for the sake of protocol, but for all practical purposes he was an independent prince."^[35] A further declaration of independence could only come when Friday prayers serrnons were read in the name of the Nishapuris; but that required the emergence of a Shi‘i ulama corps loyal to this regional dynasty.

The Beginnings of Shi‘i Scholarship in Awadh

Shi‘i rule in Awadh necessitated the development of a class of Shi‘i religious experts. Yet, surprisingly, this development took place very slowly. Until the 1780s most Shi‘i scholars in Awadh fell into two categories. They were middle landholding Sayyids in the lineage centers or they served as poets, physicians, or tutors at regional courts. In both cases they resembled gentlemen scholars more than professional clergy. Let us examine the pressures that created a trained, specialized corps of ulama receiving patronage from Awadh's Shi‘i ruling group.

Until 1766, when Nawab Shujacu'd-Dawlah settled down to rule Awadh and Allahabad from Faizabad, he made little patronage available to Shi‘i scholars. Imamis pursued their scholarship on an informal basis, lacking any major institution comparable to Farangi Mahall. Some Shi‘i scholars, such as Mawlavi Sayyid ‘Ata' Husayn Zangipuri, sought and received cash gifts and land grants from Mughal ruler Muhammad Shah, but the increasing confusion at the Mughal center made this form of wealth less and less stable.^[36] Scholars functioned as independent agents, taking advantage of political decentralization in North India to find patronage with local magnates in Awadh, in Bengal, or even in Hindu-ruled Banaras.

[34] Barnett, North India Between Empires , pp. 21-22.

[35] Ibid, p. 95

[36] Sayyid Muhammad Husavn Nauganavi, Tazkirah-'ibe-baha fitarikhal-‘ulama' (Delhi Jayyid Barqi Press, n d), p. 212

The Hindu raja of Banaras gave patronage to the greatest Shi‘i scholar in North India in this period, Shaykh Muhammad ‘Ali "Hazin" Gilani (1692-1766). He was given a land grant and cash gifts. For instance, when Jit Singh replaced his father, Balwant Singh, as ruler, he gave Hazin 40,000 ashrafis.^[37] Hazin, an Iranian poet and scholar from an elite family in Isfahan, fled Iran for India in 1734 after becoming embroiled in an insurrection against Nadir's governor of Lar province.

Hazin lived in Multan, Lahore, and Delhi. After 1739 he grudgingly reconciled himself to remaining in Delhi as a teacher, but the ridicule he heaped on India and Indians earned him so many enemies in the Mughal capital that he headed southeast toward Bengal in 1748. He arrived in Banaras in 1750, settling there for the last sixteen years of his life and building two mosques and a tomb for himself. Although Hazin accepted the patronage and land grant of a petty ruler, such as Raja Balwant Singh, he earlier refused to pay court to the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah and even refused the latter's offer of high office. His haughtiness as an upper-class Iranian caused him to live out his life in a predominantly Hindu provincial city. Still, elite Hindus there cultivated Persian, and the surrounding districts boasted a relatively large Shi‘i population, which provided him with some religious students in his last years.^[38]

Hazin's thought and his role in society were both important for the north Indian Shi‘i tradition. Unlike most Shi‘is in Awadh and Allahabad, he belonged to the Usuli school, believing that a religious scholar had the right to make independent judgments in law based on his own reasoning (ijtihad ). Some of his rulings on religious issues made while in India formed the basis of questions submitted by the faithful to mujtahids even in the nineteenth century. Deeply interested in science and philosophy, he also wrote commentaries on the works of mystical thinkers. In India he devoted the most of his efforts to writing and teaching Persian poetry, without, however, giving up religious subjects. Hazin transported into one of Shujacu'd-Dawlah's cities the intellectual ambience of late Safavid court culture.^[39]

Since Banaras constituted part of the nawab's dominions, Hazin lived ultimately under a Shi‘i ruler, Nawab Safdar Jang, who showed him respect.

[37] Ghulam Husayn Khan, "Balwand-namah," ed Subhan ‘Ali Khan, Persian MS 2210, pp 154-55, Nat'l Archives of India, New Delhi

[38] Muhammad ‘Ali Hazin Gilani, The Life of Sheik Mohammed Ali Hazin Written by Himself , trans F C. Belfour (London. Oriental Translation Fund, 1830), pp. 231-36, 255-63, 292-301, Sarfaraz Khan Khatak, Shaikh Muhammad Alt Hazin His Life. Times, and Works (Lahore: Sh Mohammad Ashraf, 1944), pp 82-87, 101, 129-31

[39] Hazin, Life , pp 58-59, 78; as a child he saw on several occasions Muhammad Baqir Majlisi in Isfahan. See also Muhammad ‘Ali Kashmiri, Nujumas-sama'fitarajim al-‘ulama' (Lucknow: Matbac-i Jacfari, 1302/1884-85), pp. 286-93; his "Fath as-subul fi al-kalam" (Opening Paths m Dialectical Theology) is noticed in Sayyid Icjaz Husayn Kinturi, Kashf al-hujubwa'l-astarcanal-kutub wa'l-asfar , ed. Muhammad Hidayat Husayn (Calcutta. Asiatic Society, 1330/1912), p. 397.

When in 1756 Shujacu'd-Dawlah came to Banaras to put down the rebellious Raja Balwant Singh, the nawab conferred with Hazin. The poet-mujtahid urged him to come to terms with the raja, and political events led Shujacu'd-Dawlah to follow this advice.^[40] In 1764 Shujacu'd-Dawlah and Shah ‘Alam II visited Hazin in Banaras before their close defeat by the British at the Battle of Baksar. The great Shi‘i thinker reportedly gave them the unwelcome advice that they should not attempt to fight the British, but if they chose to do so, they should depend on their cavalry. On that occasion, Hazin only haft-bowed to Shujacu'd-Dawlah, saying that a full bow is reserved for kings and that escorting is reserved for mujtahids and the ulama. This demonstration of the pride of a Shi‘i mujtahid before temporal authority surprised and incensed the nawab-vizier.^[41]

Hazin, though somewhat reclusive in Banaras, did give classes and hold discussions with other Shi‘i scholars.^[42] One of his students, Mulla ‘Uyuz, taught for a while in Banaras, eschewing glosses and supercommentaries in favor of a direct encounter with his sources.^[43] A mystic and an ascetic, he was part of a generation of Shi‘i scholars in transition from Sufi ideals of the learned man to more scriptural and rational-legal role models.

Whereas some Shi‘i ulama, such as Hazin, sought independence in their private pursuits, others eagerly entered public life. One entered the ranks of the ulama (a status group, not an economic class) by virtue of learning, though a certain amount of property generally served as a prerequisite for such learning. Few ulama from an artisan or laboring-class background are mentioned in the sources for this period. But although most ulama derived from middle landholding families, they could also come from the very upper ranks of the prebendal-feudal notables. Those recognized as ulama from the upper class pursued knowledge as an avocation, in addition to a political career. Sons of middle landholders more often made a living from a purely religious calling.

Tafazzul Husayn Khan Kashmiri (d. 1800) strikingly exemplified the upper class Shi‘i gentleman scholar in eighteenth-century India.^[44] His grand-

[40] Ghulam Husayn Khan, "Balwand-namah," pp. 125-26

[41] Khayru'd-Din Muhammad Ilahabadi, "Tuhfah-'i tazah," Persian MS 483, foll. 40a-b, India Office Lib. and Records, London: Khatak, Hazin , p. 132, Syed Hasan Askari, "The Political Significance of Hazin's Career in Eastern India," Bengal Past and Present 63 (1943): 1-10

[42] Muhammad Mihdi Lakhnavi Kashmiri, Nujumas-sama' takmilah , 2 vols. (Qumm. Maktabat-i Basirati, 1397/1977), 2:4-5; ‘Abdu'l-Latif Shushtari, "Tuhfat al-calam," Persian MS Add 23, 533, foll 162a-b, British Lib., London Hazin's students in literature are given in Khatak, Hazin , pp 70-75

[43] M. M Kashmiri, Nujum T 1:17-21, 31-33.

[44] For details of his scholarly biography and his family, see Naqavi, ‘Imad , pp 155-57: M A Kashmiri, Nujumas-sama' , pp. 323-28, Sayyid ‘Abbas Ardistani, "Al-hisn al-matin fi ahwal al-wuzara' wa's-salatin," 2 vols, Arabic MSS 235a-b, 1:79-78, Nat'l Archives of India, New Delhi, ‘Ali, Tazkirah-'i ‘ulama-yiHind , pp. 36-37: Ansari Farangi-Mahalli, Bani , pp 126-27. Ardistani's chronicle of Awadh in Arabic, probably written late in the 1850s, has not been used before by modern historians. Ardistani, an administrator in the 1840s, drew on his grandfather's memoirs, and so his chronicle is useful for the entire range of the history of Nishapuri Awadh.

father, Karamu'llah Khan, served the Mughal Empire, receiving Rs. 300,000 from a huge land grant (jagir ). Tafazzul Husayn, born while his father was stationed in Sialkot, moved with his family at age thirteen or fourteen to Lahore and then to Delhi. He studied rational sciences by the Nizami method in the capital. When his family settled in Lucknow, Kashmiri had an opportunity to study at Farangi Mahall itself, working with Mulla Hasan (later head of the school). He asked Mulla Hasan so many difficult questions that the Farangi-Mahalli finally hurled his book to the ground in exasperation and expelled Kashmiri from his classroom. Tafazzul Husayn then studied on his own, mastering difficult philosophical works by Avicenna in Arabic. He embraced Shi‘ism, rounding out his education by attending the lectures of Shaykh Muhammad ‘Ali Hazin in Banaras, making contact with the learned traditions of late Safavid Isfahan.

He used his family's powerful connections to gain an audience with Nawab Shujacu'd-Dawlah, who appointed him as mentor and tutor (ataliq ) of his second son, Sacadat ‘Ali Khan. Such a position served as a means of political advancement for an upper-class intellectual. Kashmiri accompanied Sacadat ‘Ali to Allahabad in 1769, where the young noble was vice-minister to Shah ‘Alam II. There he engaged in disputes on logic with the Shi‘i Mawlavi Ghulam Husayn Dakani Ilahabadi. The two did not meet, but sent their advanced students with questions and answers. These included Tafazzul Husayn's third cousin, Salamu'llah Khan, and Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali Nasirabadi. The debates by proxy demonstrate the sorts of intellectual networks that bound together Shi‘i ulama-teachers with thinkers holding high government office.

Tafazzul Husayn Khan's links with the nawabi court gave him influence with his larger family. Not only did his own household (including the servants) embrace Shi‘ism, so that he almost ceased to associate with Sunnis at all, but his cousins on his father's side of the family accepted Shi‘ism. Tafazzul Husayn Khan procured offices for Shi‘i relatives, and some of his relatives married into older Shi‘i ulama and notable families. The Kashmiri service family employed Shi‘ism, Islamic learning, and notable status to penetrate the nawabi administrative structure and to acquire patronage from the new ruling class.

Tafazzul Husayn Khan's career was checkered. He led an abortive assassination plot against Asafu'd-Dawlah on behalf of Sacadat ‘Ali, and lived many years in exile, serving later on as Awadh's envoy in Calcutta. In 1797 the British forced him on Asafu'd-Dawlah as first minister, though the public perception of him as the Europeans' candidate impaired his effectiveness.

Diagram 1
The Kashmiri Service Family and Adoption of Shi‘ism

After the short-lived anti-British revolt of Asafu'd-Dawlah's successor Vazir ‘Ali in 1798, during which Tafazzul took a pro-British stance, the East India Company put Kashmiri's erstwhile pupil Sacadat ‘Ali Khan into power as nawab. The new ruler sent Tafazzul Husayn Khan back to Calcutta as the Awadh envoy, but Kashmiri soon died, in 1800.^[45]

During his twenty years in Calcutta, Kashmiri learned fluent English and studied Latin so as to be able to read European scientific works. He translated books on the new European mathematics and physics, writing also on Sunni and Shi‘i hadiths and Islamic philosophy. He taught mathematics in the morning to students in Calcutta, then visited English friends until noon. In the afternoon he taught Imami law, and after supper expounded Hanafi law. In the evenings he read philosophy alone. A pious notable, a man of wealth and taste, he had but one vice, from a strict Shi‘i point of view: his love of music.^[46]

Hazin, the displaced poet-mujtahid, and Tafazzul Husayn Khan, the scholar-diplomat, could hardly be considered professional Shi‘i clerics. They lived at a time when Imami Shi‘i institutions in North India barely existed, when a clerical career in itself made little sense for anyone interested in wealth, prestige, or power. Yet the time when court poets and gentlemen scholars could dominate Shi‘i intellectual life was passing. New religious elites were called into being by the rise of the Shi‘i court in Awadh.

The Physicians of Faizabad

The first phases of Shi‘i state formation in Awadh witnessed the establishment of a Shi‘i ruling group at the top of the social hierarchy, the development of a Shi‘i wing in the military, and the subordination of the old Sunni clerical and mystical families through intimidation or resumption of revenue-free land grants. From 1766 a second process began, the gradual formation of a Shi‘i religious class through notable-class patronage. A struggle commenced over the shape of the religious class, and over the control of religious resources. Traditional Shi‘i gentlemen scholars, used to coexisting with Sunnis and Hindus, were ranged against a growing class of professional Shi‘i clerics who emphasized social closure and Shi‘i communal identity.

Within Shujacu'd-Dawlah's new capital, Faizabad, a cabal of physicians trained in Avicennian medicine and the rational sciences at first established a

[45] Abu Talib Isfahani, History of Asafu'd Dawlah Nawab Wazir of Oudh Being a translation of Tafzihu'l Ghafilin , trans W Hoey (Lucknow. Pustak Kendra, repr. 1971), pp. 15-18; Resident to Sacadat ‘Ali Khan, 26 July 1777, Foreign Department, Secret Consultations [FDSC], 8 September 1777, no. M, Nat'l Archives of India, New Delhi; Harold Afaq Qureshi, "Nawab Wazir ‘Ali Khan: Life and Career (1780-1817)" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Lucknow, 1981), p. 191.

[46] M. A Kashmiri, Nujumas-sama' , pp 324-25 (apparently the author did not consider conspiracy to assassinate the ruler a vice); Purnendu Basu, Oudh and the East India Company, 1785-1801 (Lucknow: Maxwell Co., 1943), pp. 22-24.

virtual monopoly over intellectual pursuits within the new capital. Soon after the nawab returned from his defeat at Baksar and took up residence in Faizabad, five religious-minded physicians from Delhi followed him there and were employed by the nawab and his wife, Bahu Begam, at high salaries. Among themselves, they evinced much factionalism and competition, but they closed ranks against outside physicians or scholars.

In the absence of any formal ecclesiastical Structures in the Shi‘i community of North India, literati with a secular training stepped into roles played by ulama in Safavid Iran. They strove to maintain control over both medical and pastoral functions, and over the vast sums of money available to those who claimed to provide both spiritual and physical health.^[47] Hakim Muhammad Mucalij Khan. the leader of the physicians, took charge of distributing charity to poor Sayyids, receiving donations for that purpose from the growing number of Shi‘i notables in Faizabad. Some critics charged him with embezzling substantial amounts of this charity. The number and financial resources of the medical doctors at court grew impressive; on his deathbed the nawab was attended by thirty physicians, whose combined salaries equaled Rs. 100,000 per year.^[48] A contemporary manuscript source mentions ten important medical doctors at Shujacu'd-Dawlah's court.^[49] These ten Shi‘i Sayyids and notables averaged Rs. 5,600 per year in stipends, exclusive of the substantial fees and gratuities they controlled. The pious physicians, some from Iranian or Iraqi ulama backgrounds, were something more than the elders of a nonconformist sect, yet far less than a professional ministry.

Shi‘i ulama of the traditional sort in Faizabad were subordinate to Mucalij Khan's clique of physicians. They had no control over Islamic charitable institutions, nor did Faizabad's Shi‘is have any public mosques or communal prayers, so that preachers lacked the opportunity to address large crowds. In both respects, Faizabad differed radically from Iran and Iraq. The major gatherings for Shi‘is, the meetings held to commemorate the martyrdoms of the Imams, were dominated by eulogizers, who specialized in chanting techniques, rather than by the scholars of Islam, who often frowned on the folk practices involved in such assemblies.^[50]

[47] Muhammad Fayzbakhsh, "Tarikh-i farahbakhsh," ‘Abdus Salam Coll., Persian MS 486/7, foll 243b-244a, Aligarh Muslim Univ, Aligarh; trans. William Hoey, Memoirs of Delhi, and Faizabad , 2 vols. (Allahabad Government Press, 1888-89), 2:41-42. The English translation will hereafter be cued unless a philological issue requires reference to the Persian text.

[48] Harcharan Das, "Chahar gulzar-i shujaci," Persian MS Or. 1732, fol. 217a, British Lib., London.

[49] Sultan ‘Ali Husayni Safavi, "Macdan as-sacadah," Soc. Coll., Persian MS 181, foll. 264b-268b, Asiatic Soc. Lib., Calcutta.

[50] "A'inah-i haqq-nama," Rijal Shi‘ah, Persian MS 1, fol. 79a, Nasiriyyah Lib., Lucknow This source, written m shoot 1816 in Lucknow by an anonymous disciple of Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali Nasirabadi, is a prime source, not only for the latter's biography, but for the history of Imami Shi ism in general in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; it has not before been mined for its extensive information on this period

The grants by Shi‘i notables served to attract increasing numbers of Imami ulama to Awadh's major cities. The arrival on the Awadh scene of numbers of trained experts in Shi‘i law with a scripturalist outlook challenged the reign of the physicians and Sufi pirs in the religious realm. As the nawab's court grew more autonomous, the ruling Nishapuri family favored an assertion of specifically Shi‘i law and ritual in order to accent its peculiar local values and authority. The ulama, rather than physicians or Sufis, could best articulate this statement.

The growing friction between these intellectual groups resulted in a confrontation in Faizabad in 1779, which led to a riot. The most important of the Shi‘i ulama in that city at the time, Mawlavi Muhammad Munir, had recently arrived from the Middle East. The eunuch Javahir ‘Ali Khan, the powerful manager of Bahu Begam's estates, gave the mawlavi a stipend for his support. Mulla ‘Abdu'l-Majid, an Iranian scholar who had previously served as the supervisor of a religious endowment in Najaf, backed Munir.

Hakim Mucalij Khan, perceiving these Iranian clerics as a threat to his own position, began to slander Mawlavi Muhammad Munir. The struggle for influence among the physicians and the ulama crystallized around a doctrinal issue. The clique of medical doctors held that the ‘Alid Zayd b. ‘Ali b. Husayn erred in leading Kufa in a revolt against the Umayyad government in A.D. 740. The Bahu Begam's eunuch courtiers, who competed with Mucalij Khan for influence, bearing him great enmity, sought the opinion of Mulla ‘Abdu'l-Majid on this point. He replied that it was wrong to criticize Zayd. Mucalij Khan stood firm, saying that he based his opinion on oral reports from the Imams.^[51]

This minor issue most likely became a rallying point more because of its utility in expressing the conflict between these two status groups than because of its substance. The view of the physicians, a more quietist one, suited Shi‘is living in India under strong Sunni Mughal rule and in an overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim community. Just as Zayd should not have rebelled against the superior forces of the Umayyads, the physicians may have been implying, so Indian Shi‘is should quietly accept the rule of the Mughals. The immigrant ulama originally came from Iran, where Shi‘is formed a majority and anti-Sunni feeling ran high. Their support for Zayd the revolutionary came from a conviction that Shi‘is must at all odds assert themselves against Sunnis. The foreign-born ulama were more communalist and militant than the Indian intellectuals. With the rapid decline of Mughal power and the ascendancy of the Shi‘i nawab, such militancy became an increasingly viable option for members of the Awadh ruling class, such as the eunuchs in Faiza-bad.

In addition, the eunuchs may have been especially concerned to adopt a

[51] Fayzbakhsh, "Tarikh-i farahbakhsh," foll. 244a-246b; Hoey trans., 2:42.

strong position in order to demonstrate their credentials as Muslims. Eunuchs were the children of defeated Hindu Rajputs, who were mutilated and brought up as Shi‘is to attend upon the family of the nawab.^[52] Suspicion of having Hindu sympathies thus attached to them in the upper-class circles in which they moved, and they often attempted to pass some of their wealth on to Hindu relatives. By adopting a militant stance on the Zayd issue they could at once project their orthodoxy and hit out at the physicians, their competitors for the favors of the begam.

The conflict between the physicians and the ulama grew so heated that their partisans at length proposed a public debate. They fixed a day and announced the venue as the house of Bahar ‘Ali Khan, a eunuch in the service of Bahu Begam. The main parties arrived at dawn with slaves and personal troops. Hakim Mucalij Khan attempted to maintain his view by asserting to his opponent, Mulla‘Abdu'l-Majid, that reliable (muctabar ) oral reports (hadiths ) bore him out. The Iranian cleric challenged the elderly doctor on the technical meaning of the term "reliable" in the Shi‘i science of oral reports. When Mucalij Khan, who had studied primarily the rational sciences rather than oral reports, found himself unable to give a quick reply, Mulla ‘Abdu'l-Majid announced the physician's defeat and abruptly left the room. Fighting broke out and raged for hours among the supporters of the two debaters, with Javahir ‘Ali Khan's troops and retainers emerging the victors.^[53]

The Faizabad riot of 1779 expressed the competition between Indian lay religious literati and immigrant Iranian professional clergy. It may further have symbolized the tensions brought about by the movement of some in Awadh toward a more scripturalist and communalist interpretation of Shi‘ism. The physicians, most of them formerly Delhi courtiers used to coexistence with Sunni superiors, could not meet the demand for specialists in Shi‘i law generated by the growth of the Awadh state.

Early Religious Policy under Asafu'd-Dawlah

As Shujacu'd-Dawlah's successor, Asafu'd-Dawlah (1775-97), became increasingly a ruler in his own right, and the Mughal Empire no more than a convenient fiction for whoever held Delhi, he reversed the parsimonious policy toward the state subvention of religious scholars and institutions pursued by the first three nawabs of Awadh. Indian traditions of rulership required the nawab to dispense huge amounts of patronage to inferiors and to holy men. Some notables who opposed this new direction were replaced by more amenable Shi‘is. Asafu'd-Dawlah not only reconfirmed long-standing endowments and stipends to Sunni, Shi‘i, and Hindu officials, mendicants, and

[52] Ibid., MS foil 249a ff., Hoey trans., 2:46-47

[53] Ibid., MS foil 246b-247a, Hoey trans, 2 43

Figure 1
Nawab Asafu'd-Dawlah. Courtesy of the British Library.

religious institutions, but restored some that had been usurped. The nawab's religious munificence denoted no streak of puritanism or fanaticism. At least in the early years of his reign, he drank liquor and associated with common Hindus. Indeed, Sunnis and Hindus profited from the policy more than Shi‘is.^[54]

Asafu'd-Dawlah grew renowned for bestowing hundreds of thousands of rupees on dervishes. Sayyids, and Shi‘i visitors from the Middle East.^[55] The policy served to attract increasing numbers of Shi‘i ulama to the new capital of Lucknow, to which he moved in order to escape the influence of the Faizabad establishment dominated by his father's courtiers and his mother, Bahu Begam. The administrators and civil servants closely related to the nawabate moved with him, but substantial numbers among the service elite remained in Faizabad in the employ of tax-farming and jagir -holding notables.^[56]

The Shi‘i ulama in North India still enjoyed few of the advantages that accrued to the Sunni ulama under Mughal rule. Shi‘i scholars, to be sure, did participate in the development of the rational sciences, writing commentaries on the works used in the Nizami method. But just as that syllabus paid relatively little attention to the study of law and oral traditions within the Sunni context, so Shi‘i scholars were seldom well trained in the oral traditions of the Imams, Imami law, and the principles of jurisprudence.^[57] As a small minority in a Sunni intellectual world, Shi‘is most often studied with Sunni teachers. Lacking their own mosques and seminaries, they believed that the holding of Friday congregational prayers was illegitimate until the return of the hidden Twelfth Imam, who alone could rightfully lead them. This lack of integrating institutions and physical sites for communal study and worship inhibited the growth of a formal tradition of Shi‘i scholarship in northern India.

Still, a small ulama corps began to form, beginning with scholars who gathered in Faizabad after 1766, attracted by the patronage of the growing Shi‘i notable class there. Shujacu'd-Dawlah summoned the Akhbari Muhammad ‘Askari Jaunpuri to teach Shi‘i sciences in Faizabad.^[58] The nawab's wife, Bahu Begam, employed the great and popular teacher Mawlavi Majid Rudauli. Also of note were the legal specialist ‘Ata'u'llah Kashmiri and Sayyid Saricu'd-Din b. Ashraf Mahmud.^[59] As was mentioned, these ulama were in many ways subordinate to the court physicians.

[54] Ilahabadi, "Tadhkirat al-‘ulama'," fol 5b.; Asafu'd-Dawlah, "Shuqqah-s," 2 Dhu'l-Hijjah 1188/3 February 1775, Persian MSS 2506, 2507, Regional Archives, Allahabad, Fayzbakhsh, Tarikh-i farahbakhsh , Hoey trans., 2:21

[55] Khayru'd-Din Muhammad Ilahabadi. "‘Ibrat-namah," vol. 2, Persian MS 2210, p 146, Nat'l Archives of India, New Delhi

[56] Naqavi, ‘Imad , p. 126.

[57] "A'inah-'i haqq-nama," foll 60a-b.

[58] Ilahabadi, "Tadhkirat al-‘ulama'," foll 35a-36a

[59] Sultan ‘Ali Husayni Safavi, "Macdan as-sacadah," Soc. Coll., Persian MS 181, foll. 264a-b, Asiatic Soc. Lib., Calcutta.

The Early Career of Sayyid Dildar Ali Nasirabadi

The opportunities for education and patronage available to Shi‘i ulama from 1766 are demonstrated by the career of Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali Nasirabadi (1753-1820).^[60] Born and raised in the large, Sayyid-dominated village of Nasirabad in Rai Bareli not far from Lucknow, as a youth Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali learned Arabic and studied some basic texts in Nasirabad itself. He set out for other towns in order to pursue the rational sciences with individual scholars in the Muslim small towns. Nasirabadi's search for knowledge took him to the provincial capital of Allahabad, which had a relatively large Shi‘i population. He joined the classes of the Imami philosopher Ghulam Husayn Dakani Ilahabadi, with whom he studied most of the basic textbooks for the rational sciences. As was noted above, in 1769-72 Nasirabadi explored cosmography (hay'at ) with Tafazzul Husayn Khan, conveying questions and answers on the abstrusities of logic between his two mentors. Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali's student days were hard ones before he found a patron, and at one point he reportedly made a deal with a Hindu shopkeeper to serve as a night watchman for his shop if he could sleep on its doorstep.^[61]

Young Nasirabadi's peregrinations also took him north to Shahjahanpur, which served until 1774 as the capital of Hafiz Rahmat Khan's Ruhilah domain. Until that date Shahjahanpur was an important, if small, intellectual center with the Farangi Mahall tradition strongly represented by two former heads of that institution, Mulla ‘Abdu'l-‘Ali and Mulla Hasan. Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali furthered his exploration of the rational sciences at the hands of Mulla ‘Abdu'l-‘Ali, one of the foremost contemporary minds in this field. The Shi‘i student at one point engaged in a heated debate with his distinguished tutor. Mulla Hasan Farangi-Mahalli, who had once angrily ejected Tafazzul Husayn Khan from his class, also debated Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali on matters of metaphysics.^[62]

The encounter of Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali with these former heads of Farangi Mahall in Shahjahanpur is rich in irony. Both were forced to leave Lucknow

[60] ".A'inah-'i haqq-nama," foll. 30a-b; Sayyid icjaz Husayn Kinturi, "Shudhur al-ciqyan fi tarajim al-acyan," 2 vols., Buhar Coll., Arabic MSS 278-79, 1:135b, Nat'l Lib., Calcutta. In the chronology for Nasirabadi's early travels I have followed Kinturi, who based his account on interviews with the former's close students. "A'inah," a primary source, does not treat this period chronologically. Kinturi's biographical dictionary of Shi‘i ulama, an extremely useful source, remains in manuscript and has not been used by writers on Imami Shi ism in the West.

[61] For Dakani Ilahabadi, see 'Abdu'l-Hayy al-Hasani, Nuzhat al-khawatir , vol 7 (Hyderabad: Matbacat Da'irat al-Macarif al-‘Uthmaniyyah, 1959): 352; for Kamalu'd-Din Sihalavi and Babu'llah, see Ansari Farangi-Mahalli, Bani , pp. 128-29, and Nauganavi, Tazkirah-'i be-baha , p. 146; for Nasirabadi's indigence, see Sayyid Agha Mihdi Lakhnavi, Savanih-ihayat-ihazrat-iGhufran-ma'ab (Karachi: Jamciyyat-i Khuddam-i ‘Aza', repr. 1982), p. 16.

[62] "A'inah-'i haqq-nama," fol. 58b. Nasirabadi's gloss on Mulla, Sadra's commentary involved a refutation of Mulla ‘Abdu'l-‘Ali's positions, making reference to the stance of Tafazzul Husayn Khan. I was unable to locate a complete copy of this gloss.

by Shi‘i communalists who enjoyed the backing of the nawab. Yet in their exile they taught and engaged in discussions with the future leader of Awadh's Shi‘is. Admittedly, they may not hate known he was a Shi‘i. But even in the face of the most powerful Forces for communal strife and separation, education in Awadh remained strangely ecumenical.

Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali left Shahjahanpur for Nasirabad, then journeyed to nearby Faizabad, where a number of Shi‘i ulama were gathering under the patronage of Shujacu'd-Dawlah and his notables. |He fell ill,| and was chided by the old nawab for studying too hard. When he recovered he followed the new court of Asafu'd-Dawlah to Lucknow, where he taught and also completed his studies.^[63] The difficulties facing a student without a wealthy patron are illustrated by an incident from Nasirabadi's youth. Unable to afford a servant to bring food from the city market, considered an unclean place where no gentleman would be seen, students had to do their own shopping. One of Nasirabadi's colleagues, Sayyid ‘Abdu'l-‘Ali Deoghatavi, volunteered to go to the bazaar, and was returning when he saw someone he knew coming down the road. He quickly hid himself. Then he considered that to hide a fault indicates a prideful desire to be honored by others. He caught up with his acquaintance, going out of his way to show himself and his bazaar-derived provisions.^[64]

Finally, Nasirabadi's diligence was rewarded. His reputation for piety and ability, as well as some of his early compositions, reached the notice of Awadh's chief minister from 1777, Hasan Riza Khan. The illiterate official, having these works read to him, was favorably impressed and began financially supporting Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali, giving him a stipend of Rs. 30 per month and including him among his companions.^[65] Still, the young scholar was overshadowed by other, more important recipients of the chief minister's patronage, such as Sufi leaders. The Shi‘i notables in India did not at this point hold the ulama in such high esteem, preferring unlettered mystics to learned scholars.^[66]

As the Shi‘i-ruled state of Awadh began developing a more extensive local bureaucracy, and as its notables increasingly felt a need to promote their branch of Islam, the ulama became more important. The patron-client relationship expanded and changed in character. Younger scholars, such as Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali, pioneered a new phase in ulama-state relations in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Yet the need felt by the notables for a Shi‘i

[63] ‘Abdu'l-Halim Sharar, Guzashtah Lakhna'umashriqitamaddun ka akhirinamunah (Lucknow: Nasim Book Depot, 1974), p. 120, says that Nasirabadi studied at the Farangi Mahall. This is denied by the school's modem historian, Muhammad Riza Ansari (interview, Lucknow, February 1982), and no direct reference to his studying there occurs m the primary sources. But it is clear that the Nizami method played a crucial role m shaping Nasirabadi's thought.

[64] "A'inah-'i haqq-nama." foll 40a-b.

[65] Kinturi, "Shudhur al-ciqyan," foll 135a-b, Ardistani, "Al-Hisn al-matin" 1.93

[66] "A'inah-'i haqq-namah," fol 59.

clerical class was frustrated by the lack of local scholars trained in specifically Shi‘i sciences. In the absence of a Shi‘i seminary in North India, one solution was to have some teachers trained in the Shi‘i intellectual centers of Iran and Iraq.

Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali took his place among an increasing flow of Awadh Shi‘i scholars to the Shi‘i shrine cities of Mamluk Iraq, who went to study Shi‘i law and help spread the religion in India upon their return.^[67] An important predecessor, Mirza Khalil, went from Lucknow to Iraq, where he studied with the young Sayyid ‘Ali Tabataba'i, the nephew and son-in-law of Usuli leader Aqa Muhammad Baqir Bihbahani. Mirza Khalil, impressed with his teacher, endeavored to convince him to journey with him to India "in order to eradicate unbelief and ignorance." Sayyid ‘Ali, taken aback, fervently expressed his desire that God would never show him India or part him from the shrine cities. He reacted to the pious entreaty as if someone had prayed that evil might befall him.^[68] Most high ulama in Iran and Iraq showed reluctance to give up all the benefits they derived from living at the Shi‘i center in order to undertake a missionary career in an alien environment like North India.

Mirza Khalil on his return had his patron, Almas ‘Ali Khan, offer another scholarship of Rs. 2,000 for study in Iraq, to Akhbari notable scholars, but they refused it as too small.^[69] Finally Mirza Khalil went to another Akhbari, Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali Nasirabadi, who at first begged off on the grounds that he had just married and lacked means to support his wife while traveling. The moral imperative of such a journey, however, outweighed these considerations, and he set out in 1779 with one young companion, Sayyid Panah ‘Ali. They proceeded arduously overland through Rajasthan to Hyderabad in Sindh, and thence to the coast, where they boarded a ship for the sea journey to Basra.

Nasirabadi brought with him a copy of Muhammad Amin Astarabadi's Al-fawa'idal-madaniyyah , a work hugely popular among Shi‘i thinkers in North India. Written nearly two centuries earlier, this major statement of the Akhbari creed attacked such classical Usuli writers as Hasan ibn al-Mutahhar al-Hilli. During the long boat journey up the Euphrates Nasirabadi made friends with an Arab Shi‘i also en route to Najaf, where he had just begun his studies. Their discussions came around to the principles of jurisprudence. Nasirabadi supported the Akhbari position, whereas his Arab friend took the side of the Usulis. In this discussion Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali first

[67] Kinturi, "Shudhur al-ciqyan" 1 136a, cf "A'inah-'i haqq-nama," foll, 44b, 47a-b; Ardistani, "Al-hisn al-matin" 1 92-91. This account is late (1850s?), but the author had access to the memoirs of his grandfather, who was in Lucknow during Asafu'd-Dawlah's reign. It cannot therefore be ignored, especially since it is rich in details lacking in earlier sources.

[68] Kinturi, "Shudhur", cf "A'inah-'i haqq-nama," foll. 38a-b.

[69] For this figure, see Sultan ‘Ali Husayni Safavi, "Macdan as-sacadah," Soc Coll, Persian MS 181, fol 264b, Asiatic Soc Lib, Calcutta lionically, he died m Karbala during the Wahhabi invasion of 1801

Map 3
Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali Nasirabadi's Journey to the Shrine Cities in 1779-81

encountered the now largely Usuli atmosphere of the shrine cities and found it disturbing.^[70]

After performing visitation to the shrine of Imam ‘Ali, Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali met with prominent Shi‘i scholars in Najaf, committed Usulis. After several debates with them, Nasirabadi decided that if he insisted on arguing with his teachers, he would learn nothing. He then shifted north to Karbala, studying the oral reports from the Imams with Aqa Muhammad Baqir Bihbahani then seventy-five, and law with Bihbahani's younger disciples. Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali determined to throw himself into a study of Usuli works, given their rarity in India. He read widely on the issue of the validity of those oral reports that were related by only a single transmitter in each early generation (khabar al-ahad ).^[71] After study of the classical writers, Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali began to doubt the validity of Astarabadi's position. In the space of a few months from his arrival in Iraq he adopted the Usuli school, one reason surely being the predominance of this ideology at the centers of Shi‘i scholarship. He later perceived this change of views to be one of the graces he received by virtue of his proximity to the holy tombs of the Imams.^[72]

Nasirabadi then sought out another of Bihbahani's students, Sayyid Muhammad Mihdi Tabataba'i, and studied with him briefly. He pointed out to his teacher that in the Usuli system either a believer must be himself a mujtahid, or he must emulate a living mujtahid. But, he continued, the Shi‘is of India were deprived of any opportunity for either, so that they might land in perdition. Tabataba'i replied that Indian Shi‘is must practice caution (ihtiyat ), following the most strict of the major positions on any matter of law. Nasirabadi riposted that Majlisi I once said that the most cautious position was not always the correct one. Sayyid Muhammad Mihdi answered that such instances were rare.^[73] Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali's dissatisfaction with the practice of caution as a solution to the dilemma of Indian Usulis suggests that even then he saw the need for religious leadership which the spread of Usulism in Awadh would create.

Because of his Indian background Nasirabadi had great difficulty in being taken seriously as a scholar, some Iranian students insisting that there simply were no ulama in India. They found the very thought of an Indian mujtahid absurd, given that only three scholars at the shrine cities were recognized exemplars.

After about a year and a half, Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali returned to India overland via Kazimayn, Tehran, and Mashhad, wintering in Khurasan and

[70] This and succeeding paragraphs are based on "A'inah-'i haqq-nama," foll. 48a-49b. For the issue of consensus (ijmac ), see Harald Löschner, Die dogmatischen Grundlagen des sicitischenRechts (Cologne: Karl Heymans Verlag, 1971), pp. 111-47.

[71] For this issue, see Löschner, Grundlagen , pp. 101-9.

[72] "A'inah-'i haqq-nama," fol. 49b.

[73] Ibid., foll. 20b-24a.

studying there briefly. On arriving in Lucknow he met with Hasan Riza Khan and had an interview with Nawab Asafu'd-Dawlah. In 1781 he began teaching and writing in Lucknow, producing a wide-ranging attack on Akhbari ideas and beginning the task of training a new generation of Shi‘i scholars in Usuli sciences.

Conclusion

The religion of the ruling house in preindustrial West and South Asia generally became an clement in state formation. The cultural traditions of Islam dictated that a Muslim stale have its sovereignty proclaimed in the Friday afternoon sermons, and in the grandeur of its cathedral mosques. In a patrimonial bureaucracy, religion became an important bond, the adoption of which allowed eunuchs and courtiers to receive appointments to high office. In Awadh, even Sunni elites outside the ruling circle sometimes adopted Shi‘ism or expressed greater love of ‘Ali and his family within a Sunni framework, in order to bond themselves with the ruling house. As will be seen, Hindu notables and government officials also accommodated themselves to Awadh's newly Shi‘i atmosphere.

Awadh's external borders were demarcated by wars with the Bangash and Ruhilah Afghan clans and with the British. In the Bangash battles, not only professional soldiers but Shaykhzadah clansmen defended their region arid championed Nishapuri rule. This gives a clue to internal processes at work in Awadh, whereby local Sunni elites expressed a preference for even Shi‘i nawabi rule over other alternatives. The nawabs derived their legitimacy from Mughal appointment, and their power from Shi‘i and Hindu troops. Although they expropriated many Sunni revenue-free holdings subventing religious institutions, they were seen by most Sunnis as the lesser of evils when compared with the Afghans.

Awadh's move toward greater autonomy from the Mughals, and the desire of Shi‘i notables for experts in Imami law and theology to service their households, created an increasing need for a professional Shi‘i clergy. At first this exigency was partially met by the court physicians, then by an influx of Iranian and Iraqi Shi‘i ulama seeking patronage. The clash of physicians with foreign ulama pointed to the need for an indigenous, trained ulama corps, who Could help to articulate symbolically the growing autonomy of Nishapuri Awadh and spread Shi‘i sciences. Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali's two-year sojourn in Iraq and Iran was a first step toward the formation of such a corps.