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.