Within the Shi‘i community (of north India) the new Usuli school faced no more formidable contenders for control over religious institutions and notable patronage than Sufi leaders. The notables in Awadh did not originally hold the ulama and mujtahids in high esteem, rather honored Sufi pirs. Sufis believed in the metaphysical doctrine of existential monism (wahdat ul-wujud), which in its extreme forms approximated pantheism. Sufi leaders, or pirs, claimed to enjoy divine graces (karamat ), to perform miracles, and to be privy to inspiration (kashf ) from God. Indian Muslims practiced Sufism widely, including those in Lucknow, where people attended meditation and chanting sessions, seeking to reach mystical states (vajd va hal).
The legalist ulama objected that music and revelry often accompanied these gatherings, lamenting that many high notables attended them and believed Sufism to be a path to spiritual well-being. Several of the powerful court physicians in Faizabad left sons who continued a tradition of Sufism and Akhbarism.
Even formally, Sunni pirs often benefited from the largesses of Awadh’s Imami rulers. Asafu’d-Dawlah granted twelve rent-free villages, yielding Rs. 30,000, to the pirs of Salon in perpetuity. The pirs spent most of the proceeds in supporting itinerant faqirs and Hindu Vairagis, without distinction of religion, who made short stops in Salon.
At any one time a hundred such visitors congregated in this largely Muslim town of four thousand. Other Sunni Sufi endowments existed at Bhadarsa near Faizabad, endowed by Asafu’d-Dawlah with lands yielding Rs. 15,000 per year, and at Manikpur in Partabghar, with Rs. 4,000 per year.
Some pirs had Shi‘i sympathies. Mir Taqi Mir related how his father, a Shi‘i, discussed the Umayyads (enemies of ‘Ali) with a Sufi leader who replied that he had, thank God, never mentioned their names. The Usuli clergy said Sufis adopted Shi‘ism only pro forma, and that Sufis followed their pirs only because they expected worldly benefits.
Aside from Sufi brotherhoods (tariqah), many notables in Awadh cultivated the mystical philosophy of such Shi‘i thinkers as Mulla Sadra Shirazi, whom the Usuli jurists dismissed as a heretic.
Although Sufi adoption of Shi‘ism in Awadh may often have aimed at gaining court patronage, some Shi‘i Sufis developed their own subculture and literary traditions. They were influenced by the Shi‘i Nimatu’llahi order, which had spread to Hyderabad and based itself there after Usuli persecution in Safavid Iran.
Indian missionaries of this order promoted a revival in Iran in the late eighteenth century, meeting violent repression from Usuli clergy, who saw the pirs as rivals to their own authority and access to court patronage.
Sufis in Awadh told a story that the early Shi‘i figure ash-Sharif ar-Radi was praying behind his brother, the great scholar Murtada ‘Alamu’l-Huda, when he suddenly left the mosque. When rebuked, he replied that he had seen the prayer leader covered with blood and could not continue, because of ritual pollution.
When asked about this, ‘Alamu’l-Huda confessed that he had been considering an issue in the ritual law of menstruation, admitting that ar-Radi was right to have acted as he did. In this story, ‘Alamu’l-Huda stands for those concerned with outer appearances, while ar-Radi represents mystics devoted to inner reality (ahl-i batin ).
The tale demeaned the official ulama as overly concerned with ritual law, and exalted the Sufis, for whom prayer had no significance unless the heart was also engaged. True to form, the Usuli ulama complained of the story’s legal inaccuracy, since such a thought would not invalidate the prayers. The appearance of classical Shi‘i authors in the story indicates that the Sufis were working in an Imami tradition.
Sufis and the Friday Prayers
The establishment of Friday prayers in 1786 helped provoke a crisis. As long as Shi‘is simply held informal mourning sessions for the Imams, the community could remain diffuse and diverse. The holding of formal prayers in congregation at Hasan Riza Khan’s palace required that criteria for community membership be set up. Moreover, Hasan Riza Khan and other notables created tensions by bestowing patronage both on Sufis and on their Usuli rivals. The appointment of an Usuli prayer leader proved divisive, since to pray behind him implied acceptance of his spiritual leadership. The Sufis held meditation sessions, with dancing and singing, on Fridays in the same hall where Shi‘is said Friday prayers in congregation.
The Sufis did not join the prayers, some suggesting that praying in public was prideful. They said that anyone with inner purity did not need such rituals, which only bestowed outer purity.
In the 1780s at the Awadh court the struggle between jurists and mystics grew fierce. Once the Sufi Shah Khayru’llah told his patron Hasan Riza Khan that he did not go to Karbala, for fear of Aqa Muhammad Baqir Bihbahani, whom he accused of extorting money from Indian pilgrims to the shrine of Imam Husayn.
(Ayatullah Syed Dildar Ali) Nasirabadi, having studied in the shrine cities, protested that such fears were wholly unfounded.
In 1786, about four months after the congregational prayers began, Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali launched a stinging attack on the Sufis in his afternoon sermon. He condemned those who claimed to meet every day with God, or even to be God Himself, and who said they knew the condition of the seven heavens. Nasirabadi sneered that if one asked them a question about Islamic law, they would be unable to answer. He accused them of innovating heretical rituals and laws. Since Sunnis in India often attacked Shi‘is as innovators, Nasirabadi made this charge cautiously. He defined a heretical innovation (bidah) as a practice contrary to the path of the Prophet (PBUH). For instance, he said, there is an oral report from Muhammad (PBUH) that whoever weeps for Husayn will enter heaven. Therefore, the mourning sessions held by Shi‘is for the Imam are not heretical innovations, though they grew up after the time of the Prophet (PBUH). Sunni critics, of course, did see such mourning sessions as heretical.
Nasirabadi also criticized Sufis for the practice of spiritual retreat and seclusion, saying that meeting with the believers and associating with one another is much praised in the oral reports from the Imams. In later sermons, as well, he returned to these themes, criticizing Sufi ascetic ideas and what he saw as pantheism.
He rejected the analogy that God flows in his creation as water in milk, or that God is as the ocean and beings are as the waves. Such a view, he said, would reduce us to saying that dogs and pigs are God Himself.
Shah Ali Akbar Maududi vs Syed Dildar Ali Naqvi
The Chishti leader Shah ‘Ali Akbar Mawdudi (d. 1795), Nasirabadi’s keenest competitor for the support of Hasan Riza Khan, led the Friday morning meditation sessions, but he and his following refused to attend the congregational prayers. They prayed Friday prayers elsewhere, with Mawdudi as the prayer leader.
Shah ‘Ali Akbar, stung by Nasirabadi’s anathemas against the Sufis from his newly won pulpit, sent Hasan Riza Khan a letter saying “Praise be to God! Is it right that someone should now mount the minbar and pronounce curses on the person who founded the congregational prayers?” When Hasan Riza Khan brought the matter up with Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali, he replied that he did not wish Mawdudi to be among those whom he cursed.
If he categorized himself as a pir, Nasirabadi bore no blame. But Mawdudi considered himself a law-abiding mystic, insisting that the prerequisite for mystical initiation was to follow the holy Law. He felt that the principles of esoteric knowledge, like those of jurisprudence, were based on the Qur’an, the Sunnah, consensus, and analog. He therefore strongly objected to being branded a heretic.
The chief minister perceived no contradiction between the legalism of the Usulis and the mystical approach of his favorite Sufis, still hoping to find a way for the two to coexist. He broached the idea that Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali meet Shah ‘Ali Akbar personally and iron out their differences. Nasirabadi dismissed the man as a fraud, saying that Mawdudi refused to participate in the Shi‘i prayers only because of his many Sunni followers.
Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali said he feared that he might confuse the Shi‘i congregation if he now, after having mounted the pulpit and cursed Sufis every Friday, expressed a wish to meet a pir.
In the early 1790s a final break came. One evening Hasan Riza Khan brought Shah ‘Ali Akbar to the Great Imambarah just before sunset. The new Friday prayers mosque stood next to the Imambarah, and the believers were preparing to say the sunset (maghrib) prayers. At sunset Nasirabadi normally ordered candles to be lit at that Great Imambarah, out of respect to the cenotaphs stored there.
That evening, however, he waited, in hopes that the Sufis would leave. Hasan Riza Khan defused this tense situation, arranging a pro forma (zahiri) meeting between the Usuli and the Sufi.
The chief minister wanted Shah ‘Ali Akbar to pray behind the jurist (mujtahid). The negotiations broke down, however, and Mawdudi led his Sufis in the sunset prayer at the Imambarah. Hasan Riza Khan went over to the Friday prayers mosque to say the prayers behind Nasirabadi with the Usulis.
Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali ardently requested of the chief minister that he be excused from meeting the Sufi. Shah ‘Ali Akbar at that point fell ill and had to leave. Nasirabadi was happy at this development, which allowed him to avoid meeting the man.
The incident proved decisive for the development of the Shi‘i community in Awadh. The Sufi Shi‘is, excluded from the official congregation, lost opportunities to exercise influence with, and receive patronage from, high notables. Shi‘i Sufism might have acted as an ecumenical force, since pirs often had Sunni or even Hindu followers.
The Shi‘ism of the Usuli ulama emphasized strident communalism, such militancy ultimately provoked a Sunni backlash.
Usuli-Sufi Polemics: Ash-shihab ath-thaqib (الشهاب الثاقب) by S. Dildar ‘Ali Nasirabadi
The analysis of texts generated by the Usuli-Sufi conflict helps us understand the mentalities involved and is useful for several reasons. The intellectual disputes between Usulis and Sufi Shi‘is in Awadh well illustrate religious developments. But attitudes toward ritual, as was just demonstrated, could in themselves have an impact on the shape of the community, and so on society.
The question arises whether these texts can be read so as to shed some light on the social conflicts that also underlay the enmity between mujtahids and pirs.
Nasirabadi followed his efforts to exclude Sufis from his congregation with an ideological assault on them. He dedicated it to Hasan Riza Khan, whom he called the founder of Friday prayers, but wrote it in Arabic, directing it primarily at the ulama. The book attacked both the metaphysical Sufism of classical upper-class thinkers and the Sufism of the orders, with their rituals.
He quoted Imami oral reports, and presented what he said was an original refutation of existential monism (wahdat ul-wujud). He refuted the medieval Shi‘i thinker and admirer of the Andalusian mystic Ibn ‘Arabi, Sayyid Haydar Amuli, whose work defended the conception of existential monism in a Shi‘i context. This focus suggests Amuli’s influence among India’s Sufi Shi‘is.
Beyond the metaphysical controversy Nasirabadi concentrated on showing the illegitimacy for Twelver Shi‘is of Sufi beliefs and practices. He began with the doctrine of inspiration (kashf) which literally means “uncovering”. He explained that it consisted of seeing spiritual lights and hearing voices.
Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali objected that instances of mystical inspiration cannot be verified, and that the persons who related tales about it or said they experienced it cannot be trusted, since they also told miracle stories about the enemies of ‘Ali, or fell into other doctrinal errors.
He said it cannot be told whether such inspiration comes from God or from Satan, since most Sufis engaged in ascetic practices, such as rigorous fasting, that impaired their judgment. This section reveals the close connection the prayer leader saw between Sufism and Sunnism, much of his attack on Sufism being originally elaborated against the Sunni Naqshbandis of Delhi.
Nasirabadi criticized the Sufi practice of inducing a trance state to achieve mystical ecstasy (wajd), excoriating the mystics for falling on the ground and asking God for healing, then singing, beating drums, and dancing. He charged that Sunni kings, such as the Umayyad Muawiyah, promoted these pre-Islamic practices to distract Shi‘is from their political opposition to him.
He quoted Sufi works to prove that Sufis from every social class engaged in ecstatic exercises accompanied by music, an art unanimously condemned by Shi‘i jurisprudents. The mystics, he said, invented ritual practices such as vegetarianism, the giving up of fine clothes, and retreats into seclusion for meditation, which he stigmatized as monkery (rahbaniyyah), recalling the oral report from the Prophet that there is no monkery in Islam.
He also objected to Sufi criticisms of the wealthy, quoting from oral reports attributed to the Imams on the permissibility of seeking to become rich as a means of avoiding the sorts of sins to which poverty might drive one.
Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali not only defended the wealthy but accused Sufis of uncontrolled passions, implying that they actually addressed their mystical love poetry, ostensibly for God, to real women or slave-boys. He cited Imami oral reports condemning Sufis. Nasirabadi further disparaged the loud or silent group repetition (dhikr) of the creed “There is no God but god,” marshaling oral reports that forbade the raising of the voice during worship.
Usulis forbade the oath of allegiance and obedience (bayat) that adepts gave to the Sufi master, and the cloak (khirqah) of initiation they received from him in turn. In conclusion, Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali branded Sufis innovators (ahl al-bidah), saying the Prophet Muhammad forbade association with heretics. He advocated the shunning of Shi‘i Sufis, urging that whenever an Usuli saw them in the street he should publicly curse them as apostates.
Indeed, he saw all sects save the Imamis as unbelievers on grounds of incorrect dogma. At the end of the book he included the formula of repentance after apostasy in an effort to convince Sufi Shi‘is to come over to Usulism.
Sufis replied vigorously to Nasirabadi, writing in Persian. An anonymous manuscript (Radd-i Shihab ath-thaqib) survives by a Sufi in rebuttal of Lucknow’s prayer leader. The treatise contended that the spread of Sufism among Shi‘is was of old standing. Great Imami thinkers had in their biographical dictionaries accepted the division of Shi‘is into legalists (zahiri) and mystics (batini).
Indeed, the tract’s author wrote, all Sufis have a Shi‘i tinge because of their respect for the mystical knowledge of ‘Ali, only the Naqshbandis being truly Sunnis. The mystical knowledge referred to in the Imami oral reports, he argued, is the Sufi path (tariqat), and many eminent Shi‘i ulama forbade the laity to criticize Sufi leaders.
He maintained that mystics (urafa’) are more noble than the ulama because God gives them perfection and their way has transcended a dependence on books and the intellectual doubts it engenders.
The nameless Sufi emphasized that many great Imamis were Sufis, including important Safavid-era thinkers. He attacked the practice of publicly insulting Sufis as pure fanaticism, and defended Bayazid Bistami, whose pantheistic-sounding sayings included “Praise to me, how great is my glory!” (سبحانی ما أعظم شأنی).
He explained that Bistami did not assert his own divinity, but rather claimed to have become as nothing, so that only God was left. Moreover, he added, some oral reports from the Imams supported the doctrine of existential monism.
The treatise contended that Usulis erred in trying to distinguish between those Safavid thinkers who actually adhered to Sufism and those who only thought well of it, the figures in question having all been practicing Sufis. The Usulis wished to claim the great thinkers of the Imami heritage as their own, perhaps partially because they believed in consensus as a source of law. But Sufi Shi‘is presented themselves as the true heirs of a major Safavid tradition.
The Sufi’s rebuttal ended by defending the listening to music and the bestowal of cloaks of initiation. He insisted that Shi‘i law permitted music that inspired a desire for the hereafter. He said that music was originally forbidden among Shi‘is because of the need for pious dissimulation (taqiyyah) in times when Shi‘i songs put believers in danger. In Shi‘i-ruled Awadh, he implied, Shi‘is could sing freely.
Another revealing encounter between the official prayer leader and a mystic occurred in the next decade. In 1803, an Iranian Sufi named Mawlavi Sami came into conflict with Lucknow’s Usulis. Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali, fifty years old, had been the capital’s prayer leader for seventeen years and had grown firmly attached to the Awadh establishment. Mawlavi Sami attacked him on precisely this point, sending him a list of questions.
From the first, he endeavored to put the prayer leader on the defensive. Mawlavi Sami wrote that the truly pious among the learned avoided rulers, thus remaining obscure, while scholars seeking wealth and high position gravitated to the court, becoming prominent. What, then, should laymen do? The Sufi suggested that the mujtahids’ position in society derived from compromises they made with the impious rulers, and implied that laymen should emulate less opportunistic jurisprudents.
Nasirabadi attempted to neutralize the issue of social class. He said that if an upright mujtahid and qualified exemplar (marja) avoided rulers, he should be consulted. On the other hand, if a jurisprudent sought riches licitly, a layman could not refuse to follow him simply because of his wealth.
After all, he said, many prophets and great Shi‘i thinkers were wealthy, and the high class standing of Muhammad Baqir Majlisi and his association with the Safavid court was occasioned by proper motives and resulted in obvious benefits for the faith.
Mawlavi Sami next quoted scripture condemning tyranny and forbidding Muslims to aid despots. He said that both jurisprudents and mystics knew very well that none among the ruling classes in India observed the limits set by the holy Law.
Was it right, he pointedly inquired, to call such rulers tyrants, or not? Nasirabadi agreed that the literal sense of Imami oral reports indicated such a step. But he said the Qur’an denied that it ordained any discomfort for the believers in their religion. Perhaps the Imam meant to forbid anyone to approve in his heart of tyranny, or the word “tyranny” meant only wrongdoing to the House of the Prophet.
Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali casuistically justified cooperation with the despotic government of Sa’adat ‘Ali Khan, which because of its Shi‘ism at least supported the family of the Prophet.
The Sufi asked the prayer leader whether it was right to associate with the notables and to accept grants from them, of cash, goods, or land and villages. Nasirabadi said that one might accept gifts from tyrants as long as one had no sure knowledge that they were usurped property. Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali himself took grants of cash and villages, where Hindu peasants labored to support his Shi‘i religious office.
Mawlavi Sami then chastised Usulis for cursing Sufis and said that many Safavid thinkers had spoken well of Sufism. Nasirabadi rejected this precedent, since in dogma (اصول دین) emulation was forbidden.
He allowed that pious continence (zuhd) like that of ‘Ali’s companion Abu Dharr could never be deprecated. But Sufis, he said, bore enmity for the Imams, and Safavid thinker Majlisi-II’s condemnation of them was well known. Nasirabadi dismissed Safavid thinkers who admired Sufism as heretical followers of Ibn ‘Arabi.
Mawlavi Sami rephrased his question, complaining that in those days cursing Sufis had become as common among Shi‘is as cursing the Sunni caliphs. He recalled north Indian Shi‘is, such as Shaykh ‘Ali Hazin and Husayn Khan ‘Azimabadi, who thought well of Sufism, and pointed to the writings of Shah Nimatu’llah Vali Kirmani (d. 1437), founder of the Ni’matu’llahi order, as examples of Sufi Shi‘ism. Nasirabadi reiterated his objections to Sufi rituals as innovations, attacking Sunni Sufis as opponents of Shi‘ism.
The Usuli attack on Sufism focused on beliefs and rituals that the jurisprudents branded unscriptural innovations influenced by Sunnism. The Sufis made the case that they represented an important spiritual tradition within Shi‘ism, including many Safavid exponents, and so were not simply innovating heretics originating in Sunni-dominated northern India.
The mujtahids and the pirs argued, not just about purely religious issues in dogma and ritual, but about social issues as well. The Usulis extolled the virtues of associating with the ruling classes for the sake of the Shi‘i faith, while some Sufi Shi‘is accused them of moral turpitude in so compromising themselves. In defending the goodness of wealth to Mawlavi Sami, Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali upheld the values of the qasabah-based service elite of which he formed a part, as well as those of his patrons, the high notables.
The Social Context
The struggle of Usulis to displace Sufi leaders from positions of influence took place in society as well as in doctrinal tracts. To look at the conflict on a more concrete level requires a focus on the social-control mechanisms invoked by the Usulis, and on the social interests that underlay the dispute. Mujtahids in Awadh had no Sufi pirs put to death, as happened in Iran. But Usulis verbally abused Sufis in public and shunned them.
Nasirabadi declared Shi‘i believers in existential monism ritually unclean (najis), so that no one should eat with them.
Usulis should curse even Sayyids and true believers in the Shi‘i creed who held heretical Sufi doctrines and gave allegiance to a Sufi pir, holding that through mystical exercises one could draw near God. Still, Nasirabadi did not put Sufis completely outside the pale. One might accept food from one, and should help out even a Sufi relative in need.
An Usuli should not curse a Shi‘i simply for wearing the patched robes of a Sufi, but should ascertain his beliefs first, though wearing such clothing indicated moral corruption at the very least.
Nasirabadi’s control over charitable contributions allowed him to attract students with stipends and to train a new generation of anti-Sufi scholars. Sayyid Azam ‘Ali Bankori, for instance, wrote against Sufis and in favor of marriage, and Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Musavi the preacher (vaiz) attacked Sufis and Sunnis in his sermons. The campaign against the Sufis created an atmosphere of witch-hunting among Awadh’s Shi‘is.
A man could be publicly disgraced and cursed on mere suspicion of Sufi tendencies. While these practices benefited the ulama in helping to cut off patronage to their Sufi competitors, they made life unpleasant even for respectable persons of slightly unorthodox views.
Sayyid Najaf ‘Ali Kashmiri, arriving in Faizabad in the late 1790’s, inclined to the upper-class mysticism of the Isfahan school but had no links to a Sufi order. A self-effacing man, once when someone mistook him for an attendant at a public bath, he obligingly helped the fellow bathe. His commentaries on mystical works by Safavid thinkers, coupled with his ascetic bent, led his opponents to accuse him of being a Sufi.
To save his reputation he publicly had to abuse the Sufis as heretical innovators guilty of antinomianism and esoteric interpretation of the scriptures. More lay behind such controversies than a high-minded concern with correct doctrine. Aqa Ahmad Bihbahani observed that when any of the ambitious ulama in Faizabad saw that a scholar had gained renown and might become a source for emulation for the laity, they smeared him as a Sufi or an Akhbari.
In 1816, Nasirabadi’s biographer said that Sufi meetings had declined among Awadh’s Shi‘is to such an extent that both the high and the low opposed Sufism. Though an exaggeration, the statement probably reflects social trends. In Jaunpur an important family of religious dignitaries traditionally maintained in their neighborhood a Sufi center (khanqah) that had been built by Mufti Sayyid Mubarak Jaunpuri (d. 1687).
In the late 1790s the building fell to ruin. The family had by that time become Shi‘is, and they made an architectural statement of their new faith by building an imambarah on the site. In the Sufi center of Salon, one Sadiq ‘Ali Shah raised an imambarah in 1796.
Nasirabadi’s sons carried on the campaign against Sufism in the 1820s and 1830s, and it clearly remained an issue within the Shi‘i community. The mujtahids ruled that while the Imams and great Shi‘is may have performed miracles, all such acts attributed to Sufis were lies. They forbade marriage between a Shi‘i women and a Sufi Shi‘i, even one of sound doctrine, as long as he attended chanting sessions. (Although Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali had earlier felt reluctant to anathematize someone solely on grounds of practice, his sons took a harder line.) Conversions to Shi‘ism from Sunnism also raised questions. Some Sunnis claiming descent from the medieval mystic ‘Abdu’l-Qadir Gilani became Shi‘is in the 1820s, but refused to curse their ancestor.
They said cursing him would advertise their Shi‘ism and prevent them from dissimulating with Sunnis. The mujtahid coolly replied that if someone deserved to be cursed, being related to him was no excuse for not doing so. The Usulis’ hatred of Sufism extended even to matters of literary usage, and they forbade the use of the Sufi term ishq, overwhelming love, in describing one’s relationship with God, on the grounds that it was unscriptural and implied a reprehensible excess and anthropomorphism.
The issues of asceticism and Sufism to some extent involved matters of social class. Akhund Mulla Muhammad Riza Kashmiri, a celebrated ascetic and Akhbari contempotary of the wealthy prayer leader Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali Nasirabadi, owned a small mill. He himself sometimes ground the wheat that people brought him, and sometimes he had his male or female servant do the job. He lived on the proceeds, supported his dependents, and gave away excess profit to the poor.
The story goes that once a high notable from the court of Asafu’d-Dawlah attempted to visit him on an elephant. The pious mulla waved him away from his gate, protesting that, as a poor man, he could only be met by other poor men. Mulla Muhammad Riza’s asceticism and God-fearing ways lent him a great deal of popularity. The Akhbaris Taju’d-Din Husayn Khan and Subhan ‘Ali Khan, tax-farmers hired and then dismissed by Nawab Sa’adat ‘Ali Khan, pleaded with Mulla Muhammad Riza to pray for them, and at length he acceded to their importuning. Attributing their later reinstatement to his intercession with God, they offered him a ten-thousand-rupee reward, but he refused it.
Whereas small landed proprietors, such as the Nasirabadis, or tax-farmers such as Subhan ‘Ali Khan, depended on the goodwill of the government for their continuing prosperity, a small-time miller like Kashmiri could afford to be more independent.
He had sympathy for the peasants who brought him their grain to be ground, and he certainly preferred the company and welfare of the poor to that of the rich.
His asceticism made a virtue of the relative poverty of his social class, and he refused to become involved in the unstable life of intrigues that acceptance of ruling-class patronage would have entailed. Though he was not a member of a Sufi order, his lifestyle came closer to the ideal preached by Sufis like Mawlavi Sami than did that of most Usuli ulama.
His steadfast Akhbarism marked his independence from the mujtahids, exemplifying the kind of sectarian Shi‘ism that artisans practiced even after the Usulis created a formal religious establishment and wielded great power at court.
Awadh’s notables also continued to give patronage to Sufis. In the early 1830s, Roberts reported that a few years earlier a mendicant mystic called Shahji had come into high favor with the ruler of Awadh, and was given permission to levy small contributions for his support from shopkeepers throughout the capital. Although he collected only five cowries (کوڑیاں) a day from each one, a very small sum, the total from all the bazaars amounted to a considerable revenue.
The Usuli campaign for social closure by excluding Sufi practices from the Shi‘i community derived partially from a desire to monopolize religious authority and resources. By making an argument that the Usuli style of life was more scriptural, and by painting the Sufi Shi‘is as heretics and crypto-Sunnis, the Usulis succeeded in weakening Sufi legitimacy within the Awadh ruling class: Their weapons included social ostracism, public humiliation, and the denial of marriage and inheritance rights.
This campaign had the latent usefulness of providing a way of smearing newly immigrant competitors for patronage or authority.
Conclusion: Social Class, Hierarchy, and Authority
The dispute between status groups (mystics, traditional authorities, rationalist jurisprudents) set the intellectual terms of the struggle for control of Awadh’s growing religious establishment. But the social dimension of the conflict is obvious from the frequency with which opponents argued over the goodness, badness, and nature of wealth and property. The dispute among Sufis, Akhbaris, and Usulis took place at three social levels.
First, some religious figures competed among themselves for spiritual leadership of Awadh’s towns and middle landholding families.
Second, some struggled to monopolize the patronage of the high notables and to control their religious culture as well. The fusion of the religious idioms promoted by learned men from the intermediate strata with those of the high notables created a dominant ideology (dominant among the Shi‘i propertied classes). Third, religious officials from the landed classes battled with charismatic personalities or traditional authorities from the bazaar classes. The Usuli establishment strove to dominate Shi‘is at all levels of society; but in preindustrial societies like Awadh, the majority of tradespeople maintained their own religious ideologies.
Some conflicts between Sufis and Usulis involved competition among learned men of similar social and economic backgrounds. For men from the small landed classes in the Islamic lineage centers, either Usulism or Sufism could provide bases for religious domination and avenues of influence with the large landholding and ruling classes.
They chose their path according to family background, local tradition, and personal inclination or ambition. Where learned men of similar social background competed for notable-class patronage, their disputes seldom centered on whether wealth was good or bad. They took its goodness for granted.
Examples abound of status-group rivalry lacking any dimension of class conflict. The Shi‘i ulama of Nasirabad and the pirs of Salon competed with one another for the benefices and other patronage that the high notables could bestow. The decline of Mughal Delhi and the rise of Shi‘i-ruled Lucknow posed a challenge to Sunni Sufis of middle landholding background used to Mughal patronage.
Chishtis, like Shah ‘Ali Akbar Mawdudi, himself from Delhi, parlayed their pro-‘Alid sentiments into an asset in attracting the patronage of rising Shi‘i notables. The jurisprudents staffing the emergent religious establishment showed intense hostility to the charismatic Sufis.
The Imami ulama bested the Sufis by their strong commitment to communalist Shi‘ism and their specialized knowledge of Ja’fari law. They could not, however, altogether stop Awadh notables from patronizing the mystics.
The issues of whether wealth was good or not and of the propriety of cooperating with the government more often arose when the competing status groups also derived from different economic classes. Here, a Marxian model, or at least a Weberian model of social closure informed by the Marxian idea of conflict between economic classes, has greater explanatory power.
Mystics who stood outside the benefice (madad-i ma’ash ) system of the prebendal state could criticize the government as tyrannical and denounce the official ulama for compromising themselves by cooperating with it. It is possible that critical outsiders like Mawlavi Sami had ties to Iranian long-distance traders or other social classes with minimal dependency on the agrarian bureaucracy in Lucknow.
The artisan and laboring classes practiced yet another kind of mysticism. Even where they were Shi‘i, they often wished to remain aloof from the state and to maintain their independence from the official ulama. Both Akhbarism and Sufism offered alternative sources of legitimation for their leaders. The tensions between Mulla Muhammad Riza Kashmiri and the Usulis derived, not from competition for patronage from the rich, but from the Usuli establishment’s desire to dominate the entire body of the faithful.
The independence of popular-class sectarian movements, such as those in Murshidabad, stood in the way of such hierocratic domination. One basis for elective affinity between Sufism and Akhbarism and popular-class leaders lay in the ease with which these ideologies allowed religious leaders from the bazaar, who had no leisure, to pursue complicated rationalist studies, to make charismatic or traditional claims to authority. Moreover, as Usulism became the dominant ideology, groups seeking to maintain their independence of the ulama or of the state often clung even more tightly to alternative ideologies.
The cultural dominance of the Usuli ulama among Shi‘i notables led to less status at court for traditional Muslim spiritual leaders like Sufis and Akhbaris. The ousting of the pirs proved important, since they often had Shi‘i, Sunni, and Hindu disciples. Their more tolerant, often syncretic Islam had developed in traditional Mughal society, itself a compromise, or collaboration, between Muslims and Hindus. Some Awadh notables continued an open approach to intercommunal relations, but Usuli exclusiveness began markedly to affect government policy from the 1820s.
Three reasons can be adduced for Usulism’s victory. The first is the attractions for a new generation of Shi‘i ulama of this ideology, which legitimated lay-clerical differentiation and gave the mujtahids the sole prerogative of interpreting the Law, demanding the obedience of laymen to their rulings. Given the increased opportunities for clerical patronage and posts in the growing Shi‘i state, Usulism made more sense to young north Indian ulama than it had to their fathers.
The second reason is the largely successful use of exclusionary closure by Usuli ulama to assert claims to religious posts and resources and to deprive rivals of that patronage. Their strategies included a form of credentialism, in which they recognized only diplomas from Usulis as a proper qualification to fill clerical posts. They also resorted to more violent means of exclusion, such as verbal abuse and public humiliation of rivals, branding them heretics and non-Muslims. This professional closure succeeded better among propertied Shi‘is than among the popular classes, who often retained their own, untrained, religious leadership.
The third reason is the preference for Usuli ideology by the emergent Awadh state. As a government bureaucracy grew up, with the prayer leaders and muftis as its religious wing, state officials favored more rational-legal bases for authority. Usulism was much more suited, at that place and time, to integration into the Awadh state than either Akhbarism or Shi‘i Sufism.
It sanctioned formal religious ceremonies, such as Friday congregational prayer, which became important to the state as an expression of regional identity and semiautonomy, whereas Akhbaris opposed the institution, and Sufis refused to bow behind the official prayer leader. Moreover, the tension between the Shi‘i state and the clergy was less in Usulism than in Indian-style conservative Akhbarism, which disallowed many state functions during the Occultation. The state’s increasing support for Usulis was crucial to their power, since “a class, race, sex, or ethnic group only accomplishes domination to the extent that its exclusionary prerogatives are backed up by the persuasive instruments of the state.”
Source:
J. Cole, Roots of North Indian Shi’ism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh, 1722-1859; pp. 146 – 172, University of California Press, Berkeley (1988). http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft0f59n6r9/
