The Ulama in Contemporary Islam by Muhammad Qasim Zaman

Most significantly, these graduates went back home and set up madrasas in their respective localities. Graduates came from different corners of India. A formal examination system was introduced and successful students were issued certificates of award.

Students had separate classrooms and a library, and the curricula were organised according to departments, such as Arabic, Persian, and others. They introduced formal religious education for Muslims in British India. The Delhi-based Ulama were forced to move to the countryside and establish a madrasa at Deoband in 1867.Īfter the revolution, Deoband became the centre for Muslim intellectuals. Fourteen hundred people were shot by British soldiers in Kuchah Chelan, where Shah Abdul Aziz (son of late Shah Waliyu'llah) used to preach, according to Metcalf. Suspecting the Ulama's involvement, British colonisers took all religious institutions in Delhi under their control. The 1857 revolution landed heavily upon the revivalist movement initiated by Shah Waliyu'llah. He suggested going back to the Quran or Sunnah for legal solutions. Besides claiming centrality of the hadith in the interpretation of the sharia, Shah Waliyu'llah discouraged blindly following the rulings of the earlier generations ( taqlid). Waliyu'llah's successors had studied legal codes and written fatwa for the Muslim community, which had once become the main tool to disseminate religious instructions when the British were about to establish political authority over India.

The person who played a key role in this shift was Shah Waliyu'llah, who advocated for more social and political responsibilities for the Ulama as opposed to those of the Farangi Mahall. While Metcalf looks into the emergence, proliferation, and responses of the Deobandi Ulama to 'modernity' when Muslim power in India was declining, Zaman looks at their strategy to establish authority in British India and Pakistan.įarangi Mahall's dominance declined and the centre for religious studies shifted from Lucknow to Delhi by the late 18th century.

Muhammad Qasim Zaman's The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodian of Change (2002) and Barbara D Metcalf's Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900 (2016), both published by the Princeton University Press, are two outstanding studies in this regard. Against this backdrop, the actions, discourses, and history of the Ulama are well worth looking into. Since the 10th century, the Ulama have been exercising strong authority over religious issues yet they have been accused of failing to respond to modernity and to the changes in society. Over the past few years, and particularly after their recent tussle with the government over the statue of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Ulama's involvement in politics has come back under scrutiny in Bangladesh.

The Ulama in Contemporary Islam by Muhammad Qasim Zaman