Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1 In the context of India, Mawlana Dildar ‘Ali, the sixth generation forefather of ‘Ali Naqvi, was primarily responsible for the shift from the juridical-theological position of Shi’i Akhbarism (relying on scriptural sources alone for deriving legal injunctions and rejecting the necessity of ijtihad) to Usulism (taking reason as a source of legal reasoning and positing the incessant necessity of ijtihad). Since Dildar ‘Ali, this family has upheld the usuli position writing numerous treatises in its defense, and attacking their Akhbari opponents. On ‘usuli-akhbari divide within Shi’i intellectual history see Robert Gleave, Scripturalist Islam: The History and Doctrines of the Akhbari School of Shii Thought, (Brill: Leiden, 2007). This juridical-theological position is perhaps the reason why this family came to be called the “Household of Ijtihad.” Many scholars of the family were bestowed honorable titles such as Sultan al- ‘ulama’ (The King of scholars) and Bahr al-‘ulum (the Ocean of knowledge) by the Awadh rulers. ‘Ali Naqvi himself is popularly known in India as Sayyid ul-‘Ulama’ (Master of Scholars).

2 See Juan R. I. Cole, Roots of North Indian Shi’ism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh, 1722- 1859 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). For the various accounts on the significance of Dildar ‘Ali see especially pages 61-66 and 127-139. Complete bibliographical information of cited works can be found under the “Bibliography” section of this study.

3 As Rizvi A Socio-Intellectual History of the Ithna' 'Ashari Shi'ism in India, 2 vols. (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1986) has pointed out, the strong historical ties of Indian Shi’i scholars with the seminaries in Iraq, the borrowings and adaptations from Persian and Iraqi Shi’ism which led to a uniquely Indian cultural expression of Shi’i Islam, and theologically the movement away from Akhbari traditionalism towards Usuli rationalism can all be attributed to the role this family’s many scholars have played, both as religious leaders and as political allies of the rulers of Awadh. This is all in addition to the huge religious corpus produced by this family that exceeds hundreds of commentaries, treatises, religious manuals, and religious rulings that cover all religious subjects, from Qur’anic studies to jurisprudence and mysticism. For a discussion of the significance and scholarly contributions of this family see pp. 128–77. In light of the significance of this family one awaits a study comparable to Francis Robinson’s on the Farangi Mahal family (2002).

4 For studies of Sunni Islam in the modern Indian context see Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002) and Usha Sanyal, Devotional Islam and Politics in British India: Ahmed Riza Khan Barelvi and His Movement, 1870-1920 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Barbara Daly Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1990 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982); Francis Robinson, The Ulama of Farangi Mahall and Islamic Culture in South Asia (London: C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2001); Schimmel (1963) on Iqbal; Troll (1978) on Sayyid Ahmad Khan; Aziz Ahmed (1967) on Islamic modernism in India; Reetz (2006) on various Sunni religious movements in first half of the twentieth century; and Vali Nasr (1994 and 2001) on Mawdudi and Jama‘at-e-Islami.

5 For the purpose of compiling ‘Ali Naqvi’s biographical information, I have relied on the following sources: Salamat Rizvi, Sayyid al-‘Ulama’: hayat wa karnamay (Publishing City: Publisher 1988), a biography of ‘Ali Naqvi; (Author’s name) “Hayat-I Sayyid ul-‘Ulama’,” Khandan-i Ijtihad (November 2010): 46-82; ‘Ali Naqvi, introduction to Fasl al-Khatab (Karachi: Publisher name, 1986), his Qur’anic commentary; Salamat ‘Ali Rizvi, “Sayyid al-Mufassirin, Sadr al-Muhaqqiqin, Ayatullah al-‘Uzma Maulana Sayyid ‘Ali Naqi Naqvi” in Khandan-i Ijtihad (December 2005): 80-4; and ‘Allamah Sayyid Sa‘id Akhtar Rizvi Gopalpuri, “Sayyid ul- ‘Ulama’ ‘Allamah Sayyid ‘Ali Naqi Naqvi mujtahid” in Khandan-i ijtihad (February 2004): 74-7.

6 Zaman,The Ulama in Contemporary Islam, 2-10.

7 Brinton, Jacqueline J. “Preaching Islamic Renewal: Shaykh Muhammad Mitwalli Sha`rawi and the Syncretization of Revelation and Contemporary Life” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 2009).

8 Mazhab aur ‘aql. (Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1941), Introduction.

9 I borrow this term from Sherman Jackson’s analysis of tradition in the introduction to his On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s Faysal al-Tafriqa (Oxford: 2002).

10 “At the same time, even if we discount the partisan criticisms of opponents, it seems impossible to deny that in the attitude and outlook of the ulema [sic] and their followers there is a disturbing weakness. They are losing touch with the thought of the age. Their arguments, however just, fail to carry conviction because they are expressed in thought- forms which arouse no response in the minds of educated men. Even the very language which they generally use has an antiquarian flavor that strikes curiously upon the ear and strengthens the feeling that they have no message for today. Above all, their public pronouncements displayed a rigid formalism and reliance upon authority which, as the modernists see truly, are but feeble weapons of defense in the struggle with the forces arrayed against religion throughout the world” (Gibb, 1947). The “new Muslim intellectual elite” has time and again attacked these noncritical and out-of-date prescriptions of the ‘ulama’.

CHAPTER I: ‘ALI NAQVI’S RECEPTION OF THE CRISIS OF RELIGION

1 Islah in scholarship is usually translated as “reform” and has come to be indentified in contemporary times with the modern reformist figures and movements in the various parts of the Islamic world. Often coupled with tajdid (i.e., revival), islah continues to be an important construct for contemporary Islamic discourse. In this regard see Abu Khalil, As‘ad.“Revival and Renewal.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, ed., John Esposito. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, Dallal,Ahmad . “The Origins and Objectives of Islamic RevivalistThought, 1750-1850.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 113, no. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1993): pp. 341- 359, Voll, John. “Renewal and Reform in Islamic History: Tajdid and Islah.”Voices of Resurgent Islam. Ed., John Esposito. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983, Lapidus, Ira. “Islamic Revival and Modernity: The Contemporary Movements and the Historical Paradigms.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 40, no. 4 (1997): pages 110-155.Readers on contemporary Islam such as Donohue, John J., and John L. Esposito. Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982; Euben, Roxanne Leslie, and Muhammad Qasim Zaman. Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts from Al-Banna to Bin Laden, Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009; Kurzman, Charles. Liberal Islam: A Source Book. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998 and _____ . Modernist Islam, 1840-1940: A Sourcebook. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002 are also replete with issues related to revival and reform, while also highlighting clearly many of the issues ‘Ali Naqvi addressed during his intellectual life. In the Indian context, mention may be made of Metcalf, Barbara Daly. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), and Naeem, Fuad S. "Sufism and Revivalism in South Asia: Mawlana Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi of Deoband and Maulana Aḥmad Raza Khan of Bareilly and Their Paradigms of Islamic Revivalism." The Muslim World 99, no. 3 (2009): 435-51. Regarding why this term was not translated in thischapter, see the ensuing paragraph of the main body of the text.

2 The phrase fasad occurs in Qur’an on numerous occasions (for example 2:11, 7:56 and 7:85). Often it is accompanied by the word islah. ‘Ali Naqvi often makes reference to this Qur’anic juxtaposition in his lectures, for example the Qur’anic verse 2:220,“God knows well him who works corruption (mufsid) from him who sets aright (muslih)” .

3 Dictionary, Urdu-English and English-Urdu (Lahore: Sang-i Meel Publications, 1980) and Chohan and Bukhari (2009)

4 La tufsidu fi al-‘arz, 3rd ed., Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1998.

5 Unless stated otherwise, all the translations are based on A. J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted: A Translation, 1st Touchstoneed . New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

6 Vernon James Schubel, Religious Performance in ContemporaryIslam : Shi'i Devotional Rituals in South Asia.(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993). This text is a comprehensive ethnographic account of South Asian Shi’i religious culture.

7 “Gendered Ritual and the Shaping of Shi‘ah Identity” in Shared Idioms, Sacred Symbols, and the Architecture of Identities in South Asia. ed . Kelly Pemberton and Michael Nijhawan (New York:Routlege, 2009).

8 Not all these texts are available to us for perusal but in his writings and that of his biographer they are mentioned.

9 The work is titled Iqalat al-'athir fi iqamat al-sha'a'ir al-Husayniyah (Najaf: Matba‘ah Haydariyyah, 1929). For an account of this controversy please see Ende’s essay “The Flagellations of Muharram and the Shi’ite Ulama’” in Der Islam, 55 (1978), 19-36. The title of the book and author’s name appears on page 24 where Ende refers to him as ‘Ali Naqvi Lakhnavi. Thus far besides Sachedina’s brief mention of ‘Ali Naqvi’s Shahid-i insaniyat in his essay “The Eternal Meaning of Husayn’s Martyrdom” in Alserat: Papers from the Imam Husayn Conference London, July 1984 (London: Muhammadi Trust, 1984), 198 and of the same work in Syed Akbar Hyder’s recent Reliving Karbala: Martyrdom in South Asian Memory (New York: Oxford, 2006), 80 this is the only other citation of ‘Ali Naqvi’s writings that we have found in the western sources. Sources referring to ‘Ali Naqvi himselfhave been discussed in the context of his biography (Introduction).

10 It was published under the title Rebuttal of Wahhabism (Radd-i Wahhabiyah).

11 It is unclear why the work on Baha’i faith had to be published. As far as socio-religious history of India is concerned the Baha’i faith had not make any substantial inroads in the Indian subcontinent. The anomalous character of this publication should not take away what is evident from both the general outline of his published writings and his intellectual project which will be delineated as we proceed.

12 The original edition Usul-i din aur Qur’an does not mention the date of publication but since it is 4th in the Imamia Mission’s series of publications and the 5th publication is dated 1932 this text perhaps appeared in the same year. It was a response to a 1928 pamphlet circulated by Ahmadiyah movement regarding the inadmissibility of the Shi’i principles of religion, especially the doctrines of Imamate and Justice from the Qur’anic point of view. See the Introduction to the text.

13 I say primarily because the broader Islamic community was always among his perceived audience and the general tone of reconciliation and accommodation is evident in his writings. At its proper occasion we will have an occasion to discuss this dimension of his intellectual life more fully.

14 We will discuss the details of this project extensively in a latter chapter on popularization.

15 From the publisher’s introduction of Vujud-i hujjat.

16 In Sunni-Shi’i polemics there has been perpetual criticism from the Sunni side that Shi’isdownplay the importance of the Qur’anic revelation. Among the various arguments put forth in this regard is one that posits lack of memorization of Qur’an among the Shi‘ites. ‘Ali Naqvi presents evidence from biographical dictionaries to rebut this criticism in Tazkirah-yi Huffaz-i Shi‘ah published in 1935 and responds to the question of alteration (tahrif) in Tahrif-i Qur’an ki Haqiqat.

17 Temporary Marriage and Islam (Mut‘ah aur Islam. Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1933).

18 Husayn aur Islam (Lucknow: Manshurah Imamiyah Mission, 1931). Discussion of Naqvi’s writings on the theme of Karbala are examined in chapter 4.

19 Literally feeling or emotion…

20 How immense the changes had been in India during the 19th and 20th centuries is well-documented in scholarship. For a general account of the diverse intellectual and theological trends during this period see: Ahmad, Aziz.Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, 1857-1964 (London: Oxford, 1967). Associated with this text are primary readings in the companion volume: Ahmad Aziz and Gustave E. von Grunebaum, Muslim Self-Statement in India and Pakistan 1857-1968 (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1970). For an account of the huge impact of the print-medium in religious transformation during the late 19th and early 20th century please see “Islam and the Impact of Print in South Asia” and for impact of changing sociopolitical circumstances on Indian Muslims’ religious consciousness see “Religious Change and the Self in Muslim South Asia Since 1800” both in Francis Robinson, Islam and Muslim History in South Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

The awareness of these problems, social, political, religious and cultural would only intensify in the twentieth century, leading Muslims toward unprecedented religious and political activism. For how political activism via communalism would result in the formation of the Pakistani state and for a comprehensive account of development of Muslim political consciousness please see Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850 (London: Routlege, 2000).

On the plane of theological and religious activism, Robinson’s comments are further corroborated by recent scholarship, Kenneth W. Jones, Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India (New Cambridge History of India). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989 and Dietrich Reetz, Islam in the PublicSphere : Religious Groups in India, 1900-1947 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

Regarding the intensive character of socio-religious reform movements Jones notes, “By the end of the nineteenth century, Muslims of the Gangetic plains had produced socio-religious movements designed to restore their community to its rightful position in society. All, save the Barelwis, advocated various alterations in contemporary religion, and legitimized their programs through different versions of religious authority (82).”

21 Francis Robinson, “Religious Change and the Self in Muslim South Asia since 1800” in Islam and Muslim History in South Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

22 Literally, “our steps were way ahead”.

23 ‘Izzat though derived from the Arabic ‘izza does not mean domination but dignity and pride in Urdu.

24 Qur’an, 13:11

25 8:53

26 Although a translation of the word qaum the word should not be construed to mean nation in the technical and political sense. At best, ‘Ali Naqvi’s sense of nation means a religious community, here the Muslim community.

27 See, for example various selections from the readers on modern Islam (already cited) and Abul Hasan Ali Nadvi.Islam and the World (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1967). The text was originally written in Urdu and the 2005 edition was published with the full Urdu title, adding the subtitle “The Rise and Decline of Muslims and Its Effect on Mankind to it”.

28 La tufsidu, 31-34.

29 Please see chapter 2.

30 See footnotes 1 and 2.

31 Could be rendered as revivalism or renewalism but the context makes it clear that here the notion implied is the dichotomy between persistence on older ways of things (qadamat pasandi) and seeking new ways to respond to the challenges faced in the modern age (tajaddud parvari). The dictionary meaning of tajaddud and tajdid includes novelty, reform and renewal.

32 The text is ambiguous on what it means. I have rendered the translation rather freely and am quite confident that the translation is able to capture the gist of the argument.

33 This idea of gradual and conscious islah as the proper way of reforming societies will recur again in his other writings. See the later sections of chapter 5 where it is discussed at length.

34 Literally, “who is on the side of truth”.

35 On the origins and development of contemporary revivalism and modernism, please see Ahmad Aziz.Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, 1857-1964 (London: Oxford University Press, 1967).

36 La tufsidu, 80-1

37 ‘Ali Naqvi goes on argue why falsehood and caricatures of a real thing should not be a cause of rejecting the truth.

38 Reference to the early sections of the treatise.

39 See Islam ka paygham pas uftadah aqvam kay nam. Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1936. In publisher’s words: “At a time when the untouchables in seeking true egalitarianism (masawat) are trying to be familiar with the realities of the world religions (mazahib-i ‘alam) and there is a conference of religions in Lucknow on May 22 we felt the need to introduce the world to the true picture of Islam through its true egalitarianism. This treatise is being distributed among the untouchables for free. It is hoped of those Shi‘as of strength that they purchase as many as they could and distribute it in their neighborhoods.” The back cover also exhorts the community to financially help a far and wide free distribution of this text.

40 Mazhab aur ‘aql. Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1941, “Introduction”.

41 I consider it intellectual laziness when a person comes to a junction, and goes back because he does not know what way is the right way. It will result in him moving as far away from his destination as he had come close to it. It is incumbent upon him to inquire which way leads to the destination.

Similarly, whereas the disagreements among religions in the world will definitely stir anxiety and qualms in the mind regarding what/who a human being is and where he should go, this does not mean that he should stray from the very point of convergence from which arise branches of various religions. What is this [attitude of thinking that claims] “no one [can really] know which one is a true religion and which one false, which a source of peace and which of discord, so we [must] keep away from religion”? This is indeed a sign of intellectual laziness. The real progress of humans is in putting [his intellect] into practice and exerting intellectual energies. It cannot be a mark of his mental progress that when confronted by religious diversity (ikhtilaf-i mazahib), a person surrenders (sapar indakhtan) [to it] without exerting his distinguishing power (quvvat-i imtiaz). Rather he should investigate (tahqiq) the true teachings of religion (199-200)

42 Tahrif-i Qur’an ki haqiqat. Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1932, 3

43 See Peter van der Veer, ImperialEncounters : Religion and Modernity in India and Britain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Though der Veer’s analysis is restricted to the Hindu India he observes that the case with Islam or Sikhism was no different (43).

44 His often-cited words became the foundation of the new colonial mission from this time onwards:

I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanskrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is, indeed, fully admitted by those members of the Committee who support the Oriental plan of education. It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of literature in which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met with any Orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanskrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But, when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say, that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in themost paltry abridgements used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same.…We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population. See M. Edwards.British India 1772-1947 (New Delhi: Rupa Press, 1967).

45 Robinson, for example, notes: “The authority of much scholarship from the past, has been rejected; the authority of the traditional interpreters, the ulama, has been marginalised. New claimants to authority have come forward with none of the finely-honed skills of traditional scholarship, indeed, for growing numbers of Muslims Islam has become a matter of individual conscience, individuals have come to interpret the faith for themselves. No one knows any longer, as the saying goes, ‘who speaks for Islam’. See his “Crisis of Authority: Crisis of Islam?” in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (2009), v. 19, 340.

46 Although we have not been able to access information about this text, reference to it is found in his biography.

47 Tijarat aur Islam. Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1933.

48 I have translated the word taqat as authority rather than as power. Though literally power will be more accurate, contextually it is more appropriate to use authority because it helps avoid the negative connotation of the word power.

49 Literally religion is to scholars what hand is to the neck, idiomatically inseparable.

50 Munazarah in the Indian Islamic context usually refers to Sunni-Shi’i public polemical debates. See for example Sultan al-Vaizin Shirazi, Muhammad. Shiah Islam in Sunni Traditions: A Translation of Peshawar Nights.tr . Hamid Quinlan ed. Charles Ali Campbell (Dallas: Texas Islamic Press, 1997).

51 Literally, “[they] have opened the door for it quite wide”.

52 Islam ki hakimanah zindagi (Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1935).

53 “Ma‘yar-i falahva nijat” in Zinda savalat (Aligarh: Aligarh University Press, 1974).

54 ‘Ali Naqvi’s response to these binaries, this life/hereafter and faith/works is extensively discussed in chapter 2 of the study.

55 The metaphor means attempts to change religion.

56 Mazhab aur ‘aql (Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1941).

57 Literally, “West-worshipping”.

58 Isbat-i pardah (Lahore: Imamia Mission, 1961).

59 H. A. R. Gibb, Whither Islam? A Survey of Modern Movements in the Moslem World (New York: AMS Press, 1973).

60 Vujud-i hujjat (Lucknow: Imamiya Mission and Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1932).

61 This is a clear reference to the founder of the Ahmadiyah movement in India.

62 It is crucial to note that ‘Ali Naqvi mentions more than one intellectual doubt that had led to a growing disbelief or wavering vis-à-vis Mahdism. Furthermore, not only does he call attention to ways in which some of these doubts were old and some new, but also indicate how each had arisen from a different intellectual context. This observation will be critical to our discussion in the ensuing chapter.

63 Nigarshat-i Sayyidul ‘ulama’ (Lahore: Imamia Mission, 1997). This text is a collection of his essays and does not provide the original date when they were written.

64 Aligarh was to become a town with a predominantly Muslim image (though not with a majority Muslim population) through the existence of a powerful Muslim landed gentry and the influence of elite qasbah culture. The background lent itself to Aligarh becoming the focus of political attention during the first half of the 20th century. Its transformation from a small, but important, military qasbah town notable as a fort and trading center, came with the growth of separatist politics and a rising spirit of nationalism. Events up to Independence in 1947 influenced the way in which opinions and attitudes were formed, and whichare Aligarh's uncomfortable legacy today. From 1870, an institution was founded and developed which was to have a profound effect on the region and on Muslim attitudes in north India. This was the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, now called Aligarh Muslim University (AMU)” See E. A. Mann, Boundaries and Identities: Muslims, Work and Status in Aligarh (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1992). Various studies have been carried out examining the role of Aligarh movement in reforming Muslim theology. See, for example, in this regard Christian W. Troll. Sayyid Ahmad Khan: A Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology (New Delhi: Vikas Publ. House, 1978).

65 In this context, in ‘Ali Naqvi’s writings I have only found two brief references of Muslim figures: Sayyid Ahmad Khan (Masa’ilva dala’il, 59) and famous revolutionary Shi’i poet Josh Malihabadi in his essay “Khuda ka sabut” (Nigarashat-i Sayyidul ‘ulama’, 1997). Intellectual leanings of the two figures and the context of discussion supports my claim that primarily the people ‘Ali Naqvi had in mind were from among the “new intellectual elite”.

66 Tahrif-i Qur’an ki haqiqat (Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1932).

67 Reciting fatihah refers to the Muslim ritual of reciting the first chapter of the Qur’an upon a person’s death.

68 La tufsidu, 206-7

69 Yet this is not to deny that the tone of his writings and speeches and his overall method of argumentation continued to be non-polemical, and from the point of view of Sunni intellectuals, respectful, engaging and accommodating.

70 For a discussion of some of these polemical tracts, please see Sayyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah 'Abd al- 'Aziz: Puritanism, Sectarian, Polemics and Jihad (Canberra: Marifat Publishing, 1982). For a discussion of the ongoing exchange between Sunni and Shi’i ‘ulama’ see the same author’s, A Socio-Intellectual History of the Ithna' 'Ashari Shi'ism in India, 2 vols. (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1986).

71 We recur one last time that although his primary audience has always remained the Shi‘ites of India, his ecumenical discourse always sought to speak to the broader Muslim community with which he would also engage intellectually in explicitly non-sectarian way. This point will be discussed at a greater length on appropriate occasions.

72 Ikram, Shaykh Muhammad. Mauj-i kausar (Lahore: Idarah Saqafat-i Islamiyah, 2000), 156.

73 Mazhab aur ‘aql (Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1941).

Chapter II: Hermeneutics of the Religio-Intellectual Project and the Relationship between Intellect and Revelation

1 Mazhab aur ‘aql (Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1941); the translation of ‘aql as ‘intellect’ instead of reason is to forestall lack of attention or comprehension due to the preconceived notions of what reason is or is not.‘Ali Naqvi’s exposition of the nature, role and limitations of ‘aql is quite intricate. Extensive discussion of this subject in this chapter will clarify this point.

2Ibid., 13-5.

3 How ‘Ali Naqvi enacts it in his writings will be discussed in detail in the next chapter.

4 The passage reads as follows:

These objections [leveled against the Qur’an] are themselves the result of the new age (naya daur) and that is why the ancients (qudama’) did not consider them. The new ideas that reach this land sailing from the shores of Europe seize the hearts and minds of many [here]. In their hearts these ideas insinuate a kind of doubt (shubhat) about every facet of religion (mazhab), the resolution of which, if not presented in accordance with their mindset (zahniyat) and temperament [i.e., of those seized by western ideas], would result in their becoming captive to the doubt, which would then turn into doctrine (‘aqidah) and [become the cause of] their turning away from religion. Especially in (the country of) India, the deluge of sectarianism and inventing [new] religion (mazhab tarashi) has reached such heights that may God protect us! (4-5, emphasis added).

See ‘Ali Naqvi, Muqaddamah-yi tafsir-i Qur’an (Lucknow: Idarah ‘Ilmiyah and Nizami Press, 1940), 31.

5 See Chapter 1, 49.

6 Naqvi, La tufsidu, 37-8.

7 Qur’an, 2:11-12.

8 Naqvi, La tufsidu, 38-39. The section contains an extensive historical analysis of how Imam Husayn was portrayed as mischief-maker in the Umayyad propaganda, a discussion which is irrelevant here.

9 ‘Ali Naqvi, La tufsidu fi al-‘arz, 3rd ed. (Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1998), 40. In passing I must note that the same argument was used by ‘Ali Naqvi to demonstrate the veracity of Husayn’s mission at Karbala: ‘Ali Naqvi contends that Husayn never lied to his followers and always made it clear to them that following him meant nothing less than martyrdom. This, for ‘Ali Naqvi, was a great lesson from Husayn’s exemplary behavior that Shi’i followers needed to pay heed to. Please see chapter 4 for details.

10 Naqvi, La tufsidu, 32.

11Ibid., 176-77.

12 Ibid.

13Ibid., 187-190.

14 Mazhab aur ‘aql (Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1941), 3.

15 Islam ki hakimanah zindagi (Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1935).

16 Ibid.

17 Naqvi, La tufsidu. The argument that Islam more than any other religion invites reflection runs throughout the text of Islam ki hakimanah zindagi, (Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1935), especially pp. 25- 60. ‘Ali Naqvi’sclaims about Islam’s emphasis on the intellect and critique of other traditions for their opposition to rational inquiry invites analysis regarding his understanding of the other religious traditions. This discussion, however, falls outside the scope of this chapter.

18 In theological-philosophical parlance the wordjins can be translated as genus but here ‘Ali Naqvi employs it in a general sense of the word.

19 Islam ki hakimanah zindagi, (Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1935), 9.

20Ibid., 7-8.

21Ibid., 11.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 Literally constitution (dastur).

25 Ibid.

26 It is worth noting here that ‘Ali Naqvi does not give the intellect a similar role in the human advancement in deeds. This dimension of human life will be discussed later in the chapter.

27Ibid., 25.

28Ibid., 27-29

29Ibid., 33.

30Ibid., 45. Literally, unless the intellect puts its step in between (jab tak ‘aql ka qadam darmayan mainna ho)

31 Mazhab aur ‘aql, (Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1941), 37.

33Ibid., 8.

34 I have discussed this extensively in Chapter 1 of this study.

35Ibid., 11.

36 Akin to other Abrahamic traditions, the relationship between reason and revelation has been much debated in the Islamic world in recent times. From the rational theology of Mutazilites versus the Ash‘arites, Ghazali’s Tahafut al-falasafah directed at the Muslim peripatetic philosophers as a scathing critique of their philosophical doctrines that were in conflict with the Qru’anic point of view, or the usuli- akhbari divide in the Shi’i world, it remained a major theme in the pre-modern period. The modern age brought this old rivalry between the camps of reason and revelation to new heights, making it a subject of intense debate within Islamic intellectual circles. See in this regard, for example, Clinton Bennett, “Islamic Epistemology,” chap. 5 in .Muslims and Modernity: An Introduction to the Issues and Debates, (New York: Continuum, 2005); “Of Concordance of Reason and Revelation” in Abd al-Karim Soroush, Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush, ed., trans., and intro. by Mahmoud Sadri and Ahmad Sadri (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 126ff; Muhammad Naguib Al-Attas, Islam, Secularism, and the Philosophy of the Future, Islamic Futures and Policy Studies (New York: Mansell Publications, 1985), 34, where the author carves a distinction between reason and intellect. For the Indian context one may mention Abul Kalam Azad’s short excerpt “Reason and Revelation” in Aziz Ahmad and Gustave E. von Grunebaum, Muslim Self-Statement in India and Pakistan 1857-1968 (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1970) and numerous essays in the already cited readers on modern Islam.

37 For the sake of brevity and avoiding unnecessary repetition I have refrained from citing these passages here.

38 Literally tied to one another like a body to a skirt (cholidaman ka sath)

39 Mazhab aur ‘aql, 11.

40Ibid., 12. The ensuing chapter will take up a more comprehensive discussion of ‘Ali Naqvi’s definition and exposition of the scope and function of religion (mazhab) in human life.

41Ibid., 15.

42 Reference to the Qur’anic account of the creation of Adam.

43 Mazhab aur ‘aql, 15. In this context ‘Ali Naqvi also defines the intellect, a definition which is reminiscent of what he had noted in Islam ki hakimanah zindagi: “Other than humans all other animals only have senses and within the limits of senses they are able to recognize good and evil, benefit and harm. But the power that is called the intellect is specific to a human being (15).”

44 Literally the word translates as “good” (acchi).

45Ibid., 7-8.

46Ibid., 16.

47 See especially his Prolegomenon to the Qur’an (discussed in Chapter5 ) , Mazhab aur ‘aql, Masa’il va dala’il, and La tufsidu.

48 Sakit literally means quiet and calm but in Urdu also used with the connotation of being motionless.

49 Mazhab aur ‘aql, 18.

50Ibid., 19.

51Ibid., 20.

52Ibid., 20.

53 Naqvi, Islam ka hakimanah zindagi, 35.

54Ibid., 36.

55Ibid., 39-40.

56 Here we are more concerned with ‘Ali Naqvi’s method of argumentation and epistemology than the actual working out of theological creed. In the ensuing chapter we will discuss the reconstruction of Islamic theology based on this hermeneutic.

57 Mazhab aur ‘aql, 20.

58 Naqvi, Mazhab aur ‘aql, 101-6. That this is ‘Ali Naqvi’s standard definition of religion is further confirmed from his later writings such as Usul va furu‘-i din (1973, introduction).

59 Naqvi, Islam ki hakimanah zindagi, 48. On another occasion ‘Ali Naqvi argues that although observations of particulars could never lead to a universal conclusion, in the contemporary period it is a common mistake to draw universal principles from particulars observed empirically (mushahidah-yi juz’iyat). See Mazhab aur ‘aql, 65. An example of application of this usul-furu‘ distinction and cooperation of ‘aql and revelation/religion/prophecy is noted towards the beginning of the same text. Hinting at the reasonability of the doctrine of an afterlife, he notes: “Nothing comes in existence and then perishes completely. In some form it lasts forever. [Therefore], there is some future for human beings as well upon which rests reward and punishment. This is the intellect’s judgment: even if events from the past are not in memory, how could one deny the news coming from those [who are] trustworthy, especially when you don’t remember anything and the intellect has [already] certified the truth of these [trustworthy] voices. Similarly regarding the future, some details intellect understands by itself, and for some it turns towards the faces of those who are able to tell. Whatever they say, [the intellect] submits to that because it does have a ruling which is in opposition to those [made by these trustworthy voices] (5).”

60 See for example Ibid. 20-31, Islam ki hakimanah zindagi, 48, and Usulva furu‘-i din (1973), 6.

61 Mazhab aur ‘aql, 3-4.

62 Naqvi, Islam ki hakimanah zindagi, 48. The reader should immediately notice the Mu‘tazilite-Imami theological positing of the objectivity of action and rejection of Divine command theory of ethics. Aware of this, all these matters, however, will be discussed in the concluding chapter of this project.

63Ibid., 49.

64Ibid., 50.

65 See p. 52-61. The issue and his arguments will be presented in the following chapter.

66 For examples of similar formulations in the modern Shi’i religious scholarship please see, Muhammad Husayn al-Tabatabai, Shi'ite Islam, Persian Studies Series, No. 5 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975); Ja¬far Subḥānī and Reza Shah-Kazemi, Doctrines of Shi¬i Islam: A Compendium of Imami Beliefs and Practices, (London: I.B. Tauris; London: Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2001).

67 On usuli Shi’ism, please see Abdulaziz Abdulhussein Sachedina, The Just Ruler (Al-Sultan Al-Adil) in Shi'ite Islam: The Comprehensive Authority of the Jurist in Imamite Jurisprudence, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), especially p.136ff, and Hamid Inayat, “Aspects of Shi‘i Modernism” in Modern Islamic Political Thought: The Response of the Shi'i and Sunni Muslims to the Twentieth Century. (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005).

68 Note, for example, a contemporary usuli definition of the faculty of the intellect: “Entrusted within a [human] soul, the intellect is intended for acquisition of knowledge and understanding. That is why it is a spiritual light, with which the soul grasps the speculative and theoretical sciences” (al-‘aqlu muda‘atun fial-nafsi mu'addatun li qubul al-'ilmi wal al-idraki wa lidha qila innahu nurun ruhani tudraku al-nafsu bihi al-‘uluma al-daruriyya wa al-nazariyyah). See Al-Shaykh 'Ali al-Mashkini.Istalahat al-usul, 5th ed. (Qom: Daftar-i Nashr al-Hadi, 1993), 170.

69 Given the context of discussion making comments about the significance of the chronology of his writings was almost unavoidable. A fuller appreciation of this claim would, however, only be possible towards the conclusion of this study, while discussing and evaluating his project in a comprehensive manner.

Chapter III: Mapping Religion onto Life: Religion as Sagacious Ordering of Life

1 One may recall how ‘Ali Naqvi makes a distinction between ‘true’ and ‘false’ religions or between true ‘ulama’ from their fake imitators.

2 Mazhab aur ‘aql, 12.

3 Ibid.

4 Islam ki hakimanah zindagi, (Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1935), 23.

5 Reference to a famous saying of ‘Ali, the first Shi’i Imam. See Nahj al-balaghah, (Qom: Dar ul- Intisharat, n.d.), 480-1.

6 To be read as “traditional Muslims”.

7 Tijarat aur Islam, 13-4. The distinction is perhaps between a Madrasa education and English-style school education that was introduced in the subcontinent during the second half of the twentieth century by movements such as Aligarh University.

8 In 1941 he would posit the problem in similar terms:

[Our] reform of the economy is such that we have abandoned all sources of income and wealth. Business, factories, crafts and labor, these are things essential for life. Based on false conjecture that they are shameful, we have forsaken them all. As a result, on the one hand we are reliant on foreign hands for our necessities, and on the other, all our wealth has become a gift to them. They kept getting richer, and we poorer, so much so that our [economically] powerful people and families are living hand to mouth and in need of bread, while their wealth has made thousands of common people [in these foreign lands] millionaires (emphasis added). See Hayat-i qaumi (Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1941), 14-5.

9 ‘Ali Naqvi uses the term “plan of action” (la’h-i ‘amal)

10 Islam ki hakimanah zindagi, 73-4.

11 “Ma‘yar-i falahva nijat” in Zindah savalat (Aligarh: Aligarh University Press, 1974), 27.

12 Ibid. In the final section of the chapter on his hermeneutics (Chapter 2) we observed how ‘Ali Naqvi’s method of argumentation invariably attempts at being attentive to the needs and disposition of his intended audience. In other words, on any given subject, the kind of arguments he imparts is a function of the audience he aims to reach out, and his overall assessment of their intellectual orientation. On rare occasions, an example of which is this quotation, he acknowledges this hermeneutical strategy himself. Another example in this regard is the following: while discussing the issue of veiling, ‘Ali Naqvi notes the following:

My opinion is that to the first type of people who have openly denounced religion, talking about the branches and particulars of religion is futile. If we were to debate with them at all, then it will be to explain the veracity of the principles of religion, [inviting them] to those intellectual aspects that pertain to religion’s benefits and deficiencies. See Isbat-i pardah (Lahore: Imamia Mission, 1961), 8.

In a nutshell, with those who do not believe in religious doctrines - though still insist on arguing against hijab - one need not argue about this matter, but first convince them of the basic religious doctrines. Only after that task is accomplished can one demonstrate how particular religious prescriptions such as veiling could be rational and beneficial.

13 Khuda ki ma‘rafat. (Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1938), 52-54.

14 “Haqiqat-i Islam” in Nigarshat-i sayyidul ‘ulama’ (Lahore: Imamia Mission, 1997), 55-6.

15 Tijarat aur Islam, 13.

16 Islam ki hakimanah zindagi, 53-4.

17 During the contemporary period, many Muslim thinkers have come to assert this unity of life and religion, often presenting Islam as a complete system, and constitution for Islamic societies. For example, see Sayyid Qutb, Social Justice in Islam, (New York: Islamic Book Services, 2000) in which he makes similar comments:

[T]he faith of Islam, which deals with the whole field of human life, does not treat the different aspects of that life randomly, nor yet does it split up the field into a number of unrelated parts. That is to say, Islam has one universal and integrated theory which covers the universe and life and humanity, a theory in which are integrated all the different questions; in this Islam sums up all its beliefs, laws and statutes, and its mode of worship and of work. The treatment of all these matters emanates from this one universal and comprehensive theory, so that each question is not dealt with on an individual basis, nor is every problem with its needs treated in isolation from all other problems (37).

18 Islam ki hakimanah zindagi, 75-7.

19Ibid., 77-8.

20Ibid., 78.

21 Mazhab aur ‘aql, 56.

22Ibid., 60-2.

23 I will extensively discuss this problem, its particular Shi’i manifestation and ‘Ali Naqvi’s response to it in the ensuing chapter (Chapter 4).

24 See pages 29-30.

25 See for example Naqvi, Nizam-i zindagi, 4 vols. (Lucknow: Imamia Mission; Lucknow: Al-Va‘iz Safdar Press, 1940); Naqvi, Mazhab aur ‘aql,101ff.; Usul aur arkan-i din, (Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1973); Naqvi, “Haqiqat-i Islam” in Nigarshat-i sayyidul ‘ulama’, (Lahore: Imamia Mission, 1997), 59ff.

26 “It is not piety, that you turn your faces to the East and to the West. True piety is this: to believe in God, and the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the Prophets, to give of one’s substance, however cherished, to kinsmen, and orphans, the needy, the traveler, beggars, and to ransom the slave, perform the prayer, and pay the alms. And they who fulfill their covenant when they have engaged in a covenant, and endure with fortitude misfortune, hardship and peril, these are they who are true in their faith, these are the truly godfearing”.

27 “Ma‘yar-i falahva nijat” in Zindah savalat, (n.p.: Aligarh University Press, 1974), 28.

28 Ibid. Although this text was written toward the later part of his life, the argument essentially is the same as that which he presented in his 1938 text, Khuda ki ma‘rafat in Nizam-i zindagi, vol 2, 81ff. Our preference of this text over the earlier one is simply due to the clarity and terseness of this version. This is ‘Ali Naqvi’s standard exposition on this matter. Interestingly, as this example shows, on many matters there appears to be a remarkable consistency in ‘Ali Naqvi’s arguments. This supports our contention so far that essential groundwork for his theological project was largely accomplished in the first two decades and the later decades are simply an elaboration or exposition of arguments which were worked out in the early years. In any case, one scarcely witnesses a noticeable shift in his theological positions and his articulation in the later years.

29 Taqvá is an important Qur’anic concept that has a range of meaning. For its centrality to the Qur’anic perspective, see Fazlur Rahman, Major Themes of the Qur'an, (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1980), especially 28-31 and 127- 128.

30 That the Arabic wordasl also means root is not coincidental to this analysis.

31 ‘Ali Naqvi, ‘Ibadat aur tariq-i ‘ibadat, 2nd ed. (Lucknow: Nizami Press, n.d.), 36.

32 ‘Ali Naqvi, Nizam-i zindagi, vol. 1 (Lucknow: Imamia Mission; Lucknow: Al-Va‘iz Safdar Press, 1940), 71.

33 Wael B. Hallaq, Shari'a: Theory, Practice, Transformations, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 225 ff.

34 Naqvi, Islam ki hakimanah zindagi, 93.

35 See for example Islam ki hakimanah zindagi or Nizam-i zindagi or Mazhab aur ‘aql, page 113, where in his page-long discussion of ritual prayer, he calls worship (‘ibadat) a consequence of a “sense of duty” (farz shanasi ka natijah).

36 Naqvi,‘Ibadat aur tariq-i ‘ibadat, 2nd ed. (Lucknow: Nizami Press, n.d.).

37 M. H. Kamali, “Law and Society: The Interplay of Revelation and Reason in the Shariah” inThe Oxford History of Islam, ed. John L. Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 110.

38 Naqvi,‘Ibadat aur tariq-i ‘ibadat, 39.

39 Nayaz mandi could also be translated as devotion.

40 Naqvi,‘Ibadat aur tariq-i ‘ibadat, 41.

41Ibid., 39-42.

42 ‘Ali Naqvi, “Haqiqat-i Islam” in Nigarshat-i sayyidul ‘ulama’, (Lahore: Imamia Mission, 1997), 56.

43 Ibid, 57.

44 Naqvi, Islam ki hakimanah zindagi, 93.

45 Naqvi, Hayat-i qaumi, (Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1941).

46 There is another sense in which ‘Ali Naqvi would extend his definition of religion in which religious guidance is not restricted to human beings alone, but part of a larger whole, of a broader plan for the created order. The ensuing section will discuss that as well.

47 Literally, “truly responsible for success”.

48 Naqvi, Islam ki hakimanah zindagi, 97.

49 See chapter 1, p.9ff.

50 See in this regard Khuda ki ma‘rafat (1938) and essays such as “Divine Essence and Attributes” (Zatva sifat), Manifestation of Divine Power (Asar-i qudrat), and Proof of God (Khuda ka sabut) in Nigarshat-i sayyidul ‘ulama’ (1997).

51 Naqvi, Mazhab aur ‘aql, 3-4.

52 Naqvi, Hayat-i qaumi.

53 Seepage 13ff.

54 With caution one may also render qaumi as ‘national’. As his other writings reveal, his sense of the term is far from nationalistic in the sense of nationalism, but sense of unity among people of the same region who share common religious roots.

55 Naqvi, Hayat-i qaumi, 3-5.

56 Ibid, 3-7. At this juncture ‘Ali Naqvi extends his argument to posit the necessity of a universal man (to be read as Shi’i Imam):

The created order (ka’aynat) has given us a lesson on the necessity of a “center” for life. What kind of center should it be? Remember, the center for the species for each thing is one that is the treasury (makhzan) of its attributes. The center for bodies is their attraction, for life of plants, their roots, which are the real treasure for their powers of growth. The center for life of the [human] body parts is the heart that pumps lifeblood to the body’s various parts. Human communal life should also have a center. So what could be this center? It is necessary that it is the high point from within the human genus, a treasury of human attributes, [similar to] the heart of a human, and fountainhead of human perfections.

It is the “universal man” (insan-i kamil) who could be the communal center for the human world, and all human community can benefit from the advantages of the collective life by being connected to it (7).

Noted in the passing here a comprehensive account of his political philosophy will be presented in chapter five.

57 ‘Ali Naqvi, Nizam-i zindagi, 3.

58 See chapter 2, p.13ff.

59 I have discussed this notion of “alliance” at length in chapter two.

60 Naqvi, Mazhab aur ‘aql, 79.

61Ibid., 62-3.

62 Note for example Khuda ki ma‘rafat (written before Order of Life) where similar discussions occur under section titles “Marfat-i Khuda ki zarurat” (The Need for Knowing God” and “Ma‘rafat-i Khuda ka ‘amali natijah” (Practical Consequences of Knowing God”.

63Reference , 4.

64 See Introduction of this chapter where we have noted one such claim.

65 See p.34ff.

66 “Alastu bi-rabbikum qalu balá” mentioned in the Qur’anic verse 7:172: “And when thy Lord took from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their seed, and made them testify concerning themselves, ´Am I not your Lord?´ They said, ´Yes, we testify´.” The verse refers to what Muslims see as the primordial covenant between human beings and God in the spiritual world before creation.

67 Naqvi, Nizam-i zindagi, 5.

68Ibid., 6.

69 Ibid, 19-22.

70 I have put man in parenthesis because ‘Ali Naqvi stated that many people tended to think that the hadith also mentions woman which he rejects. See his discussion of the issue on page 31, especially his discussion of women’s education from p.38ff.

71 Qur’an, 39:9.

72 Here ‘Ali Naqvi is employing Islamic legal categories obligatory, recommended, neutral, reprehensible, and forbidden. See Wael B. Hallaq, Shari'a: Theory, Practice, Transformations, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 84. For Shi’ite juridical tradition see Muhammad Baqir Sadr, “Shari‘i Rulings and Their Divisions” in Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence: According to Shi'i Law.tr . and ed. Hamid Algar and Saeed Bahmanpour, (London: ICAS Press, 2003), 54ff.

73 It is evident that ‘Ali Naqvi is employing here the legal distinction of the individual and communal legal obligations (fard al-‘ayn wa fard al-kafayah). For a discussion of these concepts in Islamic legal thought, see Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Shari'ah Law: An Introduction, (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2008), p.215.

74 ‘Ali Naqvi cites the following hadith in support of his argument regarding the status of neutral knowledge: This is the same thing as when the great Prophet [of Islam] was sitting in the mosque and saw that there was a huge crowd surrounding a person and asked: “Who is this person?” The people said; “He is a great scholar (‘allamah).” He asked, “What kind of great scholar is he?” The people said that he is knowledgeable about genealogies, history, and the wars of Arabs. The Prophet replied that this knowledge is such that it is neither beneficial nor harmful.

75 Naqvi, Nizam-i zindagi, 31-37.

76Ibid., 64.

77 Naqvi, Nizam-i zindagi, vol. 1, 65-70.

78Ibid., 71.

79 Naqvi, Nizam-i zindagi, vol. 2, 3.

80 That is, how is Islam according to ‘Ali Naqvi comprehensive?

81 Naqvi, La tufsidu.

82Reference , 52.

83 The question of Shari‘a’s ability to respond to the modern challenges has been an ongoing debate within the Islamic world. See Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Barbara Freyer Stowasser, Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity, (Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press and Lanham Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004); Wael B. Hallaq, “Modernizing the Law in the Age of Nation-States,” chap. 16 in Shari'a: Theory, Practice, Transformations, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Mohammad Hashim Kamali,“Adaptation and Reform,” chap. 12 in Shari'ah Law: An Introduction, (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2008); and John J. Donohue and John L. Esposito, “Modernization of Islamic Law” and “Reform of Islamic Law: The Changing Status of Women and the Family” in Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). For the debates on reforming the Shari‘a law in the Indian context, please see Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “Islamic Law and the ‘Ulama in Colonial India: A Legal Tradition in Transition,” chap. 1 in The 'Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); and Scott Alan Kugle, “Framed, Blamed and Renamed: the Recasting of Islamic Jurisprudence in Colonial South Asia,” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 35, no. 2 (2001), 257–313.

84 Qur’an 33:62.

85 Naqvi, La tufsidu, 52-3.

86 Naqvi, La tufsidu, 55-6.

87Ibid., 56-7.

88 Almost identical arguments are found in other texts during these years. See for example, Naqvi, Islam ki hakimanah zindagi, 80-1.

89 For the debates on reforming the Shari‘a law in the Indian context please see Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “Islamic Law and the ‘Ulama in Colonial India: A Legal Tradition in Transition,” chap. 1 in The 'Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), and Scott Alan Kugle, “Framed, Blamed and Renamed: the Recasting of Islamic Jurisprudence in Colonial South Asia”, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 35, no. 2 (2001),257–313.

CHAPTER IV: THE HUSAYNI-ISLAH PARADIGM: REVIVING ISLAM THROUGH KARBALA

1 La tufsidu, 115.

2 Please see “The Flagellations of Muharram and the Shi’ite Ulama’” in Der Islam, 55 (1978), 19-36.

Please also see footnote 7 of chapter 1 for details.

3 Qatilan-i Husayn ka mazhab, (Lucknow: Manshurah Imamia Mission; Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1932).

4 Reader may remember that La tufsidu was published in 1935 and was the 52nd publication in this series.

5 The reader may recall the content of this text from our discussion in Chapter 1. La tufsidu also provides another interesting example of how he often includes the theme of Karbala and martyrdom of Husayn in his writings and speech. It occurs in the context of a discussion on how a muslih is often accused by people of being a mischief-maker:

Earlier I had said that religion and state, even if separate from one another, could cause a [complete] destruction of the world. But if religion is subsumed by power there will be no limits to the fasadat. The greatest example of this is the sultanates of Umayyads; here religion and political power - the two things that can be great source of corruption in the world (fasad fi al- ‘arz) - were merged. What was the result of this? Could there be an illustration of corruption in the world greater than [what happened in] the event of Karbala? …Was there anyone more sincere reformer in the world than Husayn ibn ‘Ali? Absolutely not…Imam Husayn and his followers are blamed for corruption in the world. Husayn presents his defense by action and through this action the result is made clear [regarding whether he was a mischief-maker or true reformer] (86-88).

In ensuing pages ‘Ali Naqvi provides a long defense of Imam Husayn’s mission showing how every action of his was to avoid fasad and to rectify the religious crisis generated by the Umayyads. ‘Ali Naqvi showed how this phenomenon of accusing muslih to be mufsid - examples of which are ubiquitous in the lives of the prophets - is omnipresent in human history. He argues that like all major prophets, especially Moses, Abraham, and the Prophet of Islam who are ‘Ali Naqvi’s supreme examples from the Qur’an and history, enemies of Imam Husayn also initiated a campaign to confuse masses about the virtuous and upright ethical stance of Imam Husayn, and his refusal to endorse the power-obsessed Umayyad ruler’s rule. Like these prophets Imam Husayn through his careful measures ensured that this task is not accomplished, not because it would reflect poorly on him, but because that would destroy his efforts towards islah of the Muslim society, much needed in times when all sorts of confusions and worldliness had come to dominate Muslim religious consciousness.

6 For example Husayn aur Islam (1935) was immediately translated into Hindi and English. This work was followed by Husayn ka atam balaydan (1936) and The Martyrdom of Husayn in the same year. In discussing ‘Ali Naqvi’s popularization of his message, in the conclusion of this study I will speculate on the reasons for this.

7 Yitzhak Nakash, “The Muharram Rituals and the Cult of the Saints among Iraqi Shiites” in The Other Shiites: From the Mediterranean to Central Asia, ed. Alessandro Monsutti, Silvia Naef, and Farian Sabahi, (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), p.115. David Cook goes as far as asserting the decisiveness of this event vis-à-vis establishing the Shi’i identity in history:

Al-Husayn is presented as the paradigmatic heroic figure,who cares for his fallen children, tries to obtain water for the non-combatant women and young ones, and fights nobly until the end. When he dies, he said to have received at least thirty-three wounds and killed a number of the enemy. His body is treated ignobly; he was trampled under the hooves of the horsemen, and his head was cut off and presented to 'Ubaydullah b. Ziyad, the Umayyad governor, and eventually to the caliph Yazid in Damascus... Those who fought against al-Husayn are doomed to perdition; the face of one is said to have turned black as a punishment for killing al-'Abbas, a son [sic] of al- Husayn. The event of Karbala was a defining moment for Islam: it is difficult to be neutral about it. Those who fought for al-Husayn are among the saved, while those who fought against him are irredeemably damned.

The trauma of the martyrdom of al-Husayn for Muslims of the time and since can hardly be overestimated….But there are several reasons the martyrdom of al-Husayn was the more powerful of the two stories, capturing the imagination of the Muslim world and provoking sufficient guilt among the Shi’ites as to initiate their sectarianization….[T]he sources present the manner of al-Husayn's death, together with most of his wives, children and close relatives, in a way designed to arouse deep emotion and guilt on the part of the reader. In some of the sources, al-Husayn's death is connected to that of other prophets, most notably John the Baptist…This exaggerated focus upon the death of Hussein has been the characteristic of all Shiites since the period immediately following his martyrdom, and most especially since the ninth century when the mourning for him became institutionalized. Although there are a number of doctrinal differences between Sunnism and Shi'ism, for Sunnis this focus upon al-Husayn is disturbingly reminiscent of the Christian focus upon Jesus and his redemptive sacrifice….For this reason, the mourning of al-Husayn is one of those elements which serve to drive the two groups apart. There are other social ramifications to the martyrdom of al-Husayn for Shi’ism. Unlike the attitude toward martyrdom in Sunnism, where the martyr is seen as victorious personality, whose death is greeted by joy rather than sorrow…in Shi’ism the dominant attitude towards martyrdom is grief….Concentration upon the divisive history of martyrdom that dominates Shi’ite history perpetuates ancient grievances between Sunnis and Shi’ites, and ensures that the rift in the Muslim community will not be easily healed (if ever). It also serves to focus the Shi’ite community upon its Sunni opponents more than any other target (emphases added). See David Cook, Martyrdom in Islam, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 56-9.

8 Heinz Halm, Shi'aIslam : From Religion to Revolution, (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997). See also, Kamran Scot Aghaie, The Martyrs of Karbala: Shi'i Symbols and Rituals in Modern Iran, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004);_____ , The Women of Karbala: Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses in Modern Shi'i Islam, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005); Mahmoud Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of 'Ashura in Twelver Shi'ism, (The Hague: Mouton, 1978); and Peter J. Chelkowski, Eternal Performance: Taziyeh and Other Shiite Rituals, (London ; New York: Seagull, 2010);_____ , Taziyeh, Ritual and Drama in Iran, (New York: New York University Press, 1979).

9 “For the majority of Shi‘i Muslims, Karbala is the cornerstone of institutionalized devotions and mourning, since it is the substantive component of their historical memory, theological understanding, and religious identity… Karbala bestows on Shiism a sense of legitimacy; it provides the language of martyrdom and suffering, while bolstering the argument that the succession of the Prophet should have remained within his family… The martyrs of Karbala in their surviving family members have remained archetypical heroes for Muslims, as well as non-Muslims socio-religious reformers of the 20th century, who sought to transform their communities in a positive manner.” Said Hyder Akbar, Reliving Karbala: Martyrdom in South Asian Memory, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 9-11.

10 See, for example, David Pinault, Horse ofKarbala : Muslim Devotional Life in India, (New York: Palgrave, 2001); _____ The Shiites: Ritual and Popular Piety in a Muslim Community, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992); S. A. A. Rizvi. A Socio-Intellectual History of the Ithna' 'Ashari Shi'ism in India, (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers; New Delhi: Marifat Pub. House, 1986) and Vernon James Schubel, Religious Performance in Contemporary Islam: Shi'i Devotional Rituals in South Asia, (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993).

11 A huge controversy surrounded the publication of the first edition of this work. Later in the chapter I will have an occasion to note the details in this regard.

12 Naqvi, Shahid-i insaniyat, 26.

13 Ibid, 27.

14 Ibid, 28.

15 Ibid, 536-9.

16 Ibid, 539.

17 An interesting short treatise in this regard is Husayn ki yad ka azadhindustan say mutalbah [“What does Husayn-Commemoration Demand from Free India?](Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1950). He critiques the post-Christian western obsession with materialist power which is a consequence of the underlying materialistic worldview (maddah parasti) that has come to dominate western thought and culture. In his view this materialistic worldview had led western writers to study Islam’s political history from the point of view of only those who appear to be “the conqueror-winners”, regardless of the ethicalspiritual criterion of judgment on these conquests. That is why, says ‘Ali Naqvi, the Karbala-episode has altogether been ignored by such writers and thinkers. He contrasts this view with Eastern or Indian spirituality which sees warfare from a spiritual point of view and therefore has always appreciated the endeavor of Husayn as witnessed in the writings and sayings of major Indian leaders and intellectuals such as Gandhi and Nehru, among others. In conclusion ‘Ali Naqvi notes that:

This proclamation needs to be brought to clear limelight in ‘secular’ (ghayr mazhabi) India that this sacrifice [of Husayn] is guidance for every sect and regional community (qaum), even when being ‘secular’ the people of India cannot step out of their [particular] sect and regional community. That is why the commemoration of the sacrifice of Husayn b. ‘Ali can make claims on free India akin to those made by every sect and regional community (10).

18 ‘Ali Naqvi, Husayn ka paygham ‘alam-i insaniyat kay nam [Husayn’s Message to Global Humanity] (Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1959).

19 Husayn Husayn (?) is another text which introduces Husayn’s life and mission at Karbala in a similar and summary manner.

20 ‘Ali Naqvi, Usvah-yi Husayni, (Lucknow: Imamiyah Mission, 1986), 129. Milli can also be rendered national though it is unclear from the context and other writings of ‘Ali Naqvi if he meant national in the proper sense of the term, thus the word “communal” here.

21 ‘Ali Naqvi, Zikr-i Husayn [Remembrance of Husayn] (Lucknow: Imamia Mission,n.p .), 3.

22 Naqvi,Ta‘ziahdari ki mukhalfat ka asal raz [The True Secret of Opposing Mourning], (Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1963), 3-4. The treatise cites examples of the various texts that have put forth these objections to mourning (see p. 7-10). For a scholarly discussion of this criticism in the Indian sectarian milieu please see David Pinault “Shia Lamentation Rituals and Reinterpretations of the Doctrine of Intercession: Two Cases from Modern India” History of Religions, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Feb., 1999), pp. 285- 305. Also see Zindah-i javid ka matam (1935) which was written to refute the claim that since Husayn is a martyr and martyrs are always alive, why mourn the death of someone when he is alive.

23 Naqvi, Zikr-i Husayn, 4-5.

24 For an account of polemical debates within the Indian Islamic religious milieu see Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah 'Abd Al-'Aziz: Puritanism, Sectarian, Polemics and Jihad, (Canberra: Ma'rifat Publishing, 1982). Also, this is not to say that the Shi‘i scholarly circles were devoid of controversial debates and polemics. Ende’s essay mentioned in footnote 1 is a case in point. One can also mention other controversial debates initiated by the writings of Muhammad b. Muhammad al-Khalisi, Musa al-Musawi, Jawad Mughniyya. For these debates see Rainer Brunner, “A Shi‘ite Cleric’s Criticism of Shiism: Musa al-Musawi” and “The Politics of Shahid-e-Jawid” in The Twelver Shia in Modern Times: Religious Culture & Political Culture, ed. Rainer Brunner and Werner Ende, (Leiden: Brill, 2001).

25 Naqvi, Usvah-yi Husayni, `12.

26 Naqvi, Qatil al-‘abrah, (Lucknow: Imamia Mission; Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1960).

27 Naqvi, Ashk-i matam, (Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1957) is another example in this regard where ‘Ali Naqvi provides a combination of intellectual (i.e., mourning is in the nature of things) and Qur’an- Sunnah (including the Sunnah of the revered Companions of the Prophet) based proofs.

28 In a 15-page short treatise he discusses various historical reports on the meeting between Marwan and Walid. Similarly, in La tufsidu while discussing Husayn’s mission as muslih ‘Ali Naqvi notes: “I will present to you proofs (shahid) in which Imam Husayn has rebutted this misunderstanding and shown how outcomes have supported Husayn…I have only this book in my hand, called Tarikh-i Tabari. On such an occasion I do not use any work other than this. That is why I will present proofs only from this [work], ones that are relevant to my subject. (87-88).” This special status accorded to Tabari’s history by ‘Ali Naqvi is due to its authoritativeness for all Muslim sects.

29‘Ali Naqvi, Sir-i Ibrahim vaIsma‘il : y‘ani ma‘ná zibhay ‘azim, (Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1969), 15-6.

30 See for example, Naqvi, Mazlum-i Karbala (Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1941) and Husayn Husayn aik ta‘rruf (1964).

31 Among the various communal justifications noted by Pinault, only one comes close to understanding the issue in ‘Ali Naqvi’s terms: “Imam Hussain's objective was to reform the conditions of society and reestablish the forsaken laws of Islam. So we cannot claim to be a true azadar [mourner] if we neglect our obligatory duties such as Namaz [canonical prayer], fasting, kindness to others, etc. and indulge in forbidden acts such as listening to music, watching obscene films, etc. (107).” This justification occurs in a text The Importance of Weeping and Wailing authored by Syed Mohammed Ameed. It is unclear if the author was influenced by the writings of Naqvi or not.

32 Pinault’s (1992) description of the Shi‘i mythology sums up the issue well:

What resulted in Shiite thought was the belief that these events had been divinely predetermined ….From the beginning of time God had known humankind's future sins; because He is Merciful and Compassionate....He permitted the suffering of immaculate and guiltless victims, who by their acceptance of these trials would gain merit with God and hence the power to intercede on behalf of sinful humanity. To gain access to this intercession, sinners must acknowledge the deprivations and injustice endured by ahl-e-bayt; anyone who withholds this acknowledgment is in effect denying the full reality of the sacrifice made by the Ma'sumin [pure ones]. Therefore in every age God tests men and women by challenging them to honor the Prophet's family as fully as possible and to lament the tragedy of Karbala...Shiites with whom I discussed the significance of Karbala emphasized Husain's knowledge of the siege and the death he would undergo. His defeat in battle was not the result of a fluke or some lapse on his part as a military leader; had he wanted, he could have avoided entrapment outside Kufa. The point of this assertion is that Husain's sacrifice was voluntary; and it is the willed nature of his loss that made his death meritorious and salvific for others (55-56).

Although this description could not be read as standard and other accounts of what Shi’ism is and how Shi’ites view the Imams could be listed, say for example, from usuli Shi’ism which, without denying the Imam’s intercession, emphasize more his role as a guide and exemplar. The result of his anthropological findings, in deeming popular conceptions as standard, is that Pinault’s analysis is less accommodative to these alternative viewpoints. Nevertheless, the work provides a rich description for us to comprehend the nature of misconceptions ‘Ali Naqvi deemed problematic and intended to reform.

33 Naqvi, ‘Aza-yi Husayn par tarikhi tabsarah, (Lucknow: Manshurah Imamia Mission; Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, np). The exact date of its publication could not be determined.

34 Naqvi, ‘Aza-yi Husayn, 1-9.

35Ibid., 10.

36 Chapter 2 extensively discussed how perfection of human intellect and deeds is the foremost agenda for a human life.

37 Reference to the Qur’anic verse 33:21.

38 Naqvi, Usvah-yi Husayni, 7-8.

39Ibid., 7-8.

40 Reference to kawthar from the Qur’anic chapter by the same title.

41 These are various titles attributed to the Prophet and his household.

42Ibid., 9-11.

43Ibid., 12.

44 The word usvah could also be rendered as [Husayn’s] model or example. Since ‘Ali Naqvi attempts to magnify the centrality of Husayn’s mission - evidenced by his constant use of parenthetical marks throughout the text and the title of the text itself - I have rendered the word usvah grander than usual. Throughout the chapter I have used the phrase Husayni-paradigm to keep something of the intended force of the expression.

45 Naqvi, Usvah-yi Husayni, 13. Although ‘Ali Naqvi’s writings on Karbala and Husayn far exceed in size and number his writings on other Imams, occasionally he did write on other Shi’i leaders. Examples in this case are Abu al-a’aymah ki ta‘limat [Teachings of the First Shi’i Imam] 1938), Rahnumayan-i Islam [The Guides/Teachers of Islam], (1961), introduction to Nahj al-balaghah (1940), Hazrat ‘Ali ki shakhsiyat: ‘Ilm aur a‘taqad ki manzil par [The Personality of Revered ‘Ali on the Stations of Knowledge and Belief], (1969), and in the context of teaching the Shi’i doctrine of Imamate, introduction to each Imam and his life are given separately. It is also worth mentioning that for ‘Ali Naqvi, Imam Husayn’s life and martyrdom is not an isolated event but a continuation of the fundamental teachings of Islam embodied by all the Infallible. That is why earlier sections of Usvah-yi Husayni discuss the lives of the Prophet, and the first and the second Shi’i Imams whose teachings, according ‘Ali Naqvi, are only carried further by Husayn.

46 Naqvi, Usvah-yi- Husayni, 13.

47 Refers to the famous Urdu literary movement of the twentieth century

48 Syed Akbar Hyder, Reliving Karbala: Martyrdom in South Asian Memory, (PLACE: Oxford University Press, 2006), 11-12. Writing about the ubiquitousness of Karbala as literary motif in the twentieth century, in conclusion Hyder notes:

The presence of the Karbala text invokes two important themes pertinent to socioreligious reform and the progressive discourses. First, by participating in the discursive practices of various resistive agendas, it provides an emotionally charged metaphor through which ideal reformist conduct is shaped and defined. Second, the very memory of Karbala becomes a subversive force. The continuous use of the image Karbala keeps up an unyielding resistance to the status quo. Karbala becomes an important model that demonstrates how those in the minority can redress the asymmetry of power. Whether the ideological spine of the larger resistive projects is provided by Marxism (Josh, Jafri) or refashioned mysticism (Manto), by nationalism (Premchand), or by solidarity forged with the Palestinians (Jalib, Jafri), these projects are subsumed discursively in the Karbala symbol. The symbol of Karbala is universalized to provide a paradigm for all the oppressed peoples of the world (200-1).

49 Naqvi, Usvah-yi Husayni, 13.

50Ibid., 142.

51 A similar argument is made in Shahid-i insaniyat, 584:

The reason religious leaders have insisted on mourning and crying and have told of its great rewards in the afterlife is precisely that we will try more and more to listen to and memorize the various incidents in view of these rewards. As a result it will have an impact on our actions. If through [mourning this] calamity the event was not given this importance, then like every other incident of history this event would have as well been limited to history books; that every child of ours knows this event would not have been possible. And if we were not even familiar with it, how could we have gained any lesson from it?

Interestingly, words in italics are identical with those in the main body of the text.

52Ibid., 67-8.

53 The words read as follows:

I want to narrate this event in words that although would cause grief but that the impact of this grief do not make us neglect the [deeper] meaning and conclusions. Whatever I am saying please pay heed. I want to narrate in words that are appropriate to the calamity [that occurred]. If there is no grief [caused by my words] then it is an insult to the calamity. But if I try to bring about grief then my purpose [of presenting the meaning and symbolism] will be lost. In this situation I am faced with difficulty. I should relate memory of events (tazkirah) that would turn this sermon into a religious gathering (majlis) because the relating should be such that it should leave a strong impression. But if you are so affected by emotion that you are drowned in grief then there will be no occasion to ponder over the conclusions that I want to derive. That is why I want to use words which would give this narrative of grief an intellectual bent/mold (118).

54 Naqvi, Husayn ka paygham, 24.

55 For example see Mujahidah-yikarbala (1933), Husayn aur Islam (1932), Ma‘rakah-yi karbala (1935), Maharabah-yi karbala (1936), Bani umayyah ki ‘adavat-i Islam ki mukhtasir tarikh (1963) and Khilafat-i Yazid kay muta‘alliq azad ara’in (1953).

56 ‘Ali Naqvi’s appropriation of the Karbala symbolism is an illustration of what Hodgson termed as the strand of Kerygmatic orientation within Muslim personal piety. According to Hodgson, the kerygmatic mode of piety “…ultimately is sought in irrevocable datable events, in history with its positive moral commitments. In response to a revelatory moment, the environment, particularly historical society as it is and is about to be, may be seen as radically other than what it appears, and the individual is challenged to find fresh ways to respond to its reality.” (363)Specifically applied to Shi‘ism, Hodgson noted: “Other forms of esotericism were available, in Islam, that proved compatible with the Jama‘i-Sunni position; notably an esoteric approach to the inward personal experience of mysticism, into which a disciple could be initiated only by an experienced master. What was distinctive in esoteric Shiism was that it presented a privileged vision of history.It was a kerygmatic esotericism” (373). See Marshall G. S. Hodgson,The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974).

That within Twelver Shi’i piety the paradigm of Karbala provided the essential contours of this vision of history is well documented in scholarship, and obvious from ‘Ali Naqvi’s reflections on it.

57 Naqvi, Usvah-yi Husayni, 131.

58Ibid., 15-18.

59 The term qaum though translated here as national is intended as religious community and should not be understood in the political sense. Almost without exception ‘Ali Naqvi uses it to identify a particular communal or religious group, in this case the Shi’i Muslims of India.

60 Naqvi, Usvah-yi Husayni, 115-6.

61Ibid., 117.

62Ibid., 130.

63Ibid., 131.

64 He writes: “To be generous towards friends is part of the natural temperament of a human being and is no extraordinary feat. To be kind towards those who are willing to fight against you, to help those who thirst your blood is not for every human being.”

65Ibid., 131-7.

66Ibid., 138.

67 Naqvi, Husayn ka paygham, 4.

68Ibid., 15.

69Ibid., 24. In Husayn Husayn, ‘Ali Naqvi makes similar observations:

The figure of Husayn does not belong to any limited community or religion but to the world of humanity….Who was this person who without hesitating for a second presents sacrifices with so much planning and ease in support of principles and preservation of the truth? On this basis all humanity is called upon to display sympathy by participating in the 1300th anniversary of Husayn’s commemoration and strengthen the objective for which he gave this unique sacrifice (40).

70 Closing the book, ‘Ali Naqvi reiterates how the true purpose of mourning is neither to seek intercession or to wail Husayn’s death but to apply his teachings to one’ life.

71 See Nigarshat-i Sayyidul ‘ulama’ (Lahore: Imamia Mission, 1997).

72 I am drawing on Hodgson (1974) for this definition of religion: “In a person's life, we can call "religious” in the most restricted sense (in the sense of ‘spiritual’), his ultimate cosmic orientation and commitments and the ways in which he pays attention to them, privately or with others. Properly, we use the term "religious” for an ultimate orientation (rather than "philosophical "or “ideological”), so far as the orientation is personally committing and is meaningful in terms of cosmos, without further precision of what this may come to.” Hodgson,The Venture of Islam, vol. 1, 88.

73 See p.418 of the unedited version published in 1942. I am indebted to Dr. Sachedina for highlighting the significance of this incident and providing me his copy of this unedited text.

74 According to the biography of ‘Ali Naqvi, Sayyidul ‘Ulama’: Life and Accomplishments (Sayyidul ‘ulama’: hayat aur karnamay, 73ff) and a recent essay “Life of Sayyidul ‘ulama’” published in Khandan-i ijtihad (Nov, 2010), the defamation of ‘Ali Naqvi was a result of sustained propaganda to curb the growing influence of ‘Ali Naqvi upon the Shi‘ites of North India which had increasingly undermined the authority of the preachers. It must be mentioned that the authors’ view is colored by their extreme reverence for ‘Ali Naqvi. I have not been able to verify all the details of the controversy and have mostly relied on the articles listed above. In this regard, one can also mention Hyder (2006) who made the following observations regarding this controversy:

‘Ali Naqvi wrote [this book] …about the need to universalize Husain’s struggle in order to benefit all of humanity, as well as to unite Muslims in reverence and devotion towards Husain. Subsequently, he was severely reprimanded by members of his own community from glossing over the “crimes” of the first three caliphs in order to appease the Sunnis. Naqvi’s critics asserted that any oversight in such matters amount to endorsing the misdeeds of the enemies of the Prophet’s family. One such critic reminds Naqvi that "Husain was murdered at the gathering in which Abu Bakr was elected” (80).

75 It is worth noting that the later edition kept the incident about availability of water. This time, however, he mentions it as one report among many (p. 300 of the revised edition published in 2006). It is also worth noting that the unedited text did not have footnotes while the revised edition extensively cites the various historical sources.

76 Calling Husayn “protector of Shari‘a” deserves some explanation. The text Muslim Personal Lawna qabil-i tabdil contains a really interesting observation by ‘Ali Naqvi. Here he remarked that people always ask what difference did the sacrifice of Husayn make to the Islamicworld? What was different in the aftermath of Karbala? Is it not that corrupt rulers continued to rule and that most cruel and ruthless rulers followed Yazid? ‘Ali Naqvi forcefully argues that until Yazid, every Islamic ruler’s Sunnah was incorporated into Shari‘a. He notes various examples in this regard. What changed with Husayn’s martyrdom was that after his sacrifice never again the Sunna of a political leader became part of Islamic Shari‘a.

77 Reference to the quotation cited on page 1 of this chapter.

78 Literally, “raise its head in the face of your favor/beneficence”.

79 Naqvi, Bani Umayyah ki ‘adavat-i Islam ki tarikh (?), 16.

CHAPTER V: THE LATER WRITINGS AND ‘ALI NAQVI’S ISLAH OF THE SOCIETY

1 I have also discussed this briefly in chapter 3.

2 In passing, one may also mention that the full title of the latter essay is “God and Religion: Logical Analysis of Lord [Bertrand] Russell’s Questions”. This essay was written as a response to the list of points made by Russell in his well-known workWhy I am not a Christian and other Essays on religion and Related Subjects (1959). A former colleague and friend of ‘Ali Naqvi from Pakistan had summarized from this text Russell’s various objections against religion, translated those into Urdu and mailed those in a letter to ‘Ali Naqvi for his feedback. This essay is ‘Ali Naqvi’s reply to these objections.

3 See Chapter 3.

4 I have only been able to access the second edition of this text (Imamia publication number 704). In view of this, a conclusive claim as to whether the text belongs to the earlier phase of ‘Ali Naqvi’s intellectual career cannot be made. Nevertheless, the consistency of the claims made here with his other writings - whether from the earlier or later phase - permits my observations here and in chapter 3.

5 Naqvi, Ibadat aur tariq-i ‘ibadat [Worship and Manner of Worship], 11-20.

6 I have borrowed this term from Khalidi. See Tarif Khalidi, Images of Muhammad: Narratives of the Prophet in Islam across the Centuries, (New York: Doubleday, 2009), p. 247. Khalidi’s discussion of modern Sira-writing confirms my discussion of the deep sense of crisis within the Islamic world during the modern period. Later chapters examine how the various sociopolitical and religious challenges have shaped the way the biography of the Prophet was written in the modern period. Note, for example, the following passages from the chapter “The Hero: Muhammad in Modern Biography”

In many ways Shawqi’s poem prefigures the specter that haunts modern Sira. How do we best defend our beloved prophet from an all out Western assault on both his religion and his personal character? On the other hand, how can we retell his life in a manner that accords with the “spirit of modernity”? (247)

Or later in the concluding section of the chapter:

When one scans this cluster of Egyptian biographies of the 1930s, one's first impression might be that they are characterized by strident rhetoric, arguments passionate in the polemic, a view of the past that puts into the shade all human history before Mohammed, a style that is overly lyrical and lavish with comparatives and superlatives. It may well be that in the period in which many of the authors could not openly attacked the Imperial power or its native surrogates, attacking the “Orientalists” and the “missionaries” was an indirect form of religious or national protest. In such an age, Mohammed symbolic importance as leader, hero, genius, and unifier gains new urgency. The burning political issues of the day, such as the struggle for independence, the morality of politics, religion, and science, and the status of women lie just below the surface of the biographies, and Muhammad’s example is the ever living and manifest guide. (280)

As Khalidi himself shows - and discussed later in this chapter - the Indian milieu was hardly any different. In the South Asian context as well there has been a surge in the Sira literature during this period and remains to be studied.

7 For example, “Woman and Islam” (‘Aurat aur Islam) in Shu‘a‘-i ‘amal, (May 2009), p.6-13. The role and status of women in Muslim societies has been widely debated in the contemporary period. There is a plethora of literature on this subject. See for example, “Women in Contemporary Islamic Thought” in The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought, Ed. Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi (Malden: Blackwell Pub., 2006); John L. Esposito, Women in Muslim Family Law, (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1982); Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, John L. Esposito Islam, Gender, & Social Change, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); Fatima Mernissi and Mary Jo Lakeland, Women and Islam: An Historical and Theological Enquiry, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991); Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999); Ruth Roded, Women in Islam and the Middle East: A Reader, (New York: I.B. Tauris & Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Therese Saliba, Carolyn Allen, and Judith A. Howard, Gender, Politics, and Islam, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Meena Sharify-Funk, Encountering the Transnational: Women, Islam and the Politics of Interpretation, (Burlington: Ashgate, 2008); Ahmed E. Souaiaia, Contesting Justice: Women, Islam, Law, and Society, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008); and Barbara Freyer Stowasser, Women in the Qur'an, Traditions, and Interpretation, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).For the South Asian context Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi and Barbara Daly Metcalf. Perfecting Women: Maulana Ashraf 'Ali Thanwi's Bihishti Zewar: A Partial Translation with Commentary. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

8 Isbat-i pardah (Lahore: Imamia Mission, 1961).

9 “Qanun-i shari‘at-i islami main tabdili kay muta‘alliq hamarah nazriyah” in Zindah savalat [Contemporary Questions], (Aligarh: Aligarh University Press, 1971). In this regard mention must also be made of his Muharram lectures delivered at Husayniyah in 1973 where he spoke on the subject for the full ten days. These lectures were published later under the title Muslim personal lawna qabil-i tabdil, (Lucknow: Imamia Mission, 1996). Combined, these writings and lectures show that in the early 1970s, ‘Ali Naqvi was quite concerned and had given sustained attention to the question of “change” in the Islamic personal law. I have already mentioned relevant studies regarding debates surrounding Shari’a law in contemporary times and in the Indian milieu. An aspect of that debate revolved around Muslim personal law. In this regard, see Asiya Alam “Polygyny, Family and Sharafat: Discourses amongst North Indian Muslims, circa 1870–1918” in Modern Asian Studies, FirstView (2010): 1-38; Eleanor Newbigin “Personal Law and Citizenship in India’s Transition to Independence” in Modern Asian Studies 45, no. 1 (2011): 7–32; M. Reza Pirbhai, “Codification and a ‘New’ Sober Path” in. Reconsidering Islam in a South Asian Context, (Leiden: Brill, 2009), especially 123ff. It is significant to note that around the same time when ‘Ali Naqvi was thinking and writing a defense of Muslim personal law, i.e., the early 1970s, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board was established by the initiative of the Deobandi ‘ulama’ whose function was to protect Muslim personal law in the Indian public sphere. The Shi’i counterpart of this came much later, in 2005, under the title All Indian Shi‘a Personal Law Board. Furthermore, the famous controversial case of Shah Bano in early 1980s only reinforced the debate surrounding Muslim personal law (See Zaman (2004, p.167 –170). Recent studies suggest that the debate continues into the present century; see Justin Jones, "Signs of Churning: Muslim Personal Law and Public Contestation in Twenty- First Century India." Modern Asian Studies 44, no. Special Issue 01 (2010): 175-200.

10 In this regard the following works can be cited: Yazid aur jang-i qustantaniyah [“Yazid and the Battle of Constantinople”] (1965), Khilafat-i yazid kay muta‘aliq azad ara’in [“Free Opinions about the Caliphate of Yazid”] (1964); Taqiyah [“Pious Dissimulation”] (1952); and two lectures delivered in 1973 on Mas’alah-yi hayat an-nabi aur vaqi‘ah-yi vafat-i rusul, [“The Issue of whether the Prophet is Alive” and the “Incident of Prophet’s Death”] (1973).

11 The reader may recall from chapter 1 that the latter work was ‘Ali Naqvi’s response to an Ahmadi interlocutor who had objected that the doctrine of Imamate is not grounded in the Qur’an, and is therefore, superfluous and erroneous.

12 Seechapter 2.

13 My discussion of the significance of ‘Ali Naqvi’s Qur’anic commentary is mostly to put forth an account regarding how it ties with his other writings. From the points of view of its interesting content and the underlying method, Fasl al-khatab deserves closer examination, one that is beyond the scope of this chapter, or this study.

14 Or in a more literal translation, The Discourse that Distinguishes [Truth from Falsehood].

15 From his introduction to the 1940 edition.

16 In this regard, in 1932 he had already written a detailed defense in his The Truth about Alteration of the Qur’an (Tahrif-i Qur’an ki haqiqat).

17 This simplicity of style and emphasis on the message is shared by most modern Qur’anic commentaries, especially those that were authored by the Muslims scholars who do not belong to the ‘ulama’ scholarly tradition. For modern trends in the Qur’anic exegesis, see Erik Ohlander, "Modern Qur’anic Hermeneutics," Religion Compass 3, no. 4 (2009): 620-36; and Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur’an, ed. Suha Taji-Farouki ( New York: Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies London, 2004).

18 The word here is vadi‘at, which literally means depositing or entrusting.

19 Naqvi, Fasl al-khatab,vol . 1, 547.

20 I will return to the importance of this statement in the conclusion of this study.

21 Akin to my discussion of ‘Ali Naqvi’s Qur’anic commentary, I have restricted my analysis of this work to an explanation of how his study of history relates back to his broader project of rethinking, reconfiguring and teaching Islam to his Muslim audience, and to his earlier writings.

22 Qur’an, 3:19. Arberry translates the verse as “the true religion with God is Islam”. Since the word true is not within the text I have modified the translation here.

23 Qur’an, 22:78.

24 Naqvi, Tarikh-i Islam, 7.

25 The word “history” as employed in common parlance and in academic discourse today, that is, critical analysis of what happened at a given moment in historical time.

26 In this regard, ‘Ali Naqvi provides an interesting case-study for Sachiko Murata and William Chittick’s contrast between Islamic and Western philosophy of history. See Sachiko Murata and William C.Chittick, “Islam in History” inThe Vision of Islam, (New York: I. B. Tauris), 1996.

27 Since both strands (History of Islam and writings on the theme of Karbala) originate from the same theological vision, hermeneutical semblances aside, History of Islam provides important keys to understand ‘Ali Naqvi’s writings on the theme of Karbala. Whereas the particular Shi’i theological backdrop was often invoked in his discussion of the various aspects of the theme of Karbala, it largely remainedscattered, and hardly ever presented systematically. History of Islam fills in this lacuna, expressing his theological viewpoint fully, and in the process clarifying ‘Ali Naqvi’s theological assumptions that informed his analysis of the themes of Karbala and martyrdom.

28 Naqvi, Tarikh-i Islam, 12-3.

29Ibid., 14.

30 The intersection of history and mythology in ‘Ali Naqvi’s narration of Islamic history reminds one of Ricouer’s famous essay on the phenomenological experience of time in which he posits the organic unity of the episodic (events/sequence/history) with the configurational (pattern/plot/matrix) within the telling of a narrative:

The story is not bound to a merely chronological order of events. All narratives combine in various proportions, two dimensions - one chronological and the other non-chronological. The first maybe called the episodic dimension. This dimension characterizes the story as made out of events. The second is the configurational dimension, according to which the plot construes significant wholes out of scattered events.…I understand this act to be the act of the plot, as eliciting a pattern from a succession....To tell and to follow a story is already to reflect upon events in order to encompass them in successive wholes. Such is the dimension which is completely overlooked in the theory of history by the anti-narrative writers. They tend to deprive narrative activity of the complexity and, above all, of its twofold characteristic of confronting and combining in various ways both sequence and pattern. But this antithetical dynamic is no less overlooked in the theory of fictional narratives proposed by structuralists. They take it for granted that the surface grammar of what they call the ‘plane of manifestation’ is merely episodic, and therefore purely chronological. They conclude that the principle of order has to be found at the higher level of achrnological models or codes. Anti-narrativist writers in the theory of history and structuralist writers in the literary criticism share the same prejudice. They do not see that the humblest narrative is always more than a chronological series of events and that, in turn, the configurational dimension cannot overcome the episodic dimension without suppressing the narrative structure itself….The reasons for which we write history and reasons for which we tell stories are rooted in the same temporal structure that connects our ‘élan’ toward the future, our attention to the present, and our capacity to emphasize and to reconnect the past. The ‘repetition’ would no longer appear as a dubious procedure divided between fictional repetition and historical repetition. It would be able to encompass history and fiction to the extent that both are rooted in the primordial unity betweenfuture , past, and present.

See Paul Ricoeur, and Mario J. Valdés, “The Human Experience of Time and Narrative” inA Ricoeur Reader: Reflection and Imagination, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991).

31 Naqvi, Tarikh-i Islam, 14. Here, he is making reference to the Qur’anic verses 11:74, 94:6 and 3:19.

32 Naqvi, Tarikh-i Islam, 17.

33 How this broader history of Islam ties to the sacrifice of Husayn and his companions is evident from my discussion in Chapter 4.

34 Naqvi, Tarikh-i Islam, 22.

35 3:19

36 Naqvi, Majmu‘ah-yi taqarir, 7.

37 The word salah can also be translated as prosperity.

38 Naqvi, Islami culture kia hay?, 55. For the moment I will concentrate on ‘Ali Naqvi’s social reform. His political thought will be taken up in the following section.

39Ibid., 64.

40Ibid., 64.

41 The word “khalal” has a wide-ranging meaning including prejudice, craziness, defect, and confusion, and is replete with derogatory connotations.

42 Naqvi, Mazhab aur ‘aql, 57-8.

43 Title of Dildar ‘Ali, the head of the Household of Ijtihad.

44 Naqvi, Mazhab aur ‘aql, 31. “Shadi khana abadi” are the words used. These comments provide strong support for my analysis and presentation of ‘Ali Naqvi’s religio-intellectual project. The path of comprehensive islah of a human society that he lays out here (and commended in the example of Dildar ‘Ali) is precisely what I have argued for ‘Ali Naqvi himself: By way of prioritizing the various challenges that his community faced, he sought to first establish the intellectual basis for religious beliefs and practices, making possible the intellectual acceptance of the foundations of Islam (the task he carried out in the early years). Only when the essentials of the religion became amenable to his audience did he turn his attention to the reform of social practices and customs (that is, his writings from the later years). These comments leave little doubt that in addressing the intellectual, religious, and social problems of his times, ‘Ali Naqvi consciously followed the model of Dildar ‘Ali, or his understanding of it.

45 Reference to the Qur’anic verse 4:59. The complete verse reads as follows: “O believers, obey God, and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. If you should quarrel on anything, refer it to God and the Messenger, if you believe in God and the Last Day; that is better, and fairer in the issue.”

46 For example, his comment: “The story of our afflictions (sargashtagi) is quite long. Islam had come with simple and serious principles and teachings. But how long did those days of simplicity last?”

47 Naqvi, Hamaray rusumva quyud, 32-42.

48Ibid., 46-9.

49 Naqvi, Shadi khanah abadi, 20.

50Ibid., 15.

51 ‘Ali Naqvi refers to the hadith, “Marriage is my Sunnah, one who loathes my Sunnah is not related to me”. See the hadith collection,Jami‘ al -akhbar, 101.

52 Naqvi, Rusumva quyyud, 51-2.

53 As noted by Crone, in some way the principle of consultation was operative in the political milieu of pre-Islamic Arabia and was invoked on various occasions in early Islamic history as well, for example, for the election of ‘Uthman. See Patricia Crone, God's Rule: Government and Islam, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), especially 36-38 and 52. In the context of nation-state in the modern period, the word shura has been employed to argue for representative democracy. See The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, ed. John L. Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), s.v. “Democracy”.

54 Derived from the Qur’anic verse 42:38, “And those who answer their Lord, and perform the prayer, their affair being counsel between them, and they expend of thatWe have provided them.”

55 Naqvi, Qur’an aur nizam-i hukumat, 6-7.

56 ‘Ali Naqvi, Nigarashat-i Sayyidul ‘ulama’, (Lahore: Imamia Publications, 1997). Shi’i commitment to the doctrine of Imamate through divine decree (nass) meant rejection of the legitimacy of the shura, and explains why ‘Ali Naqvi criticized it. See Muhammad Husayn al-Tabatabai, Shi'ite Islam, trans. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975), 10.

57 ‘Ali Naqvi, Islami nazriyah-yi hukumat, 84.

58Ibid., 84-5.

59Ibid., 85-6.

60Ibid., 88.

61 The compatibility of Islam with democracy has been widely debated among Muslim intellectuals and there is a plethora of literature on this subject. I mention here only some of these sources: Khaled Abou El Fadl, Joshua Cohen, and Deborah Chasman, Islam and the Challenge of Democracy: A Boston Review Book, (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 2004; Roxanne Leslie Euben, and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts from Al-Banna to Bin Laden, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009); Hamid Inayat, Modern Islamic Political Thought: The Response of the Shi'i and Sunni Muslims to the Twentieth Century, (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005); Abdulaziz Abdulhussein Sachedina, The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); _____ , “Muslim Intellectuals and the Struggle for Democracy” in Global Dialogue vol. 6, no. 1–2 (Winter/Spring 2004). For the South Asian context see Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, "Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power," in Religion and Global Politics, (New York:Oxford University Press, 2001);_____ , The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama'at-I Islami of Pakistan, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).

62 For historical details on the controversial subject of succession to the Prophet see Mahmoud Ayoub, The Crisis of Muslim History: Religion and Politics in Early Islam, (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003); Wilfred Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

63 ‘Ali Naqvi, Islami nazriyah-yi hukumat, 90.

64Ibid., 93.

65Ibid., 93.

66Ibid., 94.

67Ibid., 95.

68Ibid., 96.

69Ibid., 97.

70Ibid., 98.

71Ibid., 98-9.

72 I have not been able to find anything in ‘Ali Naqvi’s writings that would be a direct comment upon the political developments in Shi’i Iran in the late 1970s. This is however one place where ‘Ali Naqvi’s argument seems to clearly forestall the doctrine of comprehensive authority of the jurist (valayat al-faqih) as argued by Ayatullah Khomeini. For the development of this doctrine in its modern Shi’i’ formulation

73Ibid., 99.

74 Literally “system of action”.

75Ibid., 99-100.

76 Though not within the scope of this chapter, ‘Ali Naqvi’s position is worth comparing with his counterpart Shi’i ‘ulama’ of Iran who had been heatedly debating the “political question” since the days of the Constitutional Revolution. See Vanessa Martin, "Trends in the Shi‘i Response to Constitutionalist Ideology in Iran" in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 2, no. 3 (1992): 347-61; Abdol Karim Lahidji, “Constitutionalism and Clerical Authority” in Authority and Political Culture in Shi'ism, ed. Said Amir Arjomand, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988); Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamid Dabashi, and Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr. “The Debates over the Constitutional Revolution” in Expectation of the Millennium: Shi'ism in History, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989); and Linda S. Walbridge, “Analysis of Khomeini’s Proofs for al-Wilaya al-Mutlaqa” in The Most Learned of the Shi'a: The Institution of the Marja‘ Taqlid, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

77 Published in Shu‘a‘-i ‘amal (July 2009), 30 ff.

78 The following comment makes it clear why qaum cannot be translated as the usual nation.

79 ‘Ali Naqvi does not cite the reference. According to a contemporary commentator of Nahj al-Balaghah (a collection of speeches and letters of the first Shi’i Imam ‘Ali) although this couplet is not within this collection, it is attributed to him. See Muhammad Taqi Ja‘fari, A Translation and Commentary of Nahj al-Balaghah (Tarjumah wa tafsir Nahj al-balaghah),( Tehran, 1981), p. 267.

80 Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir b. Muhammad Bihar al-anwar al-jami‘a li-durar akhbar al-a’imma al-athar. Beirut: Mu‘assasat al-Wafa’, 1403, vol. 7 p. 372.

81 ‘Ali Naqvi is commenting on the particle innama which precedes both the Qur’anic verse that refers to the Prophet as “Mercy for the Worlds” and the hadith-report where the Prophet describes his Prophetic function of “beautifying human morals”. The occurrence in both reports of this particle for ‘Ali Naqvi clarifies that the Prophetic mission was restricted, or confined (hasr) to this function of “beautifying morals” alone.

82 I have borrowed this term from Qasim Zaman:

A major stimulus to the emergence of revivalist trends, from the second half of the nineteenth century, lay in the recognition by the Muslim cultural and religious elite that British colonial rule could not be effectively combated by force of arms or political resistance. Following the work of Barbara Metcalf [1982], Robinson [2000] sees Deoband and several other movements as representing an “inward turn” (cf. Islam in Muslim History, 115ff.) – an effort to preserve and deepen individual piety and personal responsibility and thereby to secure the survival of the community – at a time when Muslims had lost political power to the British and when they had begun to see the threat of India’s Hindu majority to their own community and culture in a new and alarming dimension (254).

See his “Review Essay: Modernity and Religious Change in South Asian Islam” in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland (2004), 14: 253-263

83 For his analysis see chapter 3 “Reform and the Religious Sphere” of the book. Bellah’s analysis echoes the same scenario at a more general level for modern Islamic societies:

Where Islam has simply been identified with the specificities of an existing traditional society it has been little more than an obstruction to modernization at the personal, familial, political, and religious level. Every institutional or ideological change in education, family, or law has simply been blindly opposed. Such blind reaction is almost everywhere precipitated its dialectical opposite: the importation of Western secular ideologies as the real guiding forces of life. This need not necessitate the outright rejection of Islam in some form of atheism or agnosticism, though this too has occurred. It may involve simply the relegation of Islam to the realm of purely private concerns so that it is without relevance to most of life (159).

See his essay “Islamic Tradition and the Problem of Modernization” in Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditional World (New York: Harper & Row, 1970).

84 See Hamilton, A. R. Gibb."The Heritage of Islam in the Modern World (I)." International Journal of Middle East Studies 1, no. 1 (1970): 3-17. Similar observations are made by Bellah in the essay already cited:

If Islam out of its own resources cannot provide an encompassing myth for the Muslim peoples – and of course it must be a new kind of myth – more self-conscious, flexible, and expressive than the traditional ones – than other kinds of thought will…Perhaps the greatest problems of modernization of all for Islam is not whether it can contribute to political, familial, or personal modernization, but whether it can effectively meet the specifically religious needs of the modern Muslim peoples (166).

85 I have briefly touched upon this aspect of ‘Ali Naqvi’s religio-intellectual project in Chapter 4.

CONCLUSION: A COMPREHENSIVE ISLAH? REFLECTIONS ON ‘ALI NAQVI’S THOUGHT AND LEGACY

1 It must be stated again that this study has consciously avoided abstractions and a use of popular categories such as ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’. This was in service of a careful consideration of the text and the context. The focus has instead been on the ‘concrete language’ in which the problem of modernity was understood and articulated by ‘Ali Naqvi in his writings and speeches. That is why, inasmuch as the sources have permitted, I have kept my commentary to a minimum.

2 Perhaps allusion to the controversy generated by his book Shahid-i insaniyat.

3 ‘Ali Naqvi, Sayyidul ‘ulama’: hayat aur karnamay, 83.

4 Information regarding the date and place of publication of this text is not given.

5 Seechapter 1.

6 See Naqvi, Sayyidul ‘ulama’: hayat aur karnamay, 65ff.

7 From the preface of Nigarshat-i sayyidul ‘ulama’, 6.

8 Naqvi, Sayyidul ‘ulama’: hayat awr karnamay, 67. These are names of some of the most prominent Sunni scholars of the late 19th and the 20th century.

9 Seechapter 5.

10 During my fieldwork in Pakistan I have personally interviewed many who had known or read the works of ‘Ali Naqvi, or heard him live. In the case of India I had to rely on phone interviews and Skype conversations. A detailed discussion of this aspect of his life and influence is outside the scope of this study.

11 ‘Ali Naqvi’s careful assertion of his religious authority (and with that of ‘ulama’ in general) is a topic worthy of discussion, but remains outside the scope of this study. For a discussion of charisma and religious authority within the Islamic milieu, especially during the early Islamic history, see Liyakatali Takim, The Heirs of the Prophet: Charisma and Religious Authority in Shi'ite Islam, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006).

12 This essay is taken from his collection Contemporary Questions (Zinda savalat), (Aligarh: Aligarh University Press, 1971).

13 Qur’an 3:19. I have modified Arberry’s translation here.

14 Qur’an 3:83

15 Literally ta‘mir means to build.

16 Famous Urdu poet of the 19th century.

17 Qur’an, 13:28.

18 Literally nature but here meant in the sense of “the way things are.”

19 Qur’an, 2:142.

20 Although literally the word “kam” means task or job, in the context of the enormity of the task in ‘Ali Naqvi’s exposition - and as demonstrated throughout this study - it is more proper to present it as a project.

21 Literally “practical embodiment”.

22 “If there is a religion [i.e., Islam], which, with respect to its teachings, is a supporter of peace and harmony and of generating a milieu of tranquility and concord, then such a religion deserves to be preserved for the reformation of the world….The real struggle for reform (islah) [therefore] will be the spreading (tarvij) of the teachings of religion and the attempt to turn people into its adherents (emphasis added).” See Chapter 1, p.46.

23 See Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi, “An Islamic Critique of Patriarchy: Maulana Sayyed Kalb-i Sadiq’s Approach to Gender Relations” in The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought, (Malden: Blackwell Pub., 2006).

24 A preacher of burgeoning fame, ‘Aqil al-Gharvi wrote a eulogy for ‘Ali Naqvi which was published in ‘Ali Naqvi’s biography, p.85. He was also among the founders of the Sayyidul ‘Ulama’ Academy (mentioned a few sentences later in the main body of the text).

25 Bu’ay gul. ed . Sayyid Mahmud Naqvi, (Delhi: Nishat Publications, 1989).

26 The term has been borrowed from Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics, (1996; repr.Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 68–9.

27 See, for example, Mohammed el-Nawawy and Sahar Khamis, Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace, (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2009).

28 Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi: Islam in Modern South Asia, Makers of the Muslim World (Oxford: Oneworld, 2008). See also Zaman (2002).

29 Francis Robinson “Crisis of Authority: Crisis of Islam?” in Journal of Royal Asiatic Society 19:3 (2009), 339-354; and Krämer, Gudrun, and Sabine Schmidtke. Speaking for Islam: Religious Authorities in Muslim Societies, Social, Economic, and Political Studies of the Middle East and Asia (Leiden: Brill, 2006).

30 Terms borrowed from Hatina (2008) and Zaman (2002) respectively.

31 Christian W. Troll, Sayyid Ahmad Khan: A Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology, (New Delhi: Vikas Publ. House, 1978).

32 Muhammad Iqbal and M. Saeed Sheikh,The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Lahore: Institute of Islamic Culture, 1986).

33 This is title of a lecture given by him at Oxford which was later added as the final chapter of the Reconstruction.

34 There have of course been exceptions. Gibb (1947), for one, pointed quite clearly in this direction:

For the majority the issues in dispute are mainly those relating to the practical duties and social institutions. It is only one or two exceptional men who raised the argument to a more philosophical level, where the old metaphors in which the doctrines of Islam are expressed…no longer seem adequate to experience and who therefore reach out to new metaphors in closer accord with their widened vision of the universe (53).

APPENDIX II

1 See p. 47

2 From Nigarshat-i sayyidul ‘ulama’. Lahore: Imamia Mission, 1997

3 The technical translation of “jawhar” is substance in Islamic theology and philosophy but here it is employed as the distinctive mark of human beings, as essence (mahiyah), differentia (fasal) or in a more general sense as the distinctive mark of the human being.

4 Literally the inventor.

5 Or signs, impressions, manifestation, or marks etc.

6 For example, opening verses of Chapter 2 of the Qur’an read: “That is the Book, wherein is no doubt,a guidance to the godfearing, who believe in the Unseen, and perform the prayer, and expend of that We have provided them”.

7 Dhat in Islamic theology, when referring to God, is usually translated as Essence. In Urdu its meaning ranges from the Divine Self, Divine Being and Essence in the technical sense.