Moral Conduct and Authority

THE PLACE OF ADAB IN

SOUTH ASIAN ISLAM

EDITED BY

Barbara Daly Metcalf

Sponsored by the
JOINT COMMITTEE ON SOUTH ASIA
of the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL
and the Berkeley • Los Angeles • London
AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LEARNED SOCIETIES
 Contents
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 1984 by
The Regents of the University of California
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Preface vii
List of Contributors xi
Note on Transliteration xv
Introduction 1
BARBARA DALY METCALF

PART ONE: CLASSICAL ADAB

1. Late Antiquity and Islam: Parallels and Contrasts 23
PETER BROWN
2. Knowledge, Virtue, and Action: The Classical Muslim
Conception of Adab and the Nature of Religious
Fulfillment in Islam 38
IRA M. LAPIDUS
3. The Adab Literature of Classical Sufism: Ansari's Code
of Conduct 62
GERHARD BOWERING

PART TWO: ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL

4. The Tuhfa i na$a'ih of Yusuf Gada: An Ethical Treatise
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
in Verse from the Late-Fourteenth-Century Dehli
Main entry under title: Sultanate 91
SIMON DIGBY
Moral conduct and authority. 5. Adab al-Muftr, The Muslim Understanding of Values,
Characteristics, and Role of a Mufti 124
Papers presented at a conference held at the University
M. KHALID MASUD
of California, Berkeley, June 7-9, 1979, sponsored by
the Joint Committee on South Asia of the Social Science 6. The 'Ulama' of Farangi Mahall and Their Adab 152
Research Council and the American Council of Learned FRANCIS ROBINSON
Societies. 7. Islamic Reform and Islamic Women: Maulana
Includes bibliographical references and index. Thanawi's Jewelry of Paradise 184
1. Islam—India—Congresses. 2. Religious life (Islam)
BARBARA DALY METCALF
—Congresses. I. Metcalf, Barbara Daly, 1941-
II. Joint Committee on South Asia. 8. Morality, Personhood, and the Exemplary Life: Popular
BP63.I4M67 1984 297'.5 83-1361 Conceptions of Muslims in Paradise 196
ISBN 0-520-04660-9 RICHARD KURIN
VI CONTENTS

9. Shrines, Succession, and Sources of Moral Authority 221 Preface

DAVID GILMARTIN
10. A Note on Adab in the Murshid-Mund Relationship 241
MOHAMMAD AJMAL

PART THREE: ADAB AS COSMOPOLITAN CULTURE

11. Norms of Comportment among Imperial
Mughal Officers 255
J. F. RICHARDS The papers in this volume, first presented at a conference held at the
12. Prize-Winning Adab: A Study of Five Urdu Books University of California, Berkeley, June 7-9, 1979, deal with issues re-
Written in Response to the Allahahad Government lated to the personal and moral qualities characteristic of authoritative
Gazette Notification 290 figures in South Asian Islam. This is not to say that the corrupt and
C. M. NAIM worldly have not here, as elsewhere, claimed authority; nor that au-
13. The Adab of Musicians 315 thority based on descent, control of resources, and personal contacts
BRIAN SILVER has not been a constant. But behind all, and strikingly pervasive in the
modern period, has been a concept of the well-constructed life, the har-
PART FOUR: ALTERNATIVES TO ADAB monious life of a person who knows his relationship to God, to others,
14. The Political and Religious Authority of the Shrine of and to himself, and who, as a result, plays a special role among his or
Baba Farid 333 her fellows. The concept of moral discrimination and behavior em-
RICHARD M. EATON
bodied in the term adab (and its plural, adab) is a key to one central,
15. Malangs of the Punjab: Intoxication or Adab as the recurrent vision of what the qualities of that life ought to be.
Path to God? 357 One unusual aspect of our attention to this issue was that we stu-
KATHERINE EWING
dents of the "peripheral Islamic lands" found ourselves taking up a
classical concept of unquestioned importance that has been signifi-
Glossary of Selected Terms 373 cantly neglected in studies of the Muslim heartland. There is sin-
Index 381 gularly little writing on adab, and some of it, at least, reduces the rich-
ness of the term to a single dimension. It may be that for various
historical reasons cultivation of adab has been particularly prominent
in South Asia, notably in the modern period, when pervasive move-
ments of religious reform have focused on the moral responsibility that
adab fosters. South Asian Muslims are known for their identification
with Islam and their personal cultivation of the norms of propriety and
decorum.
The topic, however, is not only significant in itself, but reflects the
program of its primary sponsor, the Joint Committee on South Asia of
the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of
Learned Societies.1 The Committee has hoped through a series of proj-
ects to set aside the concepts of Western intellectual and aesthetic sys-
tems in order to seek out systems of meaning and organization from

1. These are described in "South and Southeast Asia: New Concerns of the
Council," by David L. Szanton in Items, 30:2 (June 1976), pp. 13-17, and in
"The Study of South Asian Conceptual Systems," by Stanley J. Heginbotham,
in Items, 31:3 (September 1977), pp. 34-36.
 PREFACE PREFACE IX
Vlll

within South Asia's own cultural systems.2 Adab is not a concept vided practical administrative support, but in a planning meeting and
easily related to any convenient comparative category. It encompasses in the conference itself took a lively interest in our substantive con-
sociologically distinguishable groups, multiple domains of social life cerns as well. The same was true of Bruce R. Pray of the Center for
and psychological experience, and periods of history that are often seen South and Southeast Asia Studies at Berkeley and of Mark Juergens-
as discrete. The effort to use this system was not easy, but we believe meyer of the Graduate Theological Union, who together provided us
its meaning was not wholly "lost in translation." with an institutional base. Lee Bean and Hafeez Malik facilitated the
We had approached the conference tentatively, conscious of the diffi- support of the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, thanks to which
culty we faced in working on a concept so polymorphic and often, at its we were able to invite two Pakistani participants. Sandria Freitag,
most important, only implicit. In our conversations, we moved steadily organizer, critic, and gourmet, handled the administrative arrange-
farther toward seeing the implications of the concept and the interrela- ments for the conference and made a contribution that was uniquely
tions of our disparate topics. As our sessions concluded, there was a hers. Warren Fusfeld and Peggy Sanner, both of the University of Penn-
sense of something like wonder at having approached—however halt- sylvania, ably undertook the difficult task of standardizing the trans-
ingly—the core of what has given the Islamic tradition its richness and literation in the manuscript and seeing to its final preparation. Richard
resilience throughout times and places of such unceasing diversity. Adloff edited the manuscript with erudition and tact. Phyllis Killen an-
The excitement of that sense lies behind the decision to publish both ticipated and solved a variety of problems as she saw the manuscript
the papers and an introductory summary of the themes of the discus- through the stages of publication at the University of California Press.
sion. We seek to share our work with people interested in Islam and in To them all: our adab and thanks.
great traditional civilizations, with those interested in concepts and
B.D.M.
methods of personality formation, and with those seeking some back- Philadelphia
ground for comprehension of the important developments taking place September 1980
in the Islamic world today.
For all the participants, the three days spent together were days of
deep, shared learning and exchange. The Muslims we study, as dis-
cussed below, know that one is what one knows, and that whatever one
does "colors the soul." They are right. On this occasion there was an
adab of civility and intellectual generosity worthy of the concept itself.
Participants in the conference included not only those who gave
papers (listed below) but many who contributed as chairmen and dis-
cussants. William Roff (Southeast Asian History, Columbia University)
played a particularly important role by providing a coherent and in-
sightful overview of what he saw to be the theories and assumptions in
the papers as a whole. The other chairmen and discussants from the
University of California included Hamid Algar (Islamic Studies), Talal
Asad (Anthropology), Edmund C. Burke III (Middle Eastern History,
UCSC), Mark Juergensmeyer (Religious Studies), Satti Khanna (Hindi
Literature and Film), Thomas Metcalf (South Asian History), and Paul
Rabinow (Middle Eastern Anthropology). Their contributions were un-
failingly stimulating.
The conference owed much to the generous help of many people.
David Szanton of the Social Science Research Council not only pro-
2. The members of the Joint Committee at the time of the conference were
Stanley J. Heginbotham, chairman, Marc Galanter, McKim Marriott, Michelle
B. McAlpin, Barbara D. Metcalf, Wendy D. O'Flaherty, Karl H. Potter, and John
Richards.
 Contributors

MUHAMMAD AJMAL, a Jungian psychologist, has served as Director of

the National Institute of Psychology, Islamabad, Secretary of Educa-
tion (Pakistan), Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Punjab, and
Principal of Government College Lahore. He is currently Iqbal Pro-
fessor at the University of Heidelberg. He has published widely on
psychological theory and on psychological issues in relation to Islam
and Pakistani culture.
GERHARD BOWERING is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies in the
Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
He specializes in sufism and Qur'anic exegesis. His publications in-
clude The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam (1980);
The Dreams and Labors of a Central Asian Sufi (forthcoming); and a
series of articles on the history of Islamic ideas in the Near East and
South Asia.
PETER BROWN, formerly Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and Pro-
fessor of Modern History, Royal Holloway College, University of
London, is now Professor of Classics and History at the University of
California, Berkeley. He is a Fellow of the British Academy; Fellow
of the American Association of the Arts and Sciences; Doctor of
Theology, honoris causa, Fribourg en Suisse; and Doctor of Humane
Letters, University of Chicago. His publications include Augustine
of Hippo: A Biography (1967); Religion and Society in the Age of
Saint Augustine (1972); The World of Late Antiquity (1972); The
Making of Late Antiquity (1978); The Cult of Saints (1980); and So-
ciety and the Holy in Late Antiquity (1982).
SIMON EVERARD DIGBY has been a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford,
since 1969 and he is a member of the Oriental Faculty at the Univer-
sity of Oxford. He has been honorary Librarian of the Royal Asiatic
Society of Great Britain and Ireland, London, since 1971. From 1973
to 1977 he served as Assistant Keeper in the Department of Eastern
Art, the Ashmolean Museum. He is the author of a series of papers
discussing aspects of sufi organization and hegemony in the thir-
teenth and fourteenth centuries, as well as of a monograph, War
Horse and Elephant in the Dehli Sultanate: A Study of Military
Supplies (1971), and an extended chapter on the maritime trade of
Xll CONTRIBUTORS
India (twelfth to fifteenth centuries A.D.) in the Cambridge Eco-
nomic History of India.
RICHARD M. EATON received his training in history at the University of
Virginia and the University of Wisconsin and obtained his Ph.D.
from the latter in 1972. He is Associate Professor of Oriental Studies
at the University of Arizona, Tucson. His major research interest is
the evolution of Islam in the Indian subcontinent. He is the author
of Sufis of Bijapur, 1300-1700: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval In-
dia and has contributed papers to professional journals and sym-
posia volumes.
KATHERINE EWING received her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from
the University of Chicago in 1980. Her dissertation, "The Pir or Sufi
Saint in Pakistani Islam," was based on eighteen months of research
in Pakistan. She has taught social sciences at the University of Chi-
cago and is currently receiving training at the Institute for Psycho-
analysis in Chicago.
DAVID GILMARTIN earned the doctorate at the University of California
at Berkeley and has taught Indian and Islamic history at the Univer-
sities of Arizona, California at Berkeley, and Washington. He also
directed the Berkeley Urdu Language Program in Pakistan. He has
published articles on Punjab politics and on the creation of Pakistan.
RICHARD KURIN received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the Univer-
sity of Chicago in 1981 for a dissertation entitled "Person, Family
and Kin in Two Pakistani Communities." He is interested in the
analysis of indigenous knowledge systems and has published articles
on Pakistani social structure, religious behavior, and rural develop-
ment. He has been a visiting assistant professor of anthropology and
community development at Southern Illinois University at Carbon-
dale since 1979.
IRA M. LAPIDUS is Professor of History and Chairman of the Center for
Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
He is the author of Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages and
many articles on social organization and religious values in Muslim
societies.
MUHAMMAD KHALID MASUD, formerly reader at the Islamic Research
Institute, Islamabad, is now a member of the Centre for Islamic
Legal Studies at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. His
main interest is Islamic law, history, philosophy, and sociology. He
is the author of Islamic Legal Philosophy, Mutala'a Fikr-e-Iqbal
(Urdu), Iqbal ka Tasawwur-e-Ijtihad (Urdu), and Deoband and So-
cial Change.
BARBARA D. METCALF, a research associate at the center for South/
Southeast Asia Studies, University of California, Berkeley, has
CONTRIBUTORS Xlll
taught history and South Asian studies at the University of Pennsyl-
vania and at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author
of Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900 (1982) as
well as of articles on religious change in South Asian Islam.
C.M. NAIM is Associate Professor of Urdu, University of Chicago, and
editor and publisher of the Annual of Urdu Studies. He has written
a number of articles on the Urdu language, Urdu literature, and the
cultural history of Muslim South Asia.
J.F. RICHARDS, Professor of History at Duke University, is a specialist
in the history of Mughal India. His publications include Mughal Ad-
ministration in Golconda-, an edited volume, Kingship and Au-
thority in South Asia-, and many articles on Mughal India. He is now
editing a volume devoted to the monetary history of Mughal India.
FRANCIS ROBINSON, sometime Prize Fellow of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, is now Lecturer in History, the Royal Holloway College,
University of London. His publications include Separatism Among
Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United Provinces' Muslims
1860-1923 (1974), Twentieth Century World History: A Select Bib-
liography (1979), and Atlas of the Islamic World since 1500 (1982).
His current work is on learned and holy men and the transmission of
Islamic culture in South Asia from the seventeenth to the twentieth
century.
BRIAN SILVER, Senior Preceptor in Urdu at Harvard University, has stud-
ied sitar with Ustad Ghulamhusain Khan of the Indore Gharana, and
has performed in concert, and on radio and television, in the United
States, Canada, Great Britain, Pakistan, and India.
 Note on Transliteration

The system of transliteration used in this volume is based on that used

for the Arabic language as given in the Encyclopaedia Britannica ("Ara-
bic Language," volume 2 of the 1972 edition, pp. 182-184). Other letters
have been added to represent the non-Arabic sounds of Persian and
Urdu. The full set of consonants used, leaving out the alif, is as follows
(in Urdu alphabetical order):
b, p, t, t, th,}, ch, h, kh, d, d, dh, r, r, z, s, sh,
s, d, t, z, c , gh, f, q, k, g, 1, m, n, w, h, y, '
It should be noted that the symbols for non-Arabic sounds correspond
relatively closely to the English sounds of the letters used for them,
with the exception of the letters t, d, and r, which have been used to
represent the retroflex sounds of Indie origin. These are used in place of
the more usual t, d, and r so as to avoid confusion of Indie sounds and
the "dark" sounds of Arabic.
It should also be noted that the ta marbuta of Arabic words has been
universally dropped, including those words that have, in Urdu, come to
be written with a ta. This leaves us with, for example, sunna rather
than either sunnah or sunnat. By this means, all words of identical
Arabic origin will appear in the same form in transliteration despite dif-
ferences in writing or pronunciation. As a further consequence of this
method of transliteration, the case indicators of Arabic words have
been dropped, and the vowel of the Arabic definite particle has been left
as a. The assimilation of the lam of the definite particle has, however,
been indicated, as in the title Tauba an-nasuh, or Munqidh min ad-
dalal.
The only exception to this form of transliteration is that used for the
term of address, hadrat, which should properly be rendered hadra, but
would then be virtually unrecognizable to those familiar with the ac-
tual use of that form among the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent.
 Introduction
BARBARA DALY METCALP i

The musical metaphor is ... much more apt for Muslim psycho-
therapy than the scientific metaphors of biology, psychology, or infor-
mation processing that govern contemporary Western psychotherapy.
With his self as the musical instrument whose many strings have been
tuned to the required pitch, when Baba plays the healing raga he is not
practising^ science but what Auden called "the intuitive art of wooing
Nature." The success of the "wooing" depends . . . on the person of the
healer. . . . In Baba's world-view, shared by his patients, a pir must
develop certain essential qualities if he is to be a successful wooer of
nature and a musician of healing. First, he must cultivate certain vir-
tues of character—purity of mind and body, truthfulness, a definite
detachment.2
Muslim societies have in certain historical settings formulated
theories of the development of personal character and put great
emphasis on the importance of its realization. Islam itself is a
religion permeated by the importance of moral exemplification,
above all, thai presented by the lives of prophets and saints. The
all-important, all-encompassing religious law of Islam is the
codification of the practice of the Prophet, who realized in his
life, more perfectly than other humans ever could, the revealed
truths of the Qur'an. Islam holds, in fact, that there were a series
1. I am grateful to Gerhard Bowering, Sandria Freitag, Warren Fusf eld, William
Graham, Ira Lapidus, Gail Minault, and William Roff for careful reading of
drafts of this introduction.
2. Sudhir Kakar, Shamans, Mystics and Doctors (New York: Alfred Knopf,
1982), p. 38.
2 INTRODUCTION
of perfect revelations, culminating in that entrusted to the
Prophet Muhammad, and that each revelation brought not only
a book but a prophet who was its exemplification, so that its
meaning would be intelligible and manifest. Later Muslims,
remembered in pious anecdote and story, created a living tradi-
tion of prophetic realization by their approximation to the ideal.
Moral fulfillment in this religious perspective, however, is not
limited to great figures of the past but is expected of those in the
present. Nor is it limited to those in inherited or appointed posi-
tions of power. In the quotation above, it is a humble and pious
healer, ministering to the poor, who has sought and is under-
stood to have achieved the character and characteristics that set
him apart and that are the basis for the respect and authority he
enjoys. It is his transformed being that permits him to be effec-
tive in what he seeks to do. At the basis of the valuation of moral
character is the conviction that Islam alone defines what hu-
mans ought to be. Those who fulfill Islam are most fully human.
The papers in this collection were conceived of as part of a
project to examine the 'bases of authority in South Asian Islam.
Of the many sources of authorltyT^this one of exemplification of
moral qualities seemed to us. of considerable importance. It is
potentially characteristic not only of religious leaders'in formal
positions* but of leaders in all realms, great and small, of social
and individual life. We approached this subject by singling out a
word that is at once a concept, a literary genre, and a quality of
personality, The term adab directed us toward consideration of
codes of behavior and values as well as of methods of personal
formation. By orienting our attention in this way, we were able
to explore core values of Islam as well as what are often implicit
theories of the way those values are apprehended and embodied.
Three-papers-okthe- collection included here .treat«ffdai>~in*its
classical-context. The^other^eoncelnft.he'Muslimsiof-South'^sia.
Of necessity, they only sample this large subject. They describe
adab as expressed in Persian, Urdu, and Panjabi; they focus pri-
marily on the literate and elites; and they exclude many occupa-
tional groups, among them the military, merchants, artisans,
physicians, and even kings. The topic invites further work, but
certain themes are already plain.
Adab in all its uses reflects a high valuation of the employ-
ment of the will in proper discrimination of correct order; behav-
INTRODUCTION 6
ior, and taste.3 It implicitly or explicitly distinguishes cultivated
behavior from that deemed vulgar, often defined as pre-Islamic
custom. Moral character is thus the fruit of deliberation and
effort. Adab means discipline and training. It denotes as well the
good breeding and refinement that results from training, so that
a person who behaves badly is "without adab" [be adab}. Adab
is the respect or deference one properly formed and trained shows
to those who deserve it. Thus the term is first encountered by
the Western visitor to South Asia in its form as-a greeting:
"Adabl"—"my respects." In other contexts this form, the plural,
generally defines rules or codes of behavior. In many modern
Muslim languages, adab has come to be used exclusively for lit-
erature—a derivation, presumably, from some original sense
that literature conveys proper knowledge for the cultivated.
We found this ideal of adab to be strikingly pervasive. The ar-
ticles that constitute the second section of this book stress the
dimension of the ideal that calls for personal and psychological
transformation toward an Islamic standard of values and behav-
ior. It finds its richest development in sufism. Inscribed on the
conference program was the following couplet, cited approvingly
by a late-nineteenth-century sufi:
turuq al-ishq kulluha adab
addib an-nafs ayyuha al-ashab
All the paths of love are adab
O discipline the will, Companions!4
Here true a dab in the idiom of mysticism are nothing less than
the way to the Divine. The person most fully realized is the per-
son closest to God. The term in this usage is difficult for us to
grasp because, although adab seems to refer to external behav-
ior, it in fact encompasses inner qualities as well.
Muslims argue that one can start with any Islamic tenet or
body of religious literature or ritual practice and be led unerr-
ingly to the same fundamental teachings of Islam. This cohesion
and replication is one dimension of the unity that is the funda-
mental symbol of Islam. We were somewhat surprised to find
3. For a general introduction to the term and bibliography of classical sources,
see R Gabrielli, "Adab/' El2.
4. Muhammad Ashraf CAH Thanawi, Adab i zindagi (Delhi, n.d.), p. 100.
4 INTRODUCTION
that even such a concept as a dab, often used so narrowly by
Western scholars, offered us this same range and richness. Ex-
pressed in sufi writings, implied in the practices of scholars and
saints, embedded in the widely varied literatures of the adab of
kings and courtiers, the adab of judges and muftis, the literature
of everyday pleasurable instruction, and manuals of religious
and moral advice for ordinary people, the concept of adab proves
to be a key to central religious concepts of South Asian Islam.
Two'themes seemed to us particularly noteworthy about these
Islamic notions of moral conduct. The*fir-st was the radical com-
prehensiveness of the concept. It is comprehensive in the sense
that its rules address all domains of life; it is also comprehensive
in its relentless desire to bring all society and all sorts and condi-
tions of humans into consonance with a common core of values
underlying all social roles. A smond^impoEtant theme was the
pervasiveness of theories of the person and of psychology evi-
dent in the concept and literatures of adab, a reflection of the
fundamental point that e,thical norms in this perspective are de-
fined as the development of personal character.
The comprehensive application of adab is evident in the cate-
gories of works of this genre. Books of adab, if not written for
Muslims in general, are addressed to particular social groups.
Thus there are works on adab or adab for princes, courtiers,
legal scholars and judges, physicians, musicians, housewives,
and, above all, sufi saints. The rubric has thus the value of en-
compassing groups of people who are often studied separately. It
encourages one to suspend judgment on the commonly held as-
sumption that there is a great gap between elite and popular
Islam. Indeed, we assume on this point the opposite, that there is
a general adab shared widely in Muslim society that underlies
the norms and activities of all other roles. As evident in the ex-
ample of Baba above, there is no notion that moral exemplifica-
tion, as in the Christian monastic tradition, comes only from
religious specialists set apart from the faithful. In fact, Islam
^cherishes the notion that the most perfectly realized person
of the age may be anyone—an artisan; a wandering, unkempt
faqli; a woman. The theory of adab at least assumes all Mus-
lims capable of spiritual discipline and realization.
The importance of the all-encompassing scope of adab was
particularly illuminated in the paper of Peter Brown, which com-
pared Islamic adab with Graeco-Roman and early Christian
INTRODUCTION
paideia. Both were comprehensive in the detailed domains of
life they addressed: "Far from being an exclusively intellectual
grooming, Graeco-Roman paideia was expected to show itself
immediately in body-posture, in the inflexion of the voice, in the
restriction of gestures, and even in the control of breathing." Yet
the striking difference, Brown argued, was that Islamic adab was
rooted in religious sanctions, as paideia was not, so that adab
not only required the internalization of norms from all spheres
of human activities but involved the inner and the spiritual life
in its fulfillment. In further contrast to later Christian notions of
personal transformation, Islam never opted for ascetic with- ,
drawal and abstention from aspects of worldly life, but rather saw
spiritual development as possible only through full experience
of everyday life. Such comprehensiveness of scope and appli-
cation may, Brown tentatively ventured, in fact account for the
continued momentum and possibilities for growth and adjust-
ment evident in Islam.
Brown also speculated that the distinctiveness of Islamic adab
may perhaps be the result of the historical experience of Mus-
lims as a dominant ruling minority throughout the world. In
such a situation, the comprehensiveness and depth of the culture
that defined the ruling elites would be of particularly great im-
portance. This theory is suggestive for the history of Muslims in
the Indian subcontinent. If adab evolved in part as the culture of
rulers over plural societies, that situation long continued in In-
dia. Moreover, in the modern period, when Muslims have lived
in the presence of not one but two alternative cultural tradi-
tions — the Hindu and the British — concern with adab has be-
come assertive and pervasive. As is well known, the loss of po-
litical power for Muslims in India was particularly early and
complete, and subsequent efforts at cultural renewal and self-
consciousness were many and diverse. Concern with issues of
personal embodiment of cultural ideals is a major strand in
many modern Indo-Muslim movements. Though further com-
parative work would of course be required to demonstrate it,
our impression is that a particularly strong cultivation of adab
and valuation of those embodying it is a hallmark of South Asian
Islam.
The theme of adab appears at an early period in the study pre-
sented here by Simon Digby of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih of Yusuf Gada.
Although written in the late fourteenth century to set out ethi-
 4 INTRODUCTION
that even such a concept as adab, often used so narrowly by
Western scholars, offered us this same range and richness. Ex-
pressed in sufi writings, implied in the practices of scholars and
saints, embedded in the widely varied literatures of the adab of
kings and courtiers, the adab of judges and muftis, the literature
of everyday pleasurable instruction, and manuals of religious
and moral advice for ordinary people, the concept of adab proves
to be a key to central religious concepts of South Asian Islam.
Two-themes seemed to us particularly noteworthy about these
Islamic notions of moral conduct. The*fir-st was the radical com-
prehensiveness of the concept. It is comprehensive in the sense
that its rules address all domains of life; it is also comprehensive
in its relentless desire to bring all society and all sorts and condi-
tions of humans into consonance with a common core of values
underlying all social roles. A sgeond«impor:tant theme was the
pervasiveness of theories of the person and of psychology evi-
dent in the concept and literatures of adab, a reflection of the
fundamental point that ethical norms in this perspective are de-
fined as the development of personal character.
The comprehensive application of adab is evident in the cate-
gories of works of this genre. Books of adab, if not written for
Muslims in general, are addressed to particular social groups.
Thus there are works on adab or adab for princes, courtiers,
legal scholars and judges, physicians, musicians, housewives,
and, above all, sufi saints. The rubric has thus the value of en-
compassing groups of people who are often studied separately. It
encourages one to suspend judgment on the commonly held as-
sumption that there is a great gap between elite and popular
Islam. Indeed, we assume on this point the opposite, that there is
a general adab shared widely in Muslim society that underlies
the norms and activities of all other roles. As evident in the ex-
ample of Baba above, there is no notion that moral exemplifica-
tion, as in the Christian monastic tradition, comes only from
religious specialists set apart from the faithful. In fact, Islam
cherishes the notion that the most perfectly realized person
\f the age may be anyone—an artisan; a wandering, unkempt
\fagli; a woman. The theory of adab at least assumes all Mus-
lims capable of spiritual discipline and realization.
The importance of the all-encompassing scope of adab was
particularly illuminated in the paper of Peter Brown, which com-
pared Islamic adab with Graeco-Roman and early Christian
INTRODUCTION 5
paideia. Both were comprehensive in the detailed domains of
life they addressed: "Far from being an exclusively intellectual
grooming, Graeco-Roman paideia was expected to show itself
immediately in body-posture, in the inflexion of the voice, in the
restriction of gestures, and even in the control of breathing." Yet
the striking difference, Brown argued, was that Islamic adab was
rooted in religious sanctions, as paideia was not, so that adab
not only required the internalization of norms from all spheres
of human activities but involved the inner and the spiritual life
in its fulfillment. In further contrast to later Christian notions of
personal transformation, Islam never opted for ascetic with-
drawal and abstention from aspects of worldly life, but rather saw
spiritual development as possible only through full experience
of everyday life. Such comprehensiveness of scope and appli-
cation may, Brown tentatively ventured, in fact account for the
continued momentum and possibilities for growth and adjust-
ment evident in Islam.
Brown also speculated that the distinctiveness of Islamic adab
may perhaps be the result of the historical experience of Mus-
lims as a dominant ruling minority throughout the world. In
such a situation, the comprehensiveness and depth of the culture
that defined the ruling elites would be of particularly great im-
portance. This theory is suggestive for the history of Muslims in
the Indian subcontinent. If adab evolved in part as the culture of
rulers over plural societies, that situation long continued in In-
dia. Moreover, in the modern period, when Muslims have lived
in the presence of not one but two alternative cultural tradi-
tions—the Hindu and the British—concern with adab has be-
come assertive and pervasive. As is well known, the loss of po-
litical power for Muslims in India was particularly early and
complete, and subsequent efforts at cultural renewal and self-
consciousness were many and diverse. Concern with issues of
personal embodiment of cultural ideals is a major strand in
many modern Indo-Muslim movements. Though further com-
parative work would of course be required to demonstrate it,
our impression is that a particularly strong cultivation of adab
and valuation of those embodying it is a hallmark of South Asian
Islam.
The theme of adab appears at an early period in the study pre-
sented here by Simon Digby of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih of Yusuf Gada.
Although written in the late fourteenth century to set out ethi-
6 INTRODUCTION
cal principles for the children of the ruling elites, it appears to
have had its greatest currency in the Deccan. There one can
imagine the need for such a text because of the shallower roots
of the Muslim cultural traditions and because of the great politi-
cal instability of the times. The author, Yusuf Gada, was a disci-
ple of the great Chishti saint, Nasir ad-din Mahmud. His work,
however, exemplifying Brown's point about the inclusiveness of
adab, reflects the piety and religious values expected even of a
man of the world. The treatise opens and closes with vivid es-
chatological descriptions in order to give a high seriousness to all
the teachings it imparts. In between, with seemingly a "single
level of meritoriousness," are linked injunctions on religious
observances, including sufi disciplines, on attitudes and values,
on worldly success, and on manners. A typical teaching partakes
of all. For example, with the adab of eating are coupled what we
can distinguish as medical advice ("if you eat when you are sated,
that food eats your heart and liver"), social propriety ("don't
stretch out your hand in front of others"), and piety ("eat food
with reverence, speak the name of God over each mouthful").
This is a work that envisions an active and prosperous worldly
life. Yet one is to measure every action, to seek religious knowl-
edge, and to live humbly: "He who performs service becomes a
lord with a crown on his head." In a period of political fragmenta-
tion and geographic mobility, the measure of one's life was ulti-
mately what in oneself one was.
The importance of shared norms of personal cultivation is evi-
dent throughout the papers here. A group for whom these norms
were especially important was that of the mufti or legal advisor,
discussed in a paper by Khalid Masud. Examination of the adab
of the mufti is striking because of the revisionist argument put
forth here that the authority of the mufti in fact rested wholly
on his personal qualities. Most historians have assumed the
mufti to have been an appointed official of the Mughal court,
whereas in fact, Khalid Masud argued, his authority rested pre-
cisely on his knowledge and his character. This persistent error
may be a reading back of British practice to an earlier time; it
may also be an inability to see the potential authority«that moral
attainments alone command. Respect for the mufti derived from
respect for the Law which he knew and, most explicitly in the
modern period, was expected to embody. The ideal mufti was to
discriminate proper hierarchy in all its forms: to know his own
INTRODUCTION /
place in relation to God, to knowledge itself, to great teachers of
the past, and to the petitioner. He was to value his own role, for
authority and respect were owed to him as they were to the Law.
The mufti was therefore enjoined to assert himself symbolically
over against all worldly powers, never giving them precedence
nor accepting office from them.
The same ideal of realization of Islamic qualities is evident in
material related to saints and princes, even though in both cases,
of course, personal distinctions were also inherited or trans-
ferred and status was derived from institutional position. But
embodiment of the human ideal obviously was expected, particu-
larly in the case of the religious leadership, for Islam holds in
contempt the person who claims to have intellectual knowledge
but does not realize it in his own life. Despite the division of
function between the religious and the political leader, however,
the ruler was often expected also to manifest Islamic qualities in
himself. A bad king is a bad Muslim. A good king is ascribed
saintly qualities. The relation is closer than metaphor, for the
ideal is that of the Prophet himself, leader in all aspects of life.
The ideal is approximated in Islamic movements that are led by
warriors or revolutionaries who embody the religious ideal.
The collection includes no papers on princes, but in our dis-
cussion we noted that the idiom of personal realization is often
used by rulers themselves and by those who wrote about them.
A tyrant, wrote Maulana Ismacil Shahid, is a ruler in whom
the nafs, the self that incites to evil, is preeminent.5 In contrast,
the sovereigns of the Delhi Sultanate were described by their
chroniclers as men of moral perfection. Baba Farid, as Eaton's pa-
per notes, bestowed turbans, the sign of spiritual perfection and
succession, on two of the Tughluq rulers. The writers cAfif and
Barani each depicted Firoz Shah as the qutb of his age.6 In
Mughal India the spiritual perfections of the monarch appear to
have been an important theme. John Richards's presentation on
the emperor Babur stimulated a lively discussion of the renun-
ciation of wine upon his entry into Hindustan.7 Whatever value
5. Quoted in Muhammad Mujeeb, The Indian Muslims (London, 1967),
pp. 391-92.
6. Peter Hardy, Historians of Medieval India: Studies in Indo-Muslim Histor-
ical Writing (London, 1960).
7. John Richards has not included his paper, which he presented for discussion,
in this collection. The memoirs are available in translation as Zahir ad-din
g INTRODUCTION
wine-drinking might have in some contexts, it was not fit for a
great king; and the Mughal renunciation of wine became an in-
separable element of imperial succession. The later Mughals
sought even more clearly some kind of religious role. Akbar's
claims are best known. Initially he acted in a caliphal role, medi-
ating among the 'ulama' and leading the prayer. Later he drew
more on the sufi tradition and the tradition of the immanence of
the Prophet's light; his chief publicist described him as a sufi
PIT, a qutb, hinting even that he might be the mahdi who would
restore mankind at the end of time.8 Using the theory of moral
perfection described below, Abu al-Fadl wrote of Akbar: "He
puts the rein of desire into the hands of reason. He sits on the
eminence of propriety."9 The king himself was thus a moral
exemplar.
Princes and saints share a stock of metaphors. If the prince
is described as a saint, the saint in turn is also a prince. The
great shaikhs were entitled shah; their hospices were known as
dargah; they were understood to exercise authority over a ter-
ritorial area, a wilaya. Holy men, like rulers, formed a hierarchic
order, but at their peak stood the qutb, the axis around whom
the universe revolved. Indeed, part of the respect accorded sufis
came from the very fact that they were seen as an alternative to a
temporal power that could press very heavily on all the king's
subjects. They always had, moreover, the potential of taking on
a political role, as exemplified by the eighteenth-century suc-
cessor of Baba Farid noted by Richard Eaton. This is not to say, as
Eaton's paper makes clear, that the ideal was always central, but
it was at least in the background.
Not only for king and saint, but for teacher, master craftsman,
and family head alike there were common moral expectations.
This is evident for those in authoritative positions within the
family, as suggested in the paper on the Bihishti zewar, as well
as for those in authority in teaching crafts and arts, as illustrated
in the paper on musicians. This indeed is one aspect of what we
Muhammad Babur Padshah Ghazl, Babui-Nama, translated from the original
Turiri text by Annette Susannah Beveridge (New Delhi, 1970), reprint of 1922
edition, two volumes in one.
8. See Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: History and Conscience
in a World Civilization (Chicago, 1974), 3:67-80.
9. Abu al-Fadl, the A'ln i akbari, trans. H. Blochmann and H. Jarrett (Calcutta,
1948-49), 5:3, 173.
INTRODUCTION 9
assume to be common expectations for leadership and common
modes of establishing authoritative relationships in all domains
of life. In all cases, leaders establish relationships with followers
through gifts, provision of food, bestowal of turbans, and taking
of oaths. At a symbolic level, authority at every level is one.
What were the moral expectations that were articulated for all
Muslims and, above all, for those in positions of authority? How
were they to be achieved? Reflection on these two questions
provided a second major theme of our discussions. Both in
the teachings of Islam conveyed in adab and in the method of
their realization we found unity, again, to be our central theme,
both coherence of all domains which are taught and coherence
in the intellectual, emotional, and physical experience of what
is learned.
The teachings of Islam are one. Thus there is no parallel to
(what is said to be) the theory in Hinduism that one can reach
salvation through different paths—of action, of knowledge, of
devotion. Here one can define three domains, shari'a (the Law),
tariqa (the way of the sufis), and adab, that are analytically dis-
tinguishable, that have their respective specialists, that can be
seen in tension with each other. Yet since all emerge, at core, as
attempts to codify and embody the practice of the Prophet, they
are ultimately the same in mainstream Islam. As Khalid Masud
argued, they share a common idiom and systernatization. All
three use the terminology—usul, furuc, ijtihad, ijmac—devel-
oped in the central system, that of shari'a. Adab became the ve-
hicle for transmission of training in sufism, and as adab i din, a
way of reaching toward greater completeness in Law by elaborat-
ing the sunna beyond what is legally required. Adab itself is
based on the teachings of the other two domains.
Further aspects of unity in these teachings were evident in our
discussions of how this training is attained. Whether one begins
with the Law, the Path, or Manners, each of necessity includes
the others. As Ira Lapidus argued in his paper, although major
classical thinkers of Islam may analytically distinguish among
an outer emphasis on the Law, an inner ethical disposition, and
the spiritual vision of God, it is clear that none is possible with-
out the others. Knowledge, they hold, is not true knowledge un-
less it is realized, for there is no concept of the detached intellec-
tual. Nor can one's inner self be untouched by what one knows
and hence by what one does. Consequently, adab may "mean"
10 INTRODUCTION
correct outer behavior, but it is understood as both cause of and
then, reciprocally, fruit of one's inner self. Knowing, doing, and
being are inescapably one.
The relation between the physical and spiritual self is closer
than one might expect. Several of the papers describe a theory
that humans possess two important faculties: caql, the faculty of
moral discrimination shared with the angels, on the one hand,
and nafs, the self in the sense of the will or, more typically, will-
ful principle, on the other. Both, generally speaking, are ex-
pected to coexist. Man's realization comes through cultivation
of caql and the consequent disciplining of the nafs. One seeks to
refine, not destroy, the nafs. It is the very tension, the process of
discrimination, the fact that there are choices to be made and
control to be exercised, that gives man's life its value. It is this,
not holy war, that is the "greater" jihad: .unceasing effort to dis-
criminate the boundaries set forth in the Qur'an and relentless
self-control in eschewing excess and living within them. Thus
Nadhir Ahmad (the late-nineteenth-century novelist discussed
by C. M. Nairn) echoed the widespread interpretation that the
Qur'anic "trust" given to man alone in all creation is precisely
the exercise of caql.
Training in this discrimination presupposes a subtle relation-
ship between the outer act and inward self. The central meta-
phor for personal development is that of habit or malaka through
which outer action transforms or colors the soul. Actions re-
flect true knowledge and actions create that truth. Divinely
revealed ritual actions, above all the attestation of faith, prayer,
fast, alms, and pilgrimage, act on man in ways beyond his com-
prehension, exactly, notes al-Ghazzali, as do magic charts and
the position of the stars.10 Obedience to legal injunctions gener-
ally is both a good in itself and the means to self-transformation,
for moral choices create a pattern that ultimately, if repeated
often enough, ideally makes it possible to act correctly without
even the process of reflection. Even feigned emotions serve a le-
gitimate end, for the Prophet himself taught that one should pre-
tend to weep if one did not do so naturally, in order to cultivate
the appropriate emotion.
These theories recur in South Asian Islamic texts. Shah Wall
10. W. Montgomery Watt, The Faith and Practice of al-Ghazali (Lahore, 1963
reprint), pp. 79-80.
INTRODUCTION 11
Allah, the great intellectual of eighteenth-century Delhi, wrote
that it is the Law that is the remedy for the nafs:
The human species combines two opposing faculties, the angelic and
the bestial. . . happiness lies in strengthening the former. . . . the crea-
tion of man is such that his self readily accepts the impressions of his
actions done with full deliberation. These very impressions cling to his
mind, constitute a part of it, continue with it even after his death, and
become part of his reward and punishment. Contrary is the case of the
animals. Whatever they do, the effect produced therefrom does not
cling to their minds."
And Richard Kurin, analyzing popular contemporary views of
heaven in Karachi and rural Panjab said, in discussion, much the
same:
If life in heaven illustrates anything, it is that actions make for new
people, and new people make for new actions. . . . In this light the dis-
tinction between internal and external, or inward and outward, is ob-
fuscated. The practice of good habits or proper action in this world
which stamp the soul and transform the person reaches apotheosis in
the next world.
Whether one is learning a craft, or poetry and language, or mu-
sic, or moral and spiritual qualities, the process of outer practice,
the creation of habit, and finally a realization of that process in
one's being is precisely the same.
In paper after paper, the central strategy for achieving this dis-
cipline was seen as the relationship to a worthy teacher. The re-
lation of sufl master and disciple is the model for the relation of
teacher and student in everything else: in crafts, in music, and in
religious scholarship. The relationship was most fully discussed
in the paper by Dr. Mohammad Ajmal, the psychologist, who ar-
gued the importance of discipleship for the focusing of oneself
through the elimination of distraction and conflict. Detailed
adab define the closeness and reciprocity of the relationship, as
Gerhard Bowering commented, "to the point that the ideal of the
master as a perfect man is internalized . . . and becomes some-
thing like an inner guide." Dr. Ajmal analyzed the classic rela-
tionship of the poet Rumi and his beloved Shams i Tabriz in
these terms, explaining that Shams i Tabriz had been a potenti-
ality within Rumi, externalized then later drawn back into him-
11. From the Altaf al-quds, quoted in G. N. Jalbani, The Teachings of Shah
Waliyullah (Lahore, 1967).
 12 INTRODUCTION
self, at which point he needed Shams i Tabriz no longer. The goal
of the training is not merely unity with one's shaikh, but unity
between God and theomorphic man: tauhid, Gerhard Bowering
suggested, on the level of experience.
The shaikh is only one of a company of great holy men who
have lived before and who still present a living reality for those
who share in this tradition. We were disabused of the assump-
1 tion that the Muslims we study share our view of the past. For
j^tljem, like medieval Christian thinkers, the past "differed from
the present only by being better."12 The culama of Farangi Ma-
hall, as described by Francis Robinson, live in the company of
their forebears. The followers of Baba Farid, described by Richard
Eaton, knew him still to be present: Ibn Battutah "met him"
long after his death. The Tuhfa i nasa'ih was attributed to Gesu
Daraz (and not to the disciple who wrote it). By belonging to the
company of living saints, Peter Brown noted, men otherwise en-
meshed in the complex ties of patronage and hierarchy basically
belonged to no one.
It was in fact this psychological freedom, offered by disci-
plined training, to which we circled back again and again in our
final discussion on the papers of Dr. Ajmal and the musician
Brian Silver, for there we saw music as analogous to mysticism.
Specific codes of conduct, of discipline, of grammar and rules, far
from being repressive, were seen to permit one to transcend one's
self, to lose one's self in favor of creativity and true freedom. It is
that transcendence, that freedom from confusion, conflict, and
conscious deliberation, that is understood by one's audience as
the very basis and source of moral authority. The perfected indi-
vidual represents not only the embodiment of the received tradi-
tion, but by interpretation and choice of elements within its rep-
ertoire confirms its current relevance and immediacy as well.
In our papers and discussions we thus focused primarily on
that style of adab that represents an Islamic ideal. Three papers
included in this volume (those of Richards, Nairn, and Silver) re-
mind us, however, that in many settings the content of adab is
cosmopolitan and shared by non-Muslims as well. It is this di-
mension of adab that in fact is best known. This cosmopolitan
adab defines the proper discrimination of social order, behavior,
12. C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Re-
naissance Literature (Cambridge, 1974 reprint), p. 185.
INTRODUCTION 13
and taste? it espouses principles of breeding and nurture; and it is
sustained by deference toward those who embody its norms. Its
norms may at times be unself-consciously assimilated into a
Muslim religious style. Indeed, Muslims may sanction the same
codes by Islamic norms that others sanction by Hindu or other
norms. Adab typically includes strands that can be identified as
un-Islamic and that are at times condemned as contradictory to
the Islamic ideal.
From Mughal times on, India has been particularly distin-
guished by its association of Muslim and non-Muslim ruling
elites in a common Persianate or Indo-Muslim cultural style.
The Persianate theory of kingship has been especially problem-
atic in Islamic religious thought. Its glorification of the ruler can
be seen as an affront to the humility and deference that are de-
scribed above as quintessential to the moral perfections of Islam.
At times this contradiction has been ignored, and at other times
thinkers have sought resolutions. Barani, the fourteenth-century
courtier, argued that the salvation of the king was in fact in peril
precisely because he had to wield absolute power. His only hope
was to use his powers for the purposes of Islam. Bichitr, the art-
ist, portrayed a solution to this tension, one might argue, by
showing Jahangir gazing transfixed at the successor of Khwaja
Mucin ad-Din Chishti, to whom he is handing a book, while the
cherubs bearing instruments of war flee and worldly monarchs
stand humbly by: the inner Jahangir is absorbed in the lift of the
darwesh.13 In Barani, non-Islamic behavior is used to good ends;
in Bichitr, the royal and the spiritual are compartmentalized. A
third and pervasive solution is simply to subject the non-Islamic
to relentless Islamicization, as John Richards illustrated by his
examination of the Suluk al-muluk, a text for princes written in
the unstable world of sixteenth-century central Asia.14 In one
manuscript the work is tellingly subtitled Adab al-qadi, for it is
largely directed to educating the king to provide a framework for
Islamic justice.
The shared court ethic of the elite is illustrated in John Rich-
13. Richard Ettinghausen, "The Emperor's Choice," in De Artibus Opuscula
(XL), Essays in Honor of Irwin Panofsky, ed. Millard Meiss (New York, 1961),
1:98-120.
14. The work is available in English translation: Muhammad Aslam, Muslim
Conduct of State, based upon the Suluk al-muluk of Fadi Allah ibn Ruzbihan
IsfaMm; Islamabad, 1974.
14 INTRODUCTION
ards's paper on the Hindu Rajput mansabdar Bhimsen. Bhirnsen
valued certain qualities of honor, pride, deference, and loyalty
that he held in common with his fellow Muslim courtiers. He
attributed a divine, albeit not Islamic, sanction to this system of
values and to the existing political system. Rajput and Persian
norms overlapped and were legitimized by all in some transcen-
dent system. The same Aurangzeb was an Islamic exemplar to
Muslims and a noble Rajput to Bhimsen. However legitimized,
shared customary norms united the ruling class.
The adab of musicians discussed by Brian Silver seems much
the same in its comprehension of values that could be shared by
Muslim and non-Muslim and yet could be infused by religious
values and norms. The ideal personal qualities, the relationship
of the teacher and pupil, the particular rituals that mark instruc-
tion are part of a shared musical culture. Some of its aspects are
potentially problematic. As in the culture of courtiers and elites
generally, the adab of musicians can be characterized by the
pride and hauteur of the noble sharif, an element in conflict
with religious norms of humility but susceptible to rationaliza-
tion in this milieu as in the princely. Some customs, like the
thread-tying of initiation and other rituals, can be seen in con-
flict with Islamic norms. Some lyrics could no doubt be judged
unacceptable. The adab of musicians illustrates particularly
well the diverse strands characteristic of any form of adab that
can coexist despite potential tension. As a whole the system can
unite a group while at the same time having somewhat different
meaning for its various members.
Tensions do at times prevail as is evident from the discussion
of the late-nineteenth-century novels of Deputy Nadhir Ahmad
by C. M. Nairn. The Tauba an-nasuh in particular rejects the
shared cultural values of the Persianized Hindu-Muslim elites as
exemplified in the life of the ne'er-do-well Kalim. His poetry and
games and pigeons, each the product of cultivation and re-
finement of a particular sort, are deemed as outmoded as the
princely state where Kalim meets his end. In part, Nadhir Ahmad
seems to hold out in contrast the adab of the Islamic ideal in
which the goal is a disciplined life of religious obligation and rit-
ual to define relationships to God and to other humans. But his
is adab with a difference. In contrast to other contemporary
thinkers like Ashraf cAli Thanawi, he values elements of British
culture. This does not mean only, however, that the cosmopoli-
INTRODUCTION 15
tan non-Islamic element in adab has shifted from Persian to
British. Instead, by incipient suggestions that all religions are of
equal value—translate Tauba into Panjabi and change a few
words to make it suitable for Sikhs—he steps outside the tradi-
tional valuation of Islam toward a more relative or pluralistic
one. And secondly, by attempting, as Nairn describes, compart -
mentalization of domains in his books—ethics in one, practical
wisdom in another, religion in a third—he hints at the contrac-
tion of religious principles to a separate domain that has been a
major theme in the history of the Christian West. Here is indeed
a cosmopolitan adab.
If adab is shaped from above by a superregional, cosmopolitan
culture, it is also shaped from below by the local and regional.
This, as C. M. Nairn noted, is often "one's past." Even if legit-
imized in part as customary law (cada or curf) or by other ra-
tionalization, local practices carry with them the ambiguity that
the phrase implies. For South Asia this would be particularly
true of what is seen as Hindu or regional in origin. Richard Kurin
made the striking suggestion that the contrast is sometimes
seen as similar to that of caql and nafs, with the regional culture
seen as the more impulsive, more childlike, more in possession
of nafs than of <aql. His insight finds echoes in the poetry of the
thirteenth-century mystic Jalal ad-Din Rumi, as presented in the
recent study of Anneniarie Schimmel where one symbol of the
nafs is the Hindu.15 The Hindu, Professor Schimmel explains,
just like the nafs, can be useful. On other occasions Rumi calls
the other world Turkestan, site of the green spring migration,
and the world of clay and water is dark Hindustan. Regional and
ethnic values are at times seen as a source of tension for Islamic
values and their exclusion is a major theme in the modern period.
Adab not only comprises various strands within itself but
is also potentially challenged by other Islamic religious styles.
Within Islam itself there is a repertoire of paradigms or styles
of which adab, in the sense of embodiment of ethical norms
through intellectual knowledge, spiritual cultivation, and cor-
rect behavior, is only one. In other social and temporal milieus,
there have been emphases that do not give priority to moral con-
duct. Of these, two are significant. One, of great cultural impor-
15. Annemarie Schimmel, The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works of ]a-
laloddin Rumi (London, 1978), pp. 193-95.
 16 INTRODUCTION
tance, is the onediational. This stresses direct access to divine
power and guidance through the blessing inherent in sufi saints
who intervene on behalf of the spiritual and material needs of
those who trust in them. A second emphasis, discussed but not
taken up in any of the papers, is that of metaphysical speculation
which focuses on intellectual understanding of cosmological re-
alities on the part of the elite. None of these three modes is ex-
clusive but Muslims on some occasions have made one or the
other central.
Richard Eaton's paper on the shrine of Baba Farid well illus-
trated sources of authority outside that of personal realization.
The shrine itself acquired importance because of its role in in-
corporating recently sedentarized tribes into a larger social and
political framework, legitimizing central political authority,
and being patronized and validated in return. The shrine served
as a focus of a religion of saintly intercession and not of moral
exemplification.
Yet even a shrine like this one, it is clear, continued to repre-
sent the qualities conveyed by the training of adab. Pilgrims,
whatever their material goal, knew and valued the moral quali-
ties of the original saint. They aspired to those qualities through
the very process of a lirninal discarding of worldly bonds and
identities in pilgrimage. The image of the saint persisted over
time. The shrine and its shaikhs, moreover, always had the po-
tential of reasserting the qualities of moral conduct. To illustrate
this, David Gilmartin's paper covered the recent history of the
very same shrine when legal succession disputes indicated in-
creased expectations that the worthy heir embody exemplary
personal qualities.
The most explicit and dramatic alternative to adab within Is-
lam is that posed by the malangs, the sufis who ignore the
limits of the Law, who were discussed in a paper by Katherine
Ewing. They flout all conventional behavior and all involve-
ment in the ordinary institutions of social life. They deny the
existence of the body and believe they eliminate the nafs. They
hope thus to be passive recipients of direct communications
from God. Yet even they, Ewing argued, in a sense have an adab
of their own. They live in a close brotherhood regulated by hier-
archic codes of ritualized etiquette, thus sharing in the general
style of authoritative relationships. Moreover they are, in a sense,
INTRODUCTION 17
regarded by other Muslims as exemplars of values they them-
selves hold. The malangs epitomize the detachment that all de-
sire. They think of themselves as women married to God, yet
mainstream sufis, as well, foster that same relationship, sym-
bolized in the curs, the "marriage with God" which is death. The
malangs carry shared values to their extremes. As a result, some
believe that among them are the true saints, the hidden abdal, of
every age. They are accorded space at festivals of shrines of
mainstream plis. Ordinary Muslims, above all childless women,
beseech them for intercession. Much the same pattern of uncon-
ventional sufism was evident in a paper on the qalandars of
fourteenth-century Delhi presented by Simon Digby on the day
preceding the conference. We were struck by evident similarities
in both cases and by the fact that the presence of those who ex-
plicitly reversed the conventions of adab is most evident in peri-
ods when adab is most elaborated.
One of the major themes of our discussion—one of particular
interest to the historian—was to ask when it is that the image of
the morally realized individual is explicit and self-conscious. As
our discussions progressed we began to see that societies and in-
dividuals hold at any given time a repertoire of elements which,
as social realities change, explicitly or implicitly are reworked
and shifted. Most of the time, perhaps, individuals live without
self-conscious attention to the integrity and coherence of their
values, but in times of crises and change, lines are drawn and
values explored. The very existence of the rules and directives of
adab suggests a multiplicity of potential systems of values asso-
ciated with social and occupational roles; ethnic and regional
values; aesthetic, cosmopolitan, and scientific modes of thought;
and even alternate ways of being religious.
One period when moral codes were important was that of the
post-Abbasid period discussed by Digby and Bowering. Gerhard
Bowering reminds us, for example, that "The roots of sufism in
religious practice and conduct enabled sufism to persist as a uni-
fying bond and a force of renewal within Islamic society from
the 6th/12th to the 8th/14th century when the traditional order
of Islamic society was in a state of fragmentation." Although
the foundation was laid earlier it was in these decades that
the detailed distinguishing adab of the various orders were
formulated.
18 INTRODUCTION
Most of our examples of this emphasis, however, came from
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the Indian politi-
cal system was in crisis and the foundations of the culture were
called into question. Francis Robinson's paper on the 'ulama' of
Farangi Mahall, my own on the Bihishti zewai as a text of right
conduct for women, and David Gilmartin's on the succession at
the shrine of Baba Farid all pointed to this theme. It is even pos-
sible that the conceptions of paradise of humble Pakistanis, pre-
sented by Richard Kurin, also derive from a new widespread em-
phasis on these norms. The 'ulama' of Deoband and Farangi
Mahall and the pfrs of Taunsa Sharif represent in varying ways
the concern of the religious leadership for guarding the tradition
at a time without overarching temporal Muslim institutions
and, particularly in the former case, a concern not only with em-
bodying moral standards themselves but also with disseminat-
ing them as the basis of a Muslim identity.
An emphasis on personal transformation is, of course, as noted
above, part of the larger trend toward self-conscious, scripturally
based reform characteristic not only of South Asian Muslims
but of Muslims in general in modern times. Although this is not
the place to explore this development at length, a number of
very suggestive points were made about why movements toward
reformist Islam have been so pervasive in South Asia. The situa-
tion of the religious elites was particularly stressed. Edmund
Burke, in his comments, pointed to the importance of the frame-
work set for religious leaders by the British colonial state, which
at once brought forth a response from the culama' to defend their
faith (and interests) and simultaneously, by its communal and
high culture idiom in issues of education, justice, and politics,
created conditions in which a religious leadership could flourish.
Moreover, the traditional landed and educated elites, far from
being undermined, often prospered. This presented a dramatic
contrast, Burke suggested, to the situation of the Ottoman reli-
gious leadership, who were tainted by their cooptation by the po-
litical system. It differed as well from the Moroccan case, where
the domain of religious leadership was progressively restricted
and controlled by the French authorities.
This religious elite, moreover, sought to define moral stan-
dards for increasingly large segments of the population. David
Gilmartin, in discussion, pointed to a fundamental structural
reason for this change:
INTRODUCTION 19
The reformers in the modem period . . . are less concerned with elites
because it is not just the elites who provide the cultural basis for the
political system; rather there are larger groups of people who are now
involved. This becomes particularly important in the late nineteenth
and twentieth centuries when the political system itself, as the British
are devising it, becomes more and more democratic. Sovereignty no
longer resides only in a sovereign who himself is the protector of a cul-
tural system, but resides in the people themselves. The people must
conform, in the reformist view, to Islamic standards.
Katherine Ewing carried this point into the contemporary period
in Pakistan by noting that the government's Auqaf Department
has attempted to take over the shrines itself and relegate the cur-
rent pirs to the position of caretakers. Authority is said to reside
in the government on the one hand and in the people as a voting
population on the other. There should be no intermediary be-
tween the government and the individual nor between the peo-
ple and God. The corollary to this, she suggested, is the current
attempt to legislate Islamic values. This concern with values is
furthered by the association of adab with respectability, so that
cultivation of Islamic norms becomes a central element in social
mobility.
Among those now to be educated are Muslim women, a con-
cern evident in the paper on the Bihishti zewai of the Deobandi
Ashraf cAli Thanawi. Through exactly the same kind of teach-
ings on the nature of the self and its means of training that were
characteristic of the classical tradition, women were enjoined to
exercise reasoned control so as properly to play their social and
religious role, fulfilling their carefully calibrated reciprocal ob-
ligations to other people and fulfilling their responsibility to
God. They then are accorded the respect owed to all who show
disciplined control. The importance of this seemed the greater
given conventional notions expressed, as Simon Digby reminded
us, throughout the traditional ethical and poetic literature, of
women's being less guided by reason and likely to distract men
from reasonable behavior too. William Roff noted that the nafs
(as hawa nafsu) in Indonesia is identified with women as, in-
deed, it appears in similes in the poetry of Rumi.
But simultaneous with attention to Islamic norms is of course
the diffusion of aspects of Western culture. How successful, how
resilient, is the system of transmission of Islamic values in that
context? The case of the novelist Nadhir Ahmad, noted above,
20 INTRODUCTION

suggestively raised this issue. But more work needs to be done Part One
on "the adab of contemporary Muslims, whether in India, Paki-
stan, or Bangladesh, who are living in a modern economic and
technical environment yet seek to behave as Muslims."16 CLASSICAL ADAB
Despite the reminder of the contemporary currents that may
obviate the continuance of this conception of adab, our empha-
sis throughout was on its persistence and in particular on the
personal and social integrity it engendered. The importance of
this for Muslim societies is that change can take place within
the context of a classical civilization which continues through a
diversity of times, places, and situations. Our interest in these
discussions focused primarily on the personal and psychological
dimension of what it meant to be formed in this tradition. In dis-
cussing the meaning of Islamic adab, we were impressed with
its self-conscious deliberateness, its demanding standards, and
the satisfaction that is derived from its mastery; the resultant
freedom derived from elimination of conflict; the sense of living
strength from perceived continuity with the past; the sense of
wholeness that comes from embracing all knowledge and all ex-
perience within a single paradigm of meaning. Muslims have
made moral exemplification a cornerstone of cultural continuity,
particularly, it appears, in periods of perceived social and politi-
cal dislocation. To study the importance, elaboration, and audi-
ence of this religious perspective in various settings is clearly a
key to significant dimensions of both the inner and outer life of
Muslim peoples, and in particular to the profound capacities
within Islam to respond to and to generate change. The papers
included here make a contribution to understanding these fun-
damentally important Islamic themes.

16. In a personal communication from Peter Hardy.

 1
Late Antiquity and Islam:
Parallels and Contrasts

PETER BROWN

Not long after the Second World War, under the influence of
events that he, like so many of his European contemporaries had
witnessed at first hand, and under which he had himself suf-
fered, that master of the cultural history of late antiquity, Henri
Irenee Marrou, wrote a concluding chapter to the survey of Hel-
lenistic education in his History of Education in Antiquity.
Placed as it is in the middle of the book, it is a justification of the
contemporary relevance of his enterprise:
There needs to be a pause for consideration. Hellenistic education is
not simply something that has passed away, it has been—it has had
being—and we cannot consider ourselves to have finished with it until
we have made some attempt to ponder its essence and understand its
value.1
What follows is a deeply felt evocation of the aims of a whole
system of education and a confrontation of its aims with the ro-
mantic cult of originality and with the obsession with progress
in the technical sciences that form the paradigm of modern Eu-
ropean educational ideals, a paradigm against which all other

1. H. I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, trans. George Lamb

(New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956), p. 217.
24 CLASSICAL ADAB
forms of culture—that of the Hellenistic age included—tend to
be set and judged wanting. The confrontation is all the more con-
vincing as Marrou, writing immediately before the war, had
tended to dismiss the cultural ideals of the Hellenistic age and
their direct late antique continuation, as irremediably "deca-
dent"—as traditionalist, piecieux, bookish, and profoundly
antiscientific.2
What he now presented is the essence of a great traditional
culture as it existed along the shores of the Mediterranean for
over eight hundred years.
It is a mistake to say, as is often said by its detractors, that it was "born
with its head back to front," looking back to the past. It is not au-
tumnal, tormented with nostalgic regrets for a vanished spring. On the
contrary, it looks upon itself as firmly established in an unchanging
present, in the full blaze of a hot summer sun. It knows what mighty
reserves it possesses, what past masters it has had. The fact that these
appeared at certain moments of time, under the influence of certain
historical forces, is unimportant; what matters is that they exist and
can be rediscovered in the same way, again and again, by each succes-
sive generation.3
Such massive traditionalism was the precondition of the amaz-
ing cohesion of Graeco-Roman civilization:
For in the last resort classical humanism was based on tradition, some-
thing imparted by one's teachers and handed on unquestioningly . . . it
meant that all the minds of one generation, and indeed of a whole his-
torical period, had a fundamental homogeneity which made communi-
cation and genuine communion easier.4
Above all, this was a culture that aimed at realizing a single hu-
man ideal from which all valid human achievements were held
to radiate, and without which they were of no value: "this is the
true humanism—this emphasis on the social aspect of culture,
on the danger of any activity that tends to be self-enclosed and
aloof from the ordinary intercourse of daily life."5
Twenty years later, a similar disquiet and a sense of the
limited applicability of our own Western paradigms have led
2. H. I. Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique (Paris: de Boc-
card, 1937); Retractatio (Paris: deBouccard, 1949).
3. Marrou, History of Education, p. 161.
4. Ibid., p. 224.
5. Ibid., p. 223.
LATE A N T I Q U I T Y A N D I S L A M 25
scholars to look with far greater sympathy than previously, no
longer, as Marrou once did, at the alien past of Europe itself, but,
now, outside Europe, at the alien present of the intellectual elites
of the Third World. Nowhere is this more true than in the case
of Islam.
It is therefore from this perspective—a limited one, given the
superabundance of the work made available at this seminar, but,
I trust, not a totally misplaced one—that I wish to comment on
some of the papers that I have had the time to think over. First,
because as a historian of the culture of late antiquity and the
early Middle Ages, I have long been concerned with the societies
that would abut the Islamic world of the Middle Ages, and with
the earlier forms of those traditions that would contribute to the
new Islamic synthesis. Second, because the dominant theme of
so many of the papers is one which had long preoccupied late
antique and, in different terms, medieval people—as Barbara
Metcalf calls it, "the creation of a kind of person." Third, quite
frankly, as a non-Islamicist but a layman, I am concerned not
simply to garner a rich crop of acceptable interdisciplinary in-
sights and erudition: the fate of contemporary Islam and the na-
ture of European estimates of the cultural and spiritual resources
of contemporary Islamic societies do concern me deeply. After
all, the question "Whither late antiquity?" has been answered for
the last thousand years, but the question "Whither Islam?" has
not yet been answered.
In the first place, historians of late-antique culture have come
increasingly to realize the seriousness of the Greek ideal of
paideia as this was operative among the elites of the Hellenistic
and Roman world. Far from being a mere intellectual decoration,
it has been revealed to carry with it many of the assumptions of
the classical Muslim concept of adab as this has been set out by
Ira Lapidus, and it was brought to bear in analogous situations.
A few decades ago, it was sufficient to speak of the literary cul-
ture of late antiquity less in terms of its intrinsic merits or aims
than in terms of its function: it preserved the cohesion of the
educated elites; it added cultural weight to social distance; it fa-
cilitated the recruitment and expansion of elites, by offering a
common badge of status that could be easily appropriated; and,
as a result, it eased the relations between the traditional upper
classes and their succession of new masters. My World of Late
26 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
Antiquity contains an elegant condensation, in only four pages
(with illustrations), of this view/ which is basically insufficient.
It is insufficient because it assumes that, throughout, there was
a "machine of government" whose actions were camouflaged or
facilitated by a decor of literary culture, a common paideia to
which all the educated governing class paid lip service. In fact,
what this view overlooks is that, in late antiquity—and, indeed,
in most of the ancient and medieval world—there was no such
thing as a "machine of government"; there was only a network
of interpersonal relations that was government.7 Plainly, in such
a situation, the "creation of a kind of person" by means of a tradi-
tional culture was a serious matter. The relations between gov-
erned and governors, from relations with an imperial court to
the treatment of slaves, depended on the claim of traditional
paideia to mould the raw human nature of the educated elites.8
Young noblemen should not toss professors in a blanket, said Li-
6. Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity (New York: Harcourt Brace,
1972), pp. 29-33, in which I followed, especially, A. Alfoldi, A Conflict of
Ideas in the Late Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), pp. 96-124,
and Ramsay MacMullen, "Roman Bureaucratese," Traditio 18 (1962): 364-78.
See also J. F. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court: A.D.
364-425 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), pp. 69-87; Fritz S. Pedersen, "On
Professional Qualifications for Public Posts in Late Antiquity," Classica et Me-
dievalia 31 (1975): 161-213; Ramsay MacMullen, Roman Government's Re-
sponse to Crisis: AD 235-337 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976),
pp. 48-53; D. Nellen, Viii Litterati. Gebildetes Beamtentum und spdtro-
mischer Reich im Westen zwischen 284 und 395 n. Chi. (Bochum: N. Brock-
meyer, 1977); J. J. O'Donnell, Cassiodorus (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1979), pp. 33-102. Late-antique parallels for the recruitment and culture
of the administrative elites of the medieval Islamic world have only recently
been exploited: D. O. Morgan, "Cassiodorus and Rashid al-Din on Barbarian
Rule in Italy and Persia," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Stud-
ies 40 (1977): 302-20.
7. P. Veyne, Le Pain et le cirque (Paris: Le Seuil, 1976), p. 638: "Les options
politiques de 1'Antiquite n'etaient pas ou nous les chercherions, dans les pro-
grammes rivaux de politique constitutionnelle ou bien sociale, et elles etaient
ou nous ne les chercherions pas, dans les options administratives ou encore
dans la modalite d'obeissance, dans le style de commandement." Neglect of
this caution accounts for mounting bibliography and small progress in the po-
litical history of the Roman Empire. Fergus Millar, The Empezor in the Roman
World (London: Duckworth, 1977), pp. 203-72, is an impressive marshaling of
the evidence for the intensely personal nature of the exercise of imperial power.
8. Compare Hsiao-Tung Fei, Chinese Gentry (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1953), p. 36: "Such men did not try to control political power in their
own interest but endeavored rather to put forward a set of ethical principles
which should restrict the force of political power."
LATE A N T I Q U I T Y A N D I S L A M 27
banius of Antioch, the great fourth-century teacher, nor should
they brutalize artisans and shopkeepers: "it is unworthy of those
being formed by education."9 The cultural achievements of late
Roman governors played an increasing role in honorary inscrip-
tions; for common exposure to the sweetening influence of the
Muses and the restraints of an upper-class deportment were, in
fact, the only guidelines for the exercise of power.10 Hence the
genuine disquiet with which late Roman men, when divided by
political interest or religion, eyed each other for those tell-tale
symptoms of a failing of grooming. The Emperor Julian sincerely
believed that, from studying the Christian scriptures, "no man
could attain to excellence or even to ordinary goodness."11 Re-
paying him in his own coin, Gregory Nazianzen recalls how,
watching the young Julian as a student in Athens, he could
know that here was a man on whom the benign immunization of
paideia would not "take": those restless eyes, that heavy breath-
ing in the nose, the shuffling gait, the bursts of uncontrolled
laughter—these were symptoms of behavior that would erupt
disastrously, in Julian the Emperor, in the form of shouting in the
judgment hall, kicks and buffets for petitioners, cheeks disgust-
ingly distended to blow on the sacrificial fires12—all explosions
of anomalous actions in a man who had not been groomed to re-
strain his feelings, like an awesome, polished statue, through the
rigors of a correct deportment common to an emperor and his
educated subjects.13
Thus, to use Ira Lapidus's telling phrases, for a late-antique
gentleman quite as much as for the Muslim follower of adab,
"life itself is a work of art" and "life is ceremony," Far from being
9. Libanius, Oratio 58: 4-5, ed. R. Forster (Leipzig: Teubner), 4:183.
10. L. Robert, "Epigrammes du Bas-Empire," Hellenica 4 (1948): 35-110; I.
Sevcenko, "A Late Antique Epigram," Synthronon: an et archeologie de la fin
de 1'Antiquite et du Moyen age. Recueil d'etudes par Andre Grabar et un
groupe de ses disciples (Paris: Klincksieck, 1968), pp. 29-41; P. J. Parsons,
"The Grammarian's Complaint," Collectanea Papyrologica. Texts Published
in Honor of H. C. Youtie (Bonn: Habelt, 1976), p. 420: a small-town gram-
marian approaches the emperor because of "your fellowship with the Muses
(for Education sits beside you on the throne)."
11. Julian, Against the Galilaeans, 229 DE, trans. W. C. Wright, The Works of
the Emperor Julian, Loeb Classical Library (New York: Putnam, 1953), 3:385.
12. Gregory Nazianzenus, Oratio 5: in Julianum 23, ed. J. P. Migne, Patro-
logiae cuisus completus. Series graeca 35:692B.
13. M. P. Charlesworth, "Imperial Deportment," Journal of Roman Studies 37
(1947): 34-38.
28 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
an exclusively intellectual grooming, Graeco-Roman paideia
was expected to show itself immediately in body posture, in the
inflection of the voice, in the restriction of gestures, and even in
the control of breathing.14 As in Lapidus's definition of the aim of
adab, "All human actions have to be channelled into correct
forms of behavior which eliminates undirected, idiosyncratic, ir-
rational, private expressions of feeling."15 Its restraints were inti-
mate, all-embracing, and, on occasion, crushing: Metrocles, the
disciple of Theophrastus, wanted to die when once he farted in a
public lecture.16
These considerations would lead me to pay far more attention
than I have done so far to those figures in late-antique society
whose moral authority stemmed from the belief that they had
fully internalized and made their own the exacting disciplines of
paideia. These were the "saints of culture." Up to now I had con-
centrated largely on the ascetic holy man who, as a hermit, took
up his stance as mediator and arbitrator outside society.17 But
the late-antique philosopher, also, enjoyed an influence far out
of proportion to his highly technical and inward-looking profes-
sion precisely because he summed up in his person the dearly
wished-for effectiveness of norms of deportment current inside
society. He stood at the "core" of late-antique upper-class cul-
ture. He summed up in his person ideals that his fellows,
through neglect and through the bitter compromises of public
life, had realized only incompletely. He was the alter ego of the
educated elite.18 If we look at the grave figures of the Muses, of
scholars, of bare-chested philosophers, of solemn children sur-
rounded by ancient mentors on the Roman sarcophagi of the
third century, we gain some idea of the strain that such a belief
14. A. J. Festugiere, Antioche paienne et chretienne (Paris: de Boccard, 1959),
pp. 217-24, is a brilliant characterization by a past master of Greek religion
and culture.
15. Ira Lapidus, in chapter 2 of this book.
16. Diogenes Laertius, De clarorum philosophorum vitis, 6.94, ed. C. G. Cobet
(Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1878), p. 155; Festugiere, Antioche, p. 220.
17. Peter Brown, "The Rise and Function of the Holy Man," Journal of Roman
Studies 61 (1971): 80-101: now in Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 103-52; and The Making
of Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 81-101.
18. Peter Brown, "The Philosopher and Society in Late Antiquity," Colloquia
of the Center for Hermeneutical Studies 36 (Berkeley, Graduate Theological
Union, 1979) and Philosophers and Monks: Renunciation, Culture and So-
ciety in Late Antiquity (forthcoming).
LATE A N T I Q U I T Y A N D I S L A M 29
imposed.19 For these are the tombs of men who had remained
caught up in public life until their death. One of the most im-
pressive encloses a young aristocrat who had served in the army
of the Emperor Gallienus.20 These silent figures are the ghosts of
what each dead man might have been.
The deeper we enter into the common ground between late-
antique paideia and Islamic adab, the more sympathy we gain
for the refusal of men in great classical civilizations to put their
faith in any safeguard other than the patient and intimate groom-
ing of the behavior of their elites, and for the faith that such
grooming can happen, can be seen to happen, and can be re-
peated in every generation. Yet, no sooner have we entered with
sympathy into this common concern than the difference be-
tween Islam and the Graeco-Roman world springs to the eye.
Though often brought to bear on men of deep religious belief,
Hellenistic and late-antique paideia contained no religious code
and imposed no religious sanction whatsoever. The sanctions
imposed were those brought to bear by purely human significant
others in the society. Ultimately, a man was brought to heel by
the sense of shame, by reminders of the antithesis of aischion
and kalon, and by the revulsion felt by the refined soul for those
unrefined elements of raw human nature that betrayed them-
selves in breaches of decorum, aschemosyne.21 "My lord, you
forget yourself"—aschemoneis hegemon—is the ultimate put-
down placed in the mouth of a Christian martyr confronting an
ill-tempered Roman governor.22 Late antique paideia only brings
us half the way to the Islamic product of adab, as adab is de-
fined by Georges Anawati: "un vrai code de savoir-vivre ou se
melent les exigences d'un homme 'bien eleve' mais en meme
temps soucieux de bien se comporter 'en presence de Dieu.'"23
The last quality was absent in this basically secular system of
grooming and in the motivations to which it appealed.
Hence the growing sense of insufficiency of Greek paideia
19. H. I. Marrou, Mousikos Aner: Etude sur les scenes de la vie figurant sur les
monuments funeraires remains (Grenoble: Didier, 1938).
20. Ibid., p. 216.
21. Festugiere, Antioche, p. 218.
22. The Martyrdom of Conon, 5.6, ed. and trans. H. Musurillo, The Acts of the
Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 190.
23. Georges A. Anawati, "Homo Islamicus," Images of Man in Ancient and
Medieval Thought. Studia G. Verbeke ab amicis et collegis dicata, Symbolae 1
(Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1976), p. 240.
30 CLASSICAL ADAS
expressed in Christian circles, less because it was pagan or be-
cause its literature contained immoral mythological material
than because it was, strictly in terms of its own aims, insuffi-
cient. When it came to the intimate and intractable anomalies of
human behavior—adolescent sexuality, for instance—John
Chrysostom, though he was (maybe precisely because he was)
the well-groomed pupil of Libanius of Antioch, had to insist that
paideia went so far and no farther: "How shall we tie down this
wild beast? How shall we place a bridle on it? I know none, save
only the restraint of hell-fire."24
The late-antique reaction to this situation highlights yet fur-
ther the particularity of the Islamic solution. Those leaders of
the Christian church who gave most thought to the transforma-
tion of the individual were precisely those who, increasingly,
saw no way out other than total ascetic withdrawal from the
world. It is in the monasteries and clusters of hermits of the late
fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries that we find the dogged and
skilled pursuit of what Saint Benedict in his Rule called the con-
veisio moium—the moral transformation of the personality25—
according to a process of grooming that has innumerable paral-
lels in later Islamic thought and practice: the close observation
of the behavior of holy individuals;26 the creation of habits by
dogged observance;27 careful control of posture, gesture, and tone
of voice;28 the stern and searching discipline of interpersonal re-
lations imposed by a communal life;29 above all, deep psycholog-
ical awareness of the quality of trains of thought and the positive
cultivation of these heavy moments when the full weight of the
24. John Chrysostom, On Vainglory 76, trans. M. L. W. Laistner, Christianity
and Pagan Culture in the Later Roman Empire (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1961; Cornell Paperbacks, 1967); p. 117. The word gehenna ("hellfire")
appears six times in this short treatise. Festugiere, Antioche, pp. 224-25.
25. Benedict, Regula 58.17. Conversio morum is the sense, preserved in later
manuscripts, of the idiosyncratic conversatio morum: O'Donnell, Cassio-
doius, p. 110; A. de Vogue, La Regie de saint Benoit, Sources chretiennes 186
(Paris: Le Cerf, 1971), pp. 1324-26.
26. Philip Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority and the Church (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1978), p. 21: "Their visible example was a lesson, in other words, as
forceful as wisdom and spiritual insight."
27. J. E. Bamberger, "Mneme-Diathesis: The Psychic Dynamism in the Asceti-
cal Theology of Saint Basil," Orientalia Christiana Periodica 34 (1968): 233-51.
28. Brown, Making of Late Antiquity, p. 88; Basil, Regula fusius tractata 13
and 17; Migne, Patrologia Graeca 36:949B and 961B-964A.
29. Rousseau, Ascetics, pp. 33-55; Basil, Regula fusius tractata 7:928C-933A.
LATE A N T I Q U I T Y AND I S L A M 31
presence of God and the thought of His Judgment fell upon the
individual.30 When, in the Ayyuhd al-walad, al-Ghazzali nar-
rates how once Hasan al-Basri had let fall his glass at the thought
of how the damned cried to the souls in Paradise for one drop of
water, his behavior would have been inconceivable as an ingre-
dient of late-antique paideia;31 it would have been a normal and
much-to-be-encouraged event in the monasteries of Pachomius,
Basil, and Benedict.32
As a result of this channeling of effort into a narrower com-
pass, there was no attempt to create anything resembling a Chris-
tian adab for a Christian man of the world. The epitaphs of the
later Roman empire bear this out: right up to the end of the sixth
century, laymen hardly ever describe the fear of God or of the
Last Judgment as motive forces in the virtues that they ascribe,
so lavishly, to the dead. From the time of Alexander the Great
until the reign of Justinian, a man was seen and remembered in
terms of those adjectives that marked him out as a finished prod-
uct of paideia.33 In the major collection of Latin Christian in-
scriptions, for instance, out of 1,751 epitaphs that contain cata-
logues of virtues, the "fear of God" is ascribed in an explicit
manner to only three laymen; all other examples concern mem-
bers of the clergy or ascetics.34
Thus, seen in late-antique and early-medieval Christian terms,
the novelty of the Islamic adab was not its religious content, but
the application to men in the world, to non-monks, of a religious
grooming that had been considered capable of transforming only
30. Evagrius Ponticus, Practica 43, trans. J. E. Bamberger, The Piaktikos (Kal-
amazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1972), p. 24. See A. Guillaumont and C.
Guillaumont, Evagre le pontique: traite pratique ou le moine, Sources chre-
tiennes 170 [Paris: Le Cerf, 1971), pp. 63-98; Apophthegmata patrum, Sisoes
19, Migne, Patrologia graeca 65:400A; Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of
the Desert Fathers (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1975), pp. 181-82.
These are the qualities of Christian monasticism in the Near East that were
known to the Prophet and described in the Qur'an; E. Beck, Das christliche
Monchtum in Koran, Studia Orientalia Fennica 13:3 (Helsinki: Societas Orien-
talis Fennica, 1946).
31. al-Ghazzali, Scritti scelti, trans. L. V. Vaglieri and R. Rubinacci (Turin:
Unione Tipografica, 1970), pp. 55-56.
32. A. A. Athanassakis, trans., The Life of Pachomius (Vita Prima Graeca} 88
(Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press, 1975), p. 126; Basil, Regula brevius trac-
tata 34-37, 1105A-1108A.
33. L. Robert, Hellenica 13 (1965), pp. 226-27.
34. E. Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae christianae veteres (Zurich: Weidrnan,
1925), 1:1-340.
32 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
those who had withdrawn from society to give themselves over
to an alternative paideia in the miniature society of the celibate
monastery, "as if in another world."35
For that reason, although the motor force of his a dab might be
similar, the problem that faced the exponent of the classical con-
cept of adab, as Ira Lapidus has defined it, was a very different
one from that which faced the Christian ascetic holy man (as
I came to make his acquaintance some ten years ago). It was
far closer to that of the late-antique philosopher, the "saint of
paideia," who had succeeded in internalizing the paideia that he
shared with his fellow members of the educated upper classes.
For, unlike the Christian holy man, the Muslim exponent of
adab could be said to stand at the "core" of his culture, realizing
at their fullest intensity the ideals to which all observant Mus-
lims subscribed. His moral authority came from his capacity to
distill in his person the widely diffused essence of the Homo 1s-
lamicus. As Ernst Gellner put it: "Islamic propriety emanates
from their essence, as it were."36
Hence the problem which faced al-Ghazzali was to make his
own, in a manner that bit deep into his personality, norms that
were thought to cover every aspect of his life quite as relent-
lessly and as inclusively as any grooming by Hellenistic paideia.
Such a process of internalization could not be eased by the
renunciation of wide areas of human life and of human relation-
ships, as the Christian holy man had done. As a result, al-
Ghazzali's autobiography, al-Munqidh min ad-dalal, though fre-
quently compared to the Confessions of Augustine, bears little
resemblance to that book. For the point of the Confessions cen-
ters on the freeing of Augustine's will "to take joy in the law of
the Lord"; but, for Augustine, this happens through an earth-
quake of the will associated with the total renunciation of his
sexuality, according to a model of the personality that excluded
the possibility of unbroken transitions between a man's social
and his physiological nature, which is the hallmark of the
thought of al-Ghazzali.37 The evolution of al-Ghazzali is far
35. Basil, Regula fusius tiactata 5. 2:921A.
36. E. Gellner, Saints of the Atlas (London: Weidenfeld, 1969), p. 149.
37. Augustine, Confessions, 8.8.19-12.30. See R. J. O'Connell, Saint Au-
gustine's Early Theory of Man, A.D. 386—91 (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1968) and M. R. Miles, Augustine on the Body, American Academy of
Religion Dissertation Series 31 (Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press, 1979).
LATE A N T I Q U I T Y A N D ISLAM 33
closer to that of the uneasy Petrarch: for both men are already
committed to the sophisticated and exacting grooming of their
traditional religion; but both hoped to find their way, by a more
effective internalization of religious precepts, to a new sim-
plicity on the other side of vast sophistication.38
A further consequence was that the moral authority that
stemmed from the maintenance of a form of adab was a com-
pound infinitely more complex than can be found in any neigh-
boring non-Islamic society in the Middle Ages. For adherence to
an adab whose peak is in the internalization of the shazi'a and
(as Francis Robinson stresses) a large measure of identification
with the life of the Prophet, as that is known in the Qur'an and
the hadith, committed a man to bringing together an impres-
sively wide spectrum of criteria of excellence, drawn from a
wide sphere of human activities. By contrast, for medieval Chris-
tian thinkers on moral authority, it could be assumed that the
full weight of the divine law was able to rest only on those who,
by clearly delineated and ideally irreversible rituals of renuncia-
tion, had both delimited the area of human experience on which
this law could be brought to bear effectively, and had, by such
delimitation, cut themselves off from a large area of the business
of the world, most notably from those links with society and
with man's common instinctual nature that are cogently con-
densed in (though by no means exhausted by) sexuality and fam-
ily life. Such men could then wield moral authority from a locus
outside lay society.39 As a result, when a need was felt, as in the
eleventh-century West, to extend moral authority to embrace
life in this world as a whole—marriage and warfare, in particu-
lar—the immediate upshot was the transposition and appli-
cation of the old ascetic paradigms: a clear assertion of hierarchy,
38. Hannah H. Gray, "Renaissance Humanism: The Pursuit of Eloquence,"
Journal of the History of Ideas 24 (1963): 500-501, characterizes Petrarch's at-
titude: "The Renaissance Humanists believed that education should equip a
man to lead a good life, and that therefore the function of knowledge was not
merely to demonstrate the truth of given precepts, but to impel people toward
their acceptance and application. They believed also that men could be molded
most effectively, and perhaps only, through the art of eloquence, which endows
the precept with immediacy, persuasive effect, and which stimulated a man's
will as well as his reason."
39. Peter Brown, "Eastern and Western Christianity in Late Antiquity: A Part-
ing of the Ways," The Orthodox Churches and the West, Studies in Church
History 13, ed. D. Baker (Oxford: Blackwell, 1976), pp. 8-16.
34 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
by which a celibate clergy, held to exemplify a monastic para-
digm of excellence, controlled the "lower" life of the laity.40
Caught between a Western society obsessed for centuries with
the need to give precise social and political expression to an im-
plicit, unchallenged hierarchy in which the "spiritual" domi-
nated the "temporal/'41 and a South Asia which, I am told by my
friends, is the natural habitat both of Homo hieiarchicus and
of the World-renouncer, Islam stands out by reason of its low
ritual profile.
Yet nothing is more impressive in these papers to a Western
medievalist than the cumulative sense they convey of an Islamic
religious culture held together in space and time by a web of in-
tangible and unbreakable filaments otmoral authority. To assess
the moral authority of a Simeon Stylites, it was enough for a
Christian layman to count the number of times he prostrated
himself on his pillar, giving up at 1,244—or so his biographer ex-
pected readers to think.42 To decide to give one's loyalty to the
"emerging" leader of the family of the Farangi Mahall, as Francis
Robinson reveals it through the biographies of its members, was
to pass him and his family through a process of moral and social
accountancy that amounted to an almost complete tour d'hoii-
zon of human possibilities, from mystical experience and rela-
tions with governments to the correct place to sit in a motor car.
Any group that allowed a man to exercise moral authority in its
midst in such terms had to make a choice of a blend of criteria as
intangible and as mysteriously efficacious as the properties of a
medieval pharmacist's compound.
To conclude, I should like to abandon comparisons, throw ac-
ademic caution to the winds, and risk a suggestion that it is pre-
cisely the complexity of moral authority in Islam that accounts
for the continued momentum and possibilities of growth and ad-
justment illustrated by these papers on Islam in South Asia. For,
because such authority can be seen as a constellation of a wide
40. G. Tellenbach, Church, State and Christian Society at the Time of the In-
vestiture Contest, trans. R. E. Bennett (Oxford: Blackwell, 1946); R. W. South-
ern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages, Pelican History of
the Church 2 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970), pp. 34-44 and 100-33.
41. G. E. Caspary, Politics and Exegesis: Origan and the Two Swords (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1979), pp. 102-24, contains seminal remarks on
the basis and continuity of this specific type of hierarchy in Christian thought.
42. Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Historia religiosa, Migne, Patrologia graeca
82:1481A.
LATE A N T I Q U I T Y A N D I S L A M 35
range of excellencies to which the Islamic community as a whole
pays lip service, moral authority can very easily be weaned from
the more blatant structures of power and hierarchy in the sur-
rounding world. It does not necessarily abandon these struc-
tures; rather, it drains onto itself, and by implication away from
these, the diffused values of the Islamic community. It makes
plain that the true core of Islamic authority is where the Islamic
tradition has been most effectively internalized and passed on to
others, and not where the soldier, the politician, the landowner,
and the colonial governor might expect to find it. By belonging
to the internalized norms of a universal Islamic paideia, the
Muslim 'alim, like the late-antique philosopher, belongs to
nobody.
Hence the role of the preservation of the tradition is a sine qua
non of moral authority and, paradoxically, of its very capacity to
develop, hi Western eyes, the traditionalism of Muslim learned
elites has hung as a question mark over the ultimate value of
Islamic civilization and its possible future,43 much as, in the
robust days of our Protestant forefathers, the thought of the
Spanish Inquisition blocked any attempt to approach the history
of the Catholic tradition in Europe, or, in the time when Marrou
wrote his book, the negative judgment of "decadence" still hung
over the traditionalism of Hellenistic and late-antique culture.
The lesson of these papers is that it is not as simple as we had
long thought. For the Islamic culama', as for the medieval writ-
ers whose world view has been so well evoked by C. S. Lewis in
The Discarded Image, the past is plainly not a dead hand—it is a
living reservoir:
And thanks to his deficiency in the sense of (historical) period, that
packed and gorgeous past was more immediate to him. . . . It differed
from the present only by being better. . . . There were friends, ances-
tors, patrons in every age. One had one's place, however modest, in a
great succession; one need be neither proud nor lonely.44
Reading these papers, it seems to me that tradition filled the
world of the Muslim calim with a gallery of peers to whose judg-
ment he could turn in order to maintain his autonomy in the
43. P. Crone and M. Cook, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (Cam-
bridge: University Press, 1977), pp. 139-46.
44. C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image (Cambridge: University Press, 1964),
p. 185.
36 C L A S S I C A L ADAB LATE A N T I Q U I T Y A N D I S L A M 37

present.45 And as the past is in the eye of the beholder—and espe- the privilege and great pleasure to read on this occasion, seen
cially a past as rich as that of the Islamic traditionalists and as in the light of analogous problems of the mobilization of tradi-
piercing an eye as that of a learned elite which believed that all tion, the process and aims of its passing down and the quality of
centuries from the coming of the Prophet were contemporary for moral authority in the classical and late-antique Graeco-Roman
them—appeal to tradition appears to be a case of reculei pour world, lead me to suspect that there is no simple answer. Rather,
mieux sautei in the present.46 The whole-hearted commitment as Ibn Khaldun would say: "God knows better. 'And you were
of a man like cAbd ar-Razzak to the imitation of the Prophet given but little knowledge'" (sura 17, 85).
meant far more than a turning to a distant and outmoded exam-
ple: in Christian terms, the imitatio Piophetae was a lepiaesen-
tatio Piophetae—the bringing of a bundle of human excellences
associated with the Prophet into the present; and so I would sus-
pect that the process might have involved quite as much an im-
perceptible aggiomamento of a seventh-century paradigm of ex-
cellence as the re-medievalization of a nineteenth-century man
of learning. If we wish to understand how new blood continues
to course in a "classical" civilization, such as Graeco-Roman an-
tiquity or Islam, it would be better to concentrate, as so many of
these excellent studies have done, less on the main arteries of a
tradition than on the barely perceptible network of capillaries by
which this tradition was both handed on and perceived anew in
every generation.
In a series of essays on religion in a post-traditional world,
Robert Bellah has included a studiously careful, and not unduly
optimistic, judgment on the future of Islam: "Perhaps the great-
est problem of modernization of all for Islam is not whether
it can contribute to political, familial or personal moderniza-
tion, but whether it can effectively meet the specifically reli-
gious needs of modern Muslims."47 The papers that I have had
45. Their position resembles that claimed by scientists in nineteenth-century
Europe; see Georges Cuvier, Le Monitem (3 novembre 1807): 1186: "Comme
ils sont calmes dans ce sentiment intime qu'avec du travail ils ajouteront
toujours quelque chose a cet edifice que les siecles elevent; dont toute Phu-
manite profite et dont rien n'ebranle la partie une fois fondee sur les faits. Ils
sentent qu'ils n'ont de juges que leur pairs repandus dans tout le monde civilise
et qu'aucun prestige ne pourrait ni eblouir ni gagner." This and similar pas-
sages are cited in the most perceptive article of D. Outram, "The Language of
Natural Power: The 'Eloges' of Georges Cuvier and the Public Language of
Nineteenth-Century Science/' History of Science 16 (1978):153-78.
46. Compare K. Jost, Das Beispiel und Vorbild dei Vorfahien (Kallmunz bei
Regensburg: M. Lassleben, 1935) on the manner in which all generations in
classical Athens appealed to the example of their ancestors, but each saw dif-
ferent virtues in these ancestors.
47. R. N. Bellah, Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-traditional World
(New York: Harper and Row, 1970), p. 166.

Knowledge; Virtue, and Action:
The Classical Muslim Conception
of Adab and the Nature of
Religious Fulfillment
in Islam
IRA M. LAPIDUS
The theme of this volume is of unusual importance. Adab not
only is important in South Asia but belongs to the very core of
the classical Islamic tradition. Thus some understanding of the
classical uses of the concept may help alert us to issues implicit
in the South Asian context and may permit us to compare South
Asian and classical ideas and to deal with the important ques-
tions of the similarities and differences between them.
In classical usage the concept of adab operates on many levels.
In its pre-Islamic Arabic usage it referred to the norms of correct
behavior inherited from one's ancestors. With the advent of
Islam it came to apply to the ethical and practical norms that
regulated the life of a good Muslim. In the eighth and ninth cen-
turies, adab referred to the etiquette appropriate to the aristo-
crats and courtiers of the Abbasid age. Urbanity, aristocratic
learning, refined manners, cultivated conversation and good
taste constituted the adab of the gentleman, scribe, and cour-
tier. The term applied also to the knowledge necessary for the
offices of scribe, vizier, and judge, and to the learning and correct
behavior of the scholar and sufi. Adab meant the proper up-
bringing of children and their morals and good behavior. The
word also acquired a more strictly intellectual and literary mean-
ing, as knowledge of poetry, language, and ethical and political
works, selected from the Arab, the Greek, and the Iranian past.
K N O W L E D G E , VIRTUE, AND ACTION 39
Thus adab was used throughout the classical era of Islam to im-
ply learning and knowledge acquired for the sake of right living.
It was a concept of what a person should know, be, and do to per-
fect the art of living.1
The range of possible approaches to the study of adab is there-
fore very wide, but I want to narrow it by excluding the study of
the use of the word, of the genres of literature of adab, and of the
specific adab of courtiers, scribes, sufis, or others. I want rather
to look at adab in its most general sense: correct knowledge and
behavior in the total process by which a person is educated,
guided, and formed into a good Muslim—adab as the founda-
tion of the soul or personality of the human being as a whole.
In this larger, and religious, sense, adab is part of a system of
Muslim ideas, part of an interrelated set of concepts that con-
stitutes the basic vocabulary of Islamic belief and makes up a
Muslim anthropology of man. As part of this larger system of
thought, adab includes and is closely related to cilm. cllm may
be translated "knowledge," but like many Arabic words, it has
no single definition but is a symbol pointing to numerous in-
terrelated meanings. "cllm" generally refers to a scholarly dis-
cipline, a system of knowledge, or a science—the material of
any literate education; but, particularly, it denotes the religious
knowledge imparted in the Qur'an, hadith, and shari'a. Beyond
specific religious subjects, cilm encompasses the knowledge of
all essential matters revealed by God, and belief in the truth of
that knowledge. cllm, then, is not just intellectual knowing, but
knowing charged with feeling. cllm is insight—an experience of
the reality of what is known.
cllm has a further implication related to adab. In pre-Islamic
Arabic usage, film is knowledge of the signs that direct a man on
his route. In the religious sense, cilm is God's guidance for cor-
rectly living in this world in preparation for one's salvation in
the next. cllm is thus the basis of action and must, in the Mus-
lim view, necessarily issue in action. To be experienced, as op-
posed to being merely known, knowledge must be validated by
action. To know and to live the truth are one and the same.2
cllm, then, in the narrow sense is a component of adab, but
1. For general introductions to the concept of adab, see G. E. von Grunebaum,
Medieval Islam (Chicago, 1945), pp. 250-57; C. A. Nallino, Racollta di scritti
(Rome, 1948), 6:1-14; Encyclopedia of Islam, n.e. 1:175-76.
2. F. Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medie-
val Islam (Leiden, 1970). Also von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, pp. 234-50.
40 C L A S S I C A L ADAS
like adab, it is a comprehensive, inclusive concept. As such it is
closely related to yet another central Muslim concept—iman, or
faith. Iman means knowledge and belief in the existence of God
and the heavenly world, and also doing the works that express
belief. Iman is belief directly expressed by uttering the shahdda,
praying, giving alms, and doing other good deeds. Another word
for faith, tasdiq, which means knowing, affirming the truth of
God's existence and judgment, believing in it, and bearing wit-
ness to it, also implies the kind of belief that makes a person live
his life in accord with God's will, letting the reality of God's ex-
istence govern all thoughts and actions. Tasdiq is more than just
knowing or belief in the usual sense. It is a state of the heart that
entails devotion, trust, submission, and love of God. Tasdiq, like
cilm and adab, is a concept that embraces the ideas of knowing,
feeling, and acting upon the revealed truth. Similarly the word
islam means surrender of the will and the acceptance of all
God's commands and judgments. Islam refers to works and
deeds, but it also implies the submission of the feelings of the
heart and the thoughts of the mind. Islam implicitly contains
Iman. There can be no islam without iman, just as there cannot
be a meaningful faith without islam.3
To understand adab, therefore, we should not only consider
the word, but also the system of interrelated concepts to which
it belongs. These concepts—cilm, tasdiq, iman, islam—consti-
tute the basic vocabulary of Muslim faith. They all point to the
relationship between knowledge and action—to the inward flux
of intellect, judgment, and emotion in relation to outward ex-
pression in speech, gesture, ritual, and action—as the key to the
very nature of man's being and his relationship to God. Implicit
in the study of adab are not only issues about literature and the
role of literature in moral, religious, and social life, but also fun-
damental Muslim ideas about how life is to be lived to fulfill the
religious goals of human existence.
The Qur'an
To study the Muslim concept of man's being and how a Muslim
life is to be lived we must begin where Muslims begin—with the
3. T. Izutsu, The Concept of Belief in Islamic Theology (Yokohama, 1965); En-
cyclopedia of Islam 3:1170-74.
KNOWLEDGE, VIRTUE, AND ACTION 41
Qur'an. The Qur'an does not give a systematic theory of the na-
ture of man, but its verses project an image of the good Muslim.
Following the work of T. Izutsu we can abstract this image from
the passages of the Qur'an. It contains three basic elements.
First, the good Muslim is a person who does good deeds as com-
manded by God, stays within the boundaries of proper conduct,
and avoids evil. Secondly, the good Muslim behaves in a moder-
ate, humble, and restrained way, with ihsan and cadl, kindness,
and justness. He shows steadfastness (sabr] and tranquility in
the face of passions (hilm). His good qualities are appropriately
expressed and are cultivated not for the sake of pride and show
but for the love of God. Thirdly, these qualities are rooted in Is-
lam. The true Muslim is the slave of God; he accepts his humble
place in the world. He takes no pride or consolation in human
powers, but recognizes the limited worth of all worldly things
and the greater importance of pleasing God. His virtues and his
good deeds are rooted in belief and gratitude to God, his creator.
This image of the true believer may be contrasted with the im-
age of the jahil—the unbeliever. The jahil does evil deeds: he
lies; he fornicates; he murders. He is impetuous, passionate, and
reckless, for he lacks good judgment and self-control. Even his
virtues are tainted. His generosity is marred by excess and boast-
fulness, which shows that he is not generous because of good-
ness but out of the wish to demonstrate superiority and win ac-
claim. His actions do not stem from virtue, but from arrogance.
He is proud, assertive, and unwilling to believe in God. This is
the image of a man of great passions and great deeds—a warrior
aristocrat—but nevertheless a man whose outer power masks
inner weakness. His lack of religious belief, of moral integrity,
and of good behavior are all of a piece. Whereas the Muslim does
good deeds, is humble in spirit, and has knowledge of God, the
jahil is evil, arrogant, and ignorant.4
Muslims have pondered the religious imagery of the Qur'an
for centuries. It has been the stimulus for a never-ending flow of
commentary. From different points of view, Muslim lawyers,
theologians, philosophers, and mystics have sought to elucidate
and explore the meaning of the Qur'an. They have produced
many literatures in law, ethics, theology, philosophy, and rnysti-
4. T. Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur'an (Montreal, 1966); also
God and Man in the Koian (Tokyo, 1964).
 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
42
cism; each of which deals with the quest of Muslims to realize
the practical, the ethical, and the spiritual requirements of the
Qur'an. Each literature emphasizes a different aspect of Qur'anic
teaching. Law stresses the importance of ritual and the correct
forms of Muslim behavior. Kalam stresses the primacy of sub-
mission and faith from which good deeds follow. Philosophic
writing stresses the centrality of reason as the basic means to re-
alizing the teachings of the Qur'an. The mystical tradition em-
phasizes love and union with God. Still, though each literature
may emphasize a different aspect of Islam, each becomes a cen-
tral force around which the whole of a Muslim life may be or-
dered. Reason, faith, or love of God are understood to be the
route to the realization of the Qur'an as a whole.
From this tradition, I should like to select three examples of
the ways in which Qur'anic ideals are amplified in later Muslim
tradition: Miskawaih's Tahdhib al-akhlaq, al-Ghazzali's Ihyd'
culum ad-din, and Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddima. Miskawaih, an
historian, philosopher, and courtier who wrote in Baghdad in the
tenth century, strongly influenced by Platonic and neo-Platonic
views, began a lasting tradition in Islamic philosophical writing,
and had a strong impact upon al-Ghazzali's conception of the
soul and the cultivation of its virtues. Al-Ghazzali, who died in
A.D. 1111, stood at an important juncture in the development of
Islam, receiving and passing on in authoritative form important
currents from shari'a, theology, philosophy, and mysticism. Ibn
Khaldun, a politician and historian who lived in North Africa,
Spain, and Egypt in the fourteenth century, gives us a summary
statement of the Muslim theology and mysticism of a later era.
These three authors illustrate one of the fundamental orienta-
tions of Islamic religious thinking. Although they have different
emphases and show the impact of the different historical cir-
cumstances, each author contributes to our understanding of the
meanings of the basic terms cilm, iman, and islam, and each
gives us an explicit and systematic account of how the three
basic features in the Qur'anic image of the good Muslim are re-
lated to each other. Each enlarges our understanding of the Mus-
lim view of the dynamic interrelationship among the different
aspects of the human constitution, and gives us a comprehensive
and articulate concept of the human soul and the processes by
which it may reach maturity and religious salvation. They repre-
KNOWLEDGE, VIRTUE, AND ACTION 43
sent, I believe, not only themselves, but a broad religious orien-
tation within Islam which synthesizes Qur'anic, philosophical,
ethical, and mystical ideas, and which I shall call, in hyphenated
form, the sunm-sufi conception of a Muslim life.
Miskawaih
Miskawaih's Tahdhib al-akhlaq is devoted to the achievement
of a virtuous and faultless soul, a being so perfectly ordered that
every action that flows from it is beautiful, good, and true. The
person who has realized his perfect nature will find happiness in
this world and the next.
The realization of this perfection depends upon the proper un-
derstanding and cultivation of the soul. The human soul (nafs) is
composed of three faculties: the rational (al-quwwa an-natiqa),
the temperamental (al-quwwa al-ghadabiyya), and the desiring
(al-quwwa ash-shahwiyya). The faculties serve different poten-
tialities. By reason, man may discern the truth, distinguish good
from evil, and learn how to pursue good deeds and good thoughts.
Temperament makes him courageous or fearful, angry or calm.
Desire leads him to seek food, sex, and other pleasures of the
body. In Miskawaih's view the human being is at once a creature
of this world and the next—an animal and an angel. Through his
lower faculties he is attached to the material world; through rea-
son he is linked to God. If he pursues reason, man may rise in
the hierarchy of being to the divine realm; if he falls prey to pas-
sion, he will be sucked into the vortex of animality. His moral
and spiritual objective, then, is to make reason prevail over
passion.
If reason is to prevail, each of the faculties must be cultivated
to realize its proper virtues (fada'il). Wisdom [hikma] is the vir-
tue of the rational faculty, courage (shaja'a) and moderation
(hilm) are the virtues of the temperament, and temperance \iffa)
is the virtue of the desiring faculty. The virtues in the soul are
always means between extremes, the middle ground between
paired opposing vices. For example, temperance is the mean be-
tween greed and indifference; courage the mean between reck-
lessness and fear. The virtues of each faculty comprise numer-
ous subvirtues. When each faculty performs in the proper way
and in harmony with the others, there is justice in the soul.
 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
44
Justice in the soul, however, may be realized only under the
guidance and supremacy of reason. In the struggle for self-
perfection, reason (caql) is essential. Reason is the faculty that
recognizes the truth of man's nature and purpose in life. Reason
governs the other faculties, assigns each its proper functions, or-
ders them in harmony with each other, and governs all acts in
accord with the truth. It is important to note that temper and
appetite are not eliminated but controlled and directed. Even the
all-too-human parts of the soul have an assigned place in the
constitution established by reason to sustain and protect the
body that houses the angelic soul; they are essential to the real-
ization of human virtues in thought and action.
This harmony of faculties, and moderation in behavior, may
be found in the nature of some people, but generally it is the
product of life-long training. It is a complex achievement. Prepa-
ration must begin in childhood. Miskawaih sets out the rules for
the proper upbringing of children in matters of diet, behavior,
and habituation so that they will act modestly and in accord
with the religious law. The child who is well-trained enters
adulthood prepared to study books on ethics and to pursue spec-
ulative knowledge. Whereas the child must be trained by habitu-
ation to good deeds, the adult must cultivate reason and knowl-
edge of the truth. He must first know what is good in order to
cultivate virtue. Knowing the good, he must make every effort to
discipline bad impulses and to practice virtue. The intellect
must be watchful, the passions controlled, so that they come
forth when appropriate but otherwise remain suppressed. Every
impulse, every deed, must be examined; every fault noted and
corrected. To become good a man must watch over himself, rep-
rimand himself for mistakes, punish himself to correct errors,
and thus control and order the faculties. The cure of souls is a
difficult task, an unending labor.
To achieve perfection, the individual's own efforts must be
reinforced by those of others. The good man must have good
friends to help guide him to good thoughts and deeds. The exam-
ple of a good ruler and the restraints of a well-governed society
are also important. The process of achieving goodness in the soul
thus includes the training of children, the moral self-discipline
of adults, and the reinforcement of society. For the purposes of
this discussion it is important to note that one of the terms or-
dinarily used in the Tahdhib for the process of forming a human
KNOWLEDGE, VIRTUE, AND ACTION 45
being is ta'dib, and the result, the acquisition of good character,
is adab.
The ideal presented in Miskawaih's Tahdhib is a person who
is rational and virtuous, whose soul is so tutored and cultivated
that it is disposed to be good and to do good. The good life that
flows from within is manifest on two levels. One is in the world
of everyday life. True fulfillment is tied to bodily activities and
to friendship; it is incompatible with asceticism and withdrawal
from society. The ideal is of a person who feels passion but is not
dominated by it, who experiences misfortune but is not dis-
tracted by fate, who is involved in the world but not at its mercy,
for his judgment and his dispositions are governed by a clear and
rational knowledge of realities.
This harmony of self and the world is at the same time tran-
scendence of the self and the world. In the purified soul, reason
is set free from the materiality of the body. Justice and moral
purification culminate in rational vision of the ultimate reality.
Reason, free from the constraints of a disordered soul, belonging
intrinsically to the angelic world, rises by successive states to vi-
sion of and union with God. The ordered soul achieves true hap-
piness in this world and salvation in the next.
Miskawaih's ethics represent a philosophic and platonic con-
ception of the education of the soul, but it is a vision of the for-
mation of the soul that seems consistent with Islam. For Mis-
kawaih, Muslim law is the basis for the training and education
of the young; justice in the soul implies action in accord with
the Law. In accord with the Qur'an, Miskawaih stresses the im-
portance of good deeds based on goodness of heart. For the ethi-
cal philosopher, the most highly prized virtues are the very ones
imbedded in the Qur'anic image of the moderate, restrained
person. Hilm, self-restraint of anger, and avoidance of excess,
counteracts the forces of self-seeking and the animal appetities
and evil inclinations built into the soul. Sabi, patient endurance,
the quality of bearing hardship well, perseverance, continuing
responsibility, self-control, and balanced judgment in the face of
misfortune, is equally important. In a religious sense, sabr is the
ability to keep faith in God, and is central to philosophic as well
as Qur'anic ethics.5
5. Miskawayh, Tahdhib al-akhlaq (Beirut, 1966), trans. M. Artoun, Tiaite
d'Ethique (Damascus, 1964).
46 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
al-Ghazzali
The Ihya' culum ad-din presents a related vision of human
wholeness and religious fulfillment, but a vision that puts the
devotional and mystical rather than the rational aspects of faith
at the center of the process by which religious salvation may be
achieved. The Ihya' is a work of practical religion designed to
provide the believer with the information essential for the cor-
rect conduct of life in this world and for happiness in the world
to come.
For al-Ghazzali, the integration of deeds, virtues, and knowl-
edge was the crux of a Muslim life. His position was rooted in a
philosophic concept of the nature of the human being. In his
view, the essence of the human being is the soul, which is a di-
vine spiritual substance (latifa rabbaniyya ruhaniyya) variously
called qalb, zuh, nafs, or caql. (These terms, however, are also
used in other senses. Qalb and luh refer to corporeal substances,
and nafs refers, not only to the soul as such, but to the tempera-
mental and desiring faculties in particular.)6 Though it is im-
planted in the body—a worldly material that will eventually per-
ish—the soul is a spiritual substance, and will live forever. In its
original state, al-fltia, before it is joined to the body, the soul is a
pure, angelic, and untouched substance that feels alien in the
material world and longs for the spiritual realm. In this state the
soul possesses reason (caql), and has the capacity to know the es-
sence of things and to know God.7 The highest good is the actu-
alization of this inherent potential.
For this to be achieved the soul must be joined to the body,
because the body is the vehicle that carries the soul on its jour-
ney to God. The soul is created by God for each human individ-
ual when the seed enters the womb, and is sent into the world to
acquire provision (zad), the qualities needed for the life of the
world to come. The powers of the body, perception, imagination,
desire, the energy created by anger, the power of action (qudia],
enhance the opportunity to acquire this provision. Through the
body the soul can acquire knowledge and good traits and do
good acts.8
But there is a price to pay for these services. The union of body
6. al-Ghazzali, Ihya' culum al-dm (Cairo, 1967), 3:4-6.
7. Ibid., pp. 77-78.
8. Ibid., pp. 7-8, 78.
KNOWLEDGE, VIRTUE, AND ACTION 47
and soul introduces the profound dilemma that is the very es-
sence of the human condition. The bodily faculties corrupt the
pure state of the soul. In the combined constitution of man, de-
sire, anger, and shaitaniyya (the inclination to do evil) are joined
to the purely spiritual elements. Thus the human being comes
to possess an animal soul made up of the faculties of desire and
anger (nafs) and a divine soul (rabbaniyya) possessing the fac-
ulties of reason and justice.9 Reason is the primal and divine fac-
ulty; justice is the executive power of the soul, the capacity to
impose the judgment of reason and law upon the faculties of de-
sire and anger. Whereas Miskawaih defined justice as harmony
among the faculties, al-Ghazzali defines it as an active force in
the soul that applies the dictates of reason to the faculties of de-
sire and anger. The control of reason, however, does not elimi-
nate desire and anger but channels their expression to the mean
between extremes.
Human conditions differ in the strength of their several fac-
ulties and in the relative strength of the inclination to do good or
to do evil, but in every person the purpose of life is to purify the
soul. Every person must subordinate the animal faculties to the
higher faculties and perfect the virtues—temperance, courage,
wisdom, and justice—appropriate to each faculty. The overall
process of purification and of acquiring good traits is variously
called ta'thu al-batin, tazkiya al-qalb, tathqil al-qalb, and tah-
dhib al-akhlaq.10 Only when the confusing or corrupting influ-
ences of the animal nafs are under control is the inherent capac-
ity for knowledge of the truth and vision of God to be realized.
This perfection is described by various metaphors. Most im-
portant is the metaphor that sees the perfection of the soul in
terms of the acquisition of traits or attributes of the heart. The
heart is the site of knowledge; it is like a mirror that reflects the
essential form of all things. Each act, each thought, each deed
impresses itself as an image (mithal) upon the heart, or in other
terms, becomes an attribute (sifa), a quality of the heart. The
struggle to purify the heart makes the acquired attributes or im-
ages in the heart all the more continuous, deeply rooted, and
seemingly natural. Once rooted in the heart, the acquired traits
govern the actions of the limbs.11
9. Ibid., p. 14.
10. Ibid., pp. 20, 69-74.
11. Ibid., pp. 15-20, 34-35, 75-77.
48 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
The sufi quest is aimed at such purification. The sufis some-
times seek it by detachment from the world, by retreat from the
assaults of everyday life to the zawiya, where the sufi can con-
centrate on renunciation of worldly attachments, and by dhikr,
repetition and remembrance of the name of God so as to empty
the mind of all distracting passions. As al-Ghazzali explains, the
sufi path to acquisition of knowledge of the spiritual world is to
shut the gate on sense perception, sexual passion, and worldly
ties—to shut the gate on the material side of the mind. To do
this one does not need elaborate education, formal knowledge,
or book learning. The certain knowledge of God does not come
from learning but from piety.12
Sufi detachment, however, is but an extreme tactic in the
more ordinary reform of the heart carried on in the course of
daily life. This reform has both an outer and an inner aspect. It
involves the triad of good actions, virtues, and knowledge. Ac-
cording to the Ihya', actions corne first. The first book of the
Ihya', after the introduction on knowledge, is entirely devoted to
'ibadat, ritual actions. These include ablutions, prayer, alms,
fasting, pilgrimage, reading the Qur'an, dhiki, the continual re-
membering of God, and wild or recitation of litany. Part II of the
Ihya' is devoted to social actions (cadat)—table manners, mar-
riage, earning a living, friendships, and journeys. This book ends
with chapters on music, ecstasy, hisba (ordering of good and for-
bidding of evil), and a chapter on the life and character of the
Prophet. In these sections al-Ghazzali discusses the ordinary rit-
ual duties of Muslims and sufi exercises. The combination is in-
tentional, for each implies the other. Ordinary devotion is the
basis of mystical attainments and sufism culminates in ordinary
devotion.
'Ibadat and cadat are basic to the purification of the soul.
Good relations among people is one of the goods of this world
that aids in the acquisition of qualities for the next. Good con-
duct toward others helps create good character. 'Ibadat are still
more central to the perfection of the soul, for acts of devotion
and worship must be performed not merely as gestures, but with
concentration, single-mindedness, purity, and sincerity of intent.
These actions, ritual and social, are important precisely because
they are God's revealed ways to cleanse the soul of passions and
12. Ibid., pp. 27-30.
KNOWLEDGE, VIRTUE, AND ACTION 49
invoke the remembrance that is inherent in the fttra—the origi-
nal soul. The prescribed acts of themselves purify.
The second aspect of purification is a direct assault on the in-
ner vices. Book III of the Ihya' describes these vices, which in-
clude the sins of speech—cursing, false promises, lying, slander,
backbiting; they include anger, envy, greed, jealousy, gluttony,
miserliness, ostentation, pride, love of wealth and power, and
love of this world. These vices sully the heart and stand in the
way of ultimate happiness, not to speak of ordinary well-being.
The elimination of these vices is a life-long process. Children
must be raised properly with praise and blame, reward and pun-
ishment, to discipline their desires, and habituate them to good
acts.13 As children become adults, the discipline of society, the
admonition of friends, the counsel of elders, the imitation of
good people is also helpful. In adulthood, however, the process of
rooting out the vices becomes an individual responsibility. The
individual must himself become aware that he is beset by vice.
Sincere friends, shaikhs who know the soul, and even the slan-
ders of one's enemies or the observation of the vices of other peo-
ple may help one acquire it. Self-awareness must be followed by
inner struggle (mujahada}, self-training [nyada], and habitua-
tion (ictiyad}, by sturdy resistance to any external expression of
bad impulses in speech or action. Indeed, the individual must
not only control his impulses, he must oppose his vices by delib-
erately acting contrary to them. He has to create in the soul a
struggle between vices and their opposites so that the faculties
are driven from extreme expression toward the virtuous mean.14
The elimination of vices paves the way for a new level of
inward achievement, the acquisition of the mystical virtues.
Book IV is devoted to these virtues—the stations and states on
the way to God. They include repentance, fear, asceticism, and
patience, which are preliminary to gratitude, trust, love, and in-
timacy. In one sense, these virtues develop spontaneously. They
flourish like flowers in a garden when the garden is weeded. In
another sense, they can be won only through God's guidance and
grace (lahma). A good Muslim strives for ethical self-control, but
the mystical virtues flourish only by passive acceptance of
God's will.
13. Ibid., pp. 92-95.
14. Ibid., pp. 71-78,81-*
50 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
The third aspect of purification is knowledge. Knowledge has
the most complex implications. It is at once a means and a goal.
It is also a metaphor for the whole of the process by which reli-
gious vision is achieved. First, knowledge of the principles of the
faith, belief in God and His attributes, the angelic world, para-
dise, and the last judgment; knowledge of the character and
actions of the Prophet; knowledge of which actions are com-
manded, which prohibited, and which permitted; knowledge of
the heart and how to cure evil impulses—all of this is essential.
The scholar's knowledge, indeed, the knowledge contained in
the volumes of the Ihya', is important information.
In another sense, knowledge for al-Ghazzali is not what is
learned but what is experienced. It is precisely the insights im-
pressed upon the heart by the actions and the inner traits of the
person. Every action of the heart or the limbs, or inner move-
ment of the soul, impresses itself as an image [athar] on the
heart. Or he sometimes says, the heart is like a mirror which re-
flects the sum, the form, the essence of the actions and disposi-
tions it knows. Sometimes al-Ghazzali speaks of the heart as ac-
quiring a hal, a condition, or a sifa, an attribute. Every action
implants a thought, an idea, on the soul, for the essence of the
soul is intellect.
Moreover, this knowledge of the heart is more than just in-
formation. It is conviction that evokes a desire to put knowledge
into action. In al-Ghazzali's psychology, thoughts and impres-
sions in the mind engender desire, decision of the will, resolve,
intention, and finally, action. This knowledge so impregnates
the mind that all thinking runs by allusion from one passage
of the Qur'an or sunna to another, totally controlling the will
and the actions of the believer. Such knowledge is a "disposition
deeply rooted in the soul from which actions flow naturally and
easily without need of reflection or judgment."15 Such knowl-
edge is not only what we know but what we feel. It is a knowl-
edge that is not only known but meant. This kind of knowledge
generates qualities of soul that culminate in good deeds. In turn
these deeds reinforce the dispositions to goodness. Knowing the
truth forms the soul; being the truth forms the actions; doing
the truth leads to kashf—lifting of the veils and mystical vision
and love of God.
15. Ibid., pp. 34-35, 68.
KNOWLEDGE, VIRTUE, AND ACTION 51
Purification brings kashf, the lifting of veils and a realization
of God as real beyond doubt. How is this to be interpreted? In
one sense, it seems to mean that the soul, once purified, is set
free from the trammels of the body and rises up to a transcend-
ing vision of God. Farid Jabre, in his book on the concept of
macrifa in al-Ghazzali's thought, rejects this interpretation. Al-
Ghazzali does not allow any direct contact, vision, or unity be-
tween man and God. He shows that ma'rifa means knowledge of
the truths of religion perceived with utmost clarity and vision of
day without any intervening screen.16 In this sense, the vision of
God is not another reality but a way of understanding and living
life as a whole which results from the good deeds and virtues
that impress themselves upon the heart as truth. Ma'rifa, in this
sense, is not an extra experience, but insight into the meaning of
reality that rises from intellect and conviction, from experience
in the world and conformity to the principles of law.
Actions, virtues, and knowledge are provisions for the eternal
happiness of the soul. This concept of the perfection of the
soul echoes the teachings of the Qur'an. At the same time,
al-Ghazzali reflects the ethical position of Miskawaih. Yet al-
Ghazzali adds something to our comprehension of the soul of
man and its perfection. He adds a complex understanding of the
process by which this achievement may be gained. For Mis-
kawaih, cultivation of reason is essential. For al-Ghazzali, the
perfection of the soul is a consequence of the complex interrela-
tionship among the human intellect, faculties, and deeds. The
three factors are not cultivated successively or independently.
They are altogether interrelated. In al-Ghazzali's view, doing
good deeds establishes inner virtues. In turn, the virtues of the
heart govern the actions of the limbs. As each act, each thought,
each deed presses itself as an image upon the heart or becomes
an attribute of the heart, the struggle for purity makes the ac-
quired attributes all the more continuous, deeply rooted, and
seemingly natural. Moreover, since the heart is the seat of knowl-
edge this maturation of the soul through good deeds and virtues
leads to the mystical knowledge and love of God. Reciprocally,
mystical vision is the source of virtue and channels all action ac-
cording to God's will. What al-Ghazzali tells us about the rela-
tion of inward and outward deeds, of acts and knowledge, of the
16. Farid Jabre, La notion de la ma'rifa chez Ghazali (Beirut, 1958).
52 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
struggle for virtue and the vision of God, is that they are aspects
of a single progressive achievement in the course of which the
believer becomes more wise, more just, and more obedient, until
he achieves a totality of being that entails, at once, mystical in-
sight and ordinary piety.
At its highest reaches this is the achievement that assures the
eternal happiness of the soul. It must be built up by effort and
habituation, by self-control and self-development, but it can be
won only through God's guidance and grace (mhma).17 His guid-
ance gives knowledge; His grace governs the will and the ac-
tions. Without God, salvation is impossible; without human
effort, no one can reach the stations at which he may be con-
firmed by grace.
^ this world is essential to the mystical vision of God in the next.19
Ibn Khaldun
Although Ibn Khaldun was not an important religious thinker,
he gives a latter-day summary of the preceding philosophical,
theological, and sufi traditions that brings out the way in which
Islamic religious concepts define, not a state of being, but the
process by which the soul is formed. In the Shifa' as-sa'il, Ibn
Khaldun, though not a sufi, explains that sufisrn is a way to per-
fect the soul by the integration of knowledge and action. The
development of mystic potentialities proceeds through three
stages. The first is that of the man who strives after taqwd—to
keep to the limits imposed by the requirements of the Law. The
second stage is istiqama—to be upright, to govern the passions,
and to strengthen the soul so that good traits express themselves
in good deeds. For this stage, concentration of will and faithful
practices of religious duties, both inner and outer self-discipline,
are essential. In Ibn Khaldun's view, God has required belief in
the heart and obedience of the limbs. Islam in the heart must
manifest itself in every act, for the outer acts are signs of inward
virtues. Yet the relationship between the inward state of a man
and his outward behavior, especially his conformity to the de-
17. al-Ghazzali, Ihya', 3:25. See also Muhammad Abul Qasem, The Ethics of
al-Ghazzali (Petaling-Jaya, 1975). H. Lazarus Yafeh, "Place of the Religious
Commandments in the Philosophy of al-Ghazzali," Studies on al-Ghazzali
(Jerusalem, 1975), pp. 412-36, gives an excellent brief presentation of al-
Ghazzali's views on virtues and actions.
KNOWLEDGE, VIRTUE, AND ACTION 53
mands of the Muslim law, is, in fact, dialectical. Each trait seeks
to actualize itself in outward behavior; but each deed in action
also leaves a trace in the heart that will influence future actions.
To develop inner virtues one must do right actions just as, con-
versely, to do right actions one must develop inner virtues. Ibn
Khaldun refers to this process as the process of acquiring the
adab of the Qur'an and the Prophet.18
The person who has passed through the stages of taqwa and
istiqama reaches the level of kashf—the removal of the veils
and the acquisition of a direct knowledge of God. In the state of
mystical fulfillment, bodily faculties are left aside in favor of
pure vision, but only the person whose soul is properly formed
by deeds and virtues will receive the truth without distortion
and be capable of visionary knowledge of God. Living properly in
Thus far, Ibn Khaldun closely follows al-Ghazzali.
Ibn Khaldun, however, has a still more explicit concept of the
relationship among actions, virtues, and knowledge. In scattered
passages throughout the Muqaddima, he discusses the acquisi-
tion of ordinary life skills, such as those of a craft or profession.
For Ibn Khaldun any skilled activity, craft, or profession, such as
the scribal profession, and any manual, ritual, or intellectual
skill, such as poetic, linguistic, and scientific abilities that are
acquired as a result of instruction, practice, and repetition, form
a habit. A habit, "malaka" in Arabic, is more than just a learned
semiautomatic activity as in the English sense of the word. It
bears the meaning of the Latin, habitus—an acquired faculty,
rooted in the soul. Each activity "gives the soul a special coloring
that forms it."20 This mark, imagined as a corporeal trait, is
made deeper and more permanent as a result of constant practice
and repetition.
The soul takes shape by the process of acquiring such habits. An action
done once adds an attribute (sifa) to the essence of the soul. With repe-
18. Ibn Khaldun, Shifa'as-sa'il Tahdhib al-masa'il (Beirut, 1959), pp. 35,38, 56.
19. Ibid., pp. 24-46.
20. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddima (Arabic edition); E. M. Quatremere, Pio-
legomenes d'Ebn Khaldun, notices et extraits de manuscrits de la Biblio-
theque Impeiiale (Academic des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres), vols. 16-18
(Paris, 1858); F. Rosenthal, trans., The Muqaddimah, 3 vols. (New York, 1958).
Page numbers refer to Quatremere edition, 3:347.
54 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
tition it becomes a "condition" {hal), which is an attribute that is not
firmly established. After more repetition it becomes a habit (malaka),
that is, a firmly established attribute.21
Though a fully developed and rooted malaka is an acquired trait,
it becomes an integral and natural part of the soul of a per-
son. "Habits which are firmly established and rooted in their
proper places in the soul appear to be natural and innate in those
places/'22 Although there is only one kind of soul for human be-
ings, individuals become distinct as the "result of the differences
in perceptions, habits, and colorings that form the soul from the
outside, perfect its existence and transform its forms from po-
tentiality into actuality."23 The soul itself is the potential recep-
tor of those qualities with which it becomes marked as the result
of life-long practices.
In Ibn Khaldun's view, not only crafts and skills, but even
moral and spiritual qualities are based on malakat. For example,
worship is the practice that generates the malaka of obedience
and submission to God. The repeated performance of any good
deed generates virtues. Indeed, the whole of a man's life is built
on malakat. His inner state, his soul, is shaped by his activities.
Conversely, the shape of the soul is the basis of all activities.
The possession of a malaka, a rooted disposition, governs the ex-
pression of particular skills allowing that natural ease and spon-
taneity which characterizes a habit in our usual sense. A ma-
laka, then, is that inner quality developed as a result of outer
practice which makes the practice a perfect expression of the
soul of the actor.24 The concept of a craft is a metaphor for the
growth of a person in his social roles, technical skills, and moral
and religious behavior and in his inner dispositions and traits of
character. It is a metaphor for the development of personality on
the basis of a dialectical interaction between knowledge and vir-
tue and worldly activity. For the artisan or merchant in the mar-
ketplace, the scholar at school, or the scribe at court, worldly ac-
tion is the soil in which intellectual and moral skills may grow.
Each deed and action leaves a trace in the heart that will influ-
ence future actions. Each trait is actualized in outer behavior. To
21. Quatremere, Muqaddima 3:297.
22. Ibid., p. 313.
23. Ibid., p. 346.
24. For concept of craft, see Muqaddima, 2:306-07, 315, 376-77, 379;
3:31-34, 251, 253, 267, 297, 313-15, 346-47.
K N O W L E D G E , VIRTUE, AND ACTION 55
develop inner virtues one must do right actions; to do right ac-
tions one must possess inner virtues.
Furthermore, for Ibn Khaldun, any human activity is but a
specification of the more embracing process by which the soul
as a whole is formed. The process of giving shape to the soul
as a totality, in the wholeness of its being, is the acquisition of
faith. Faith has several degrees. The first is simply genuine belief
in the teachings of Islam as traditionally defined: "the affirma-
tion (tasdiq) by the heart of what the tongue says."25 Faith is
tasdiq—bearing witness to the truth. But beyond simple faith
there is a higher degree of belief—perfect faith. Calling on sufl
thought, Ibn Khaldun defines perfect faith as knowledge of the
oneness of God. This "knowledge," however, is more than the
simple intellectual knowing or the belief of the primary be-
liever. It is not merely knowledge known, but knowledge which
has become a built-in attribute (sifa) modifying the very nature
of a man's being. "Such declaration of the oneness of God does
not merely refer to faith, which is affirmation based upon judg-
ment, but rather belongs to the talk of the soul, and its perfec-
tion consists in the acquisition of an attribute by means of which
the soul is shaped." And the difference, Ibn Khaldun explains,
"between 'state' (hal) of the soul and knowledge in questions of
dogma is the difference between talking about and actually hav-
ing the attributes."26 It is the difference between knowing that
mercy on orphans is recommended and gladly giving alms.
The malaka of faith can only be acquired by repeated tasdiq
—affirmation of belief—and by acts of worship and repeated
good deeds (camal). "An attribute is not obtained just from knowl-
edge alone. There must be an action (camal) and it must be re-
peated innumerable times so that the habit becomes firmly
rooted and the attribute and real knowledge is acquired."27 Faith,
like any malaka, rises from actions, is perfected by action and
then governs all actions.
The highest degree is the acquisition from the belief of the heart and
the resulting actions, of a quality that'has complete control over the
heart so that it commands the actions of the limbs and makes every
activity take place in submissiveness to it to the point that all actions,
eventually, become subservient to this affirmation of faith. This is the
25. Quatremere, Muqaddima, 3:33.
26. Ibid., p. 31.
27. Ibid., p. 32.
56 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
highest degree of faith. It is perfect faith. The believer who has it will
commit neither a great nor a small sin.28
Faith, then, is acquired in the same manner as any craft, but it is
not just any craft. It is the cultivation of the totality of the soul
in all of its inner traits and outer expressions. It is the malaka of
the whole man, the culmination, the completion of a Muslim
adab.
Conclusion
These few selections show a remarkable consistency in the way
in which classical Muslim thinkers defined the nature of man,
his religious goal, and the process of religious and spiritual per-
fection. The Qur'an and later philosophers, mystics, and schol-
ars use much the same basic vocabulary and hold much the
same conception of the ideal Muslim and the process of develop-
ment involved in the perfection of his being. They agree that
man, constituted of body and soul, is an imperfect being, but
that he holds within himself the potential for union with God
and for the realization of his highest nature. His soul is a spiri-
tual substance, created by God before the birth of the person and
destined to live, beyond the death of the body, everlastingly. The
soul is composed of several faculties—especially the faculties of
reason (caql) and of anger and desire (together called nafs}. The
soul merges faculties that are spiritual and material, angelic and
bestial, divine and satanic. The true goal of life is to perfect the
soul so that the spiritual and the divine elements prevail over
the material and the satanic. cAql has to prevail over nafs. Mis-
kawaih and al-Ghazzali are agreed, however, that this does not
mean the destruction or abandonment in life of the lesser parts
of the soul but the dominance of reason over the other faculties;
the proper channeling and legitimate use of the animal parts,
with the achievement of some harmony or integration of fac-
ulties that is called justice in the soul. The goal is not to destroy
nafs, but to make use of it in the interest of caql.
Outwardly, the individual who has achieved this harmony be-
haves correctly in accord with the Law: inwardly, he achieves an
ethical and virtuous disposition and becomes capable of mysti-
cal vision of God. Such a person has fused the ideal of living
28. Ibid, pp. 33-34.
KNOWLEDGE, VIRTUE, AND ACTION 57
rightly in this world with a potential happiness in the world
to come.
Our thinkers agree, too, that the process by which this perfec-
tion may be achieved is ta'dib, a process of training, which pro-
ceeds on three levels. First is the training of the body and its be-
havior; second, the training of the emotions and dispositions;
third, the training of the mind and the acquisition of knowledge
and insight. Though we analyze them in sequence, the three are
not separate because each requires and favors the others, and be-
cause the desired result of this training is wholeness of being.
Adab begins and ends with good deeds, for they are at once
the ultimate goals and the basic means to the perfection of the
soul. clbadat and cadat are the goal of behavior because they are
commanded in the Qur'an and shari'a. They have an intrinsic
value as God's express command for how men should behave.
Moreover, these actions are also the means to religious fulfill-
ment, for they are precisely the gestures revealed by God as con-
ducive to the perfection of the soul. In the several images of our
writers, they form the soul; they mark it off as if with a dye; they
are the grit that polishes the fine mirror of the heart.
Second is the training of inner dispositions, for perfection is
not just a matter of outward deeds but of inward qualities. True
intention and goodness of heart are essential to the execution of
the prescribed acts. At this level the training proceeds by culti-
vating knowledge of what are good traits and striving to acquire
them by constant vigilance and self-discipline. The believer
wages an inner struggle to correct bad traits in action and thought
and progressively replace bad traits with good. From this per-
spective, life is a work of art. Without intending disrespect, I
would compare it to playing the piano. In this art, precise move-
ments of the fingers are essential, and yet for beauty to emerge
from precise actions, there must be an unconscious unity be-
tween the mind and the feelings and the action of the hands. Life
is ceremony. It is sacred rite. The prescribed rituals are truly ful-
filled when they are infused by seriousness and sincerity, by the
oneness of the heart with the act.
hi the art of living, all behavior has to be channeled into re-
vealed and correct forms that eliminate idiosyncratic or irra-
tional expressions of feeling. Miskawaih and al-Ghazzali stress
an alert, conscious, voluntary, antiinstinctual control of emotion
and impulse, and the disciplining of natural drives into a pat-
58 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
terned way of life. A Muslim life, however, is not seen as a suc-
cession of miscellaneous discrete actions. Virtues are not single
impulses, but are an established state of the soul (hai'a rasikha
ft nafs}; not merely the knowledge (ma'rifa), or the potential
(qudia], or the single act (ficl), but a steady condition of the heart
built up by long habituation such that good deeds and impulses
flow from them spontaneously and naturally.29 "Individual ac-
tions are seen as symptoms and expressions of an underlying
ethical personality."30
The third quality to be cultivated is the acquisition of knowl-
edge, and like the others it is both a means and an end. A good
Muslim must of course know the teachings of the Qur'an and
the Prophet and he must have a basic understanding of the states
of the heart, its good qualities, and how they are acquired. This
knowledge is essential for the development of good character
and for the performance of good actions. Knowledge directs judg-
ment, points out errors in feeling and behavior, controls the de-
cision to act, and leads to the desire to put truth into action. Yet
knowledge is also the goal in the sense that the training of the
soul converts ordinary forms of intellectual knowing into deeper
forms of belief, faith, certainty, and vision of God. Knowing the
good and ordering the soul in accord with knowledge deepens
and changes the meaning of that knowledge. Knowledge be-
comes direct experience, ma'rifa, of the inner meaning of reli-
gious truth. For example, to know that God exists and requires
humility leads to feeling and acting humble; and to be humble
gives new depth and meaning to the understanding of man's true
nature and his place before God and to the meaning of God's
power and goodness. What is first known by simple deference to
authority, or by intellectual skill, becomes a direct and then cer-
tain experience of reality.
Knowledge, then, is the fundamental Muslim metaphor, the
template on which a Muslim life is built. The essence of the soul
is the capacity for truth. The rational, the knowing part of the
soul links man to God. The reward of a fulfilled Muslim life is
vision and certain knowledge of God. Truth is what forms the
being of man. We might say in contemporary language that
meaning and communication of patterned thought are funda-
29. al-Ghazzali, Ihya', 3:68-69, 75.
30. Max Weber, Sociology of Religion (Boston, 1964), 155.
K N O W L E D G E , VIRTUE, A N D A C T I O N 59
mental to the organization of human identity, human beha-
vior, and human society. Classical Muslim thinkers also held
that the human being is a creature of the mind, and a human life
the expression of its most profound and meaningful insight—the
knowledge of God.
Thus, the soul begins its career as an unformed entity which
has to be provided with the good traits and acts that make it ca-
pable of the knowledge of the unity of God and of eternal happi-
ness. The process of building up a soul and of providing it with
acts, traits, and knowledge develops in breadth, depth, and in a
third dimension that I shall call meaning. It proceeds in breadth
as the individual corrects one bad quality after another and suc-
cessfully acquires a wide range of good qualities including those
that lead to mystical vision. It proceeds in depth in that acquired
traits have to be rooted progressively more and more deeply in
the soul. As Ibn Khaldun explains, attributes become ahwal and
malakat, states of the heart and thoroughly rooted dispositions
that govern the actions of the individual. Finally, the cultivation
of the soul proceeds by the deepening of meaning as well as of
action. The cultivation of good deeds and good character leads to
an ever more profound appreciation of the basic truths that
govern all human action. To live the truth is to know the truth
and the reality of God's existence.
This wholeness of being, the total purification of the soul, is a
state of both responsibility and freedom, not a fixed condition.
Al-Ghazzali points out that the virtues and actions, within the
cadre of sacred forms, vary according to the person and the cir-
cumstances and can be evaluated only by the use of rational judg-
ment (caql) and by recourse to the standards set by the shari'a.
Reason and judgment, justice and balance in the soul are not a
steady state, but a constant weighing of impulses, a constant
process of evaluation and choice. Every individual is endowed
with different strengths and weaknesses, and will make choices
appropriate to his individual reality. Yet at some point the indi-
vidual passes from conscious struggle to make wise choices to a
state in which choices are made and actions are taken spon-
taneously, without conflict or confusion and without conscious
deliberation. Such a person is well advanced on the way to God.
In describing this concept of adab, the formation of the per-
son, we are dealing, I believe, with one of the basic religious per-
spectives of sunm-suft Islam. It is a position that brings together
60 CLASSICAL ADAB
shan'a, theology, philosophy, and sufism. Shan'a is the dimen-
sion of Islam that exposits the law to be observed; theology and
philosophy deal with the structure of the soul and the rationale
for ethical behavior. Sufism appears not as a departure from basic
Islamic belief, but as an extension and perfection of Muslim
practice and Muslim ethics. Sufisrn as we see it in al-Ghazzali,
and as it was understood by Ibn Khaldun, was an integral aspect
of Islamic religious belief and of the processes by which Mus-
lims attained religious fulfillment.
Within the great range of human cultures, this is a particular
kind of religion. In defining itself, it excludes alternatives im-
plicit in Islam as well as the alternatives of other religions and
societies. Sunnl-sufi Islam is an ethical worldly religion that
seeks salvation in the this-worldly conduct of the ritual and so-
cial prescriptions of Islam. Social relationships, friendships,
earning a living, marriage, and family all come under the pur-
view of Islam. Religious knowledge and virtue can be achieved
only by engaging in practical worldly affairs, but worldly activity
has no ultimate value unless it is infused by religious purposes.
The sunnl-sufi tradition rejects worldly values pursued for their
own sake; the enjoyment of family, economic well-being, and
power are of secondary importance. Sunnl-sufi Islam turns its
back upon the aiete or honor and glory of the warrior, and on the
civil participation of the Greek citizen, for it refuses to see man
as a political creature, for whom the polis, the society of men, is
the epitome of human development. This Islam resists also the
intellectualism of professionals that is used to order and control
worldly affairs. It resists the heedless enjoyment of the beauty of
the world. Eroticism is alien to sunni-sufism, as is aestheti-
cism—absorption in the beauty of surface appearances.
Equally, sunnl-sufi Islam rejects self-cultivation in detachment
from the world. The monastic ideal of religious discipline, the
romantic ideal of the unfolding of individual potentials through
free and creative thought and action, the scientific ideal of pur-
suit of new knowledge for its own sake, and the contemplative
forms of passive mysticism are all decried. The ideal is rather
adab—a cultivated way of living in the world, without being ab-
sorbed by the world or fleeing from it. It is a life journey toward
self-realization and religious salvation that can only be achieved
by cultivating clear vision, ethical responsibility, honorable re-
lations with one's fellow man, and sincere worship. The true
K N O W L E D G E , VIRTUE, AND ACTION 61
paideia of a Muslim, then, is the integration of all levels of expe-
rience, knowledge, character, feeling, and action into a harmo-
nious life that leads to well-being in this world in patient prepa-
ration for the world to come.
These are broad assertions about Islamic religious ideas. I
broach them neither carelessly nor with undue confidence in
their validity, but in order to open for discussion the wide range
of issues. This paper only samples the great tradition of Islamic
religious thought. The three writers I have chosen to illustrate
Muslim concepts of adab must be evaluated in the context of
the larger tradition to determine whether their views are indeed
representative and whether their concept of a Muslim adab is
universal and truly an expression of sunnl-sufi Islam. At the
same time we must explore the variations and the alternatives
within the Muslim tradition. How have these concepts changed
over time? How have they been interpreted in different histor-
ical circumstances? What influence does this tradition have upon
South Asian Islam? What similarities and what differences in vo-
cabulary and conception do we find? To what extent have the
concepts of the soul, caql and nafs, cilm, Iman, penetrated popu-
lar Muslim views? Beyond these questions lie further issues in
the study of spiritual authority in the Muslim tradition. How
does an individual life come to be translated into a social exam-
ple? How do the social and cultural norms of Islam shape indi-
vidual lives? There is much to think about. I hope that these re-
flections will contribute to the discussion of questions that no
one of us can answer alone, but that we can hope to understand
together.

The Adab Literature
of Classical Sufism:
Ansarf s Code of Conduct
GERHARD BOWERING
It js a well-known fact that Islamic ethics took shape gradually
and achieved maturity after a long process of cultural assimila-
tion.1 In this process various practical ideals were amalgamated
to form standard norms of conduct within the Muslim commu-
nity. fllieislSKHEfgr^
biarilttadition;rthe Qur'anic~teachihgs;tthe.rriodet cdnductrofighje
Prophet and his Companions/; Pers'ian"and Greek ideas ofrriioral
perfection/regional patterns of behavior- of the, conqueredTpeJ)-
ples/ahd attitudes of Jewish and Christian origin. This process
was accelerated by the events of the civil wars, the struggles for
succession, and the social upheaval of the Muslim community
that accompanied the "Abbasid revolution.
The ethical ideal of popular Islam was propounded by Muslim
preachers and storytellers, who portrayed the noble qualities of
Muslim character through edifying anecdotes, such as those col-
lected in the Makarim al-akhlaq of Ibn Abi ad-Dunya (d. A.H.
281/A.D. 894).2 This ethical ideal was refined by the theological,
1. R. Walzer and H. A. R. Gibb, Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., 1:325-29
(art. Akhlak}; T. J. de Boer, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 2:501-13
(art. Ethics and Morality—Muslim); D. M. Donaldson, Studies in Muslim Eth-
ics (London, 1953).
2. J. A. Bellamy, The Noble Qualities of Character (Weisbaden, 1973); "The
Makarim al-Akhlaq by Ibn Abi'l-Dunya," Muslim World 53 (1963), 106-19.
THE ADAB L I T E R A T U R E OF CLASSICAL SUPISM 63
particularly Muctazili, discussion on individual responsibility
and moral decision, and it was treated systematically with regard
to the problems of state and society in the works of A"bu*.Yusuf/
(d. 182/798) andflVlawardi;(d. 450/1058).3
The Persian moral thought of Ibn al-Muqaffac (d. 139/757)4 was
adapted to Islamic standards by Ibn Qutaiba's (d. 276/889) hand-
book on Islamic ethics5 and by Ibn cAbd Rabbih's (d. 329/940)
manual on counsel for rulers.6 Greek-philosophical .ethics found
its way into the thought of Farabi (d. 339/950)7 and the work of
Ibn Miskawaih (d. 421/1030).8 On the governmental level of Isla-
mic society the moraHdeal of behavior/proliferated in the litera-
ture of the > Mirrors for Princes"9 written in Persian during the
period of Seljuk domination, e.g., theiQabusnama? compiled in
475/1082;10 the Siyasatnama of Nizam al-Mulk (d. 485/1092),
begun in 479/1086 but formally published in 499/1105;11 and the
3. Abu Yusuf Ya'qub b Ibrahim al-Kufi, Kitab al-khaiaj (Cairo, 1352); trans. E.
Fagnan, Le livre de 1'impot fonder (Paris,_1921); Abu Yusuf's work ought to be
compared with Abu Zakariyya' Yahya b Adam al-Umawi's (d. 203/818), Kitab
al-kharaj, ed. Juynboll (Leiden, 1896); A. Ben Shemesh, trans., Taxation in Is-
lam (Leiden, 1958); Mawardl, Al-Ahkam as-sultaniyya, ed. M. Enger (Bonn,
1853); E. Fagnan, trans., Les statuts gouvemementaux (Algiers, 1915); Mawardl
also wrote Nasihat al-muluk (extant in manuscript; cf. C. Brockelmann,
Geschichte der arabischen Literatur (Leiden, 1943-49), 1:386, and Adab ad-
dunya wa-ad-din (Cairo, 1315/1897); cf. H. A. R. Gibb, "Al-Mawardi's Theory
of the Caliphate," Studies on the Civilization of Islam (Boston, 1962), 151-65.
4. cAbd Allah b al-Muqaffac, Al Adab as-saghir, Al-Adab al-kablr, Ar-Risala fi
as-sahaba, ed. Muhammad Kurd cAli, Rasa'il al-bulagha' (Cairo, 1331/1913);
for Ibn al-Muqaffac's translations from Pahlavi into Arabic, cf. Ibn an-Nadim,
Fihrist, ed. Fliigel (Leipzig, 1872), pp. 118, 242, 305.
5. cAbd Allah b Muslim b Qutaiba, 'Uyun al-akhbar, ed. C. Brockelmann
(Berlin-Strasbourg, 1900-08), in particular book I {Kitab as-sultan}.
6. Abu 'Umar cAmr b Muhammad b cAbd Rabbih, Al-clqd al-fand, 7 vols. (Cairo,
1367/1948-1372/1953), in particular book I (Kitab al-lu'lu'a ft as'sultan).
7. E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in Medieval Islam (Cambridge, 1958),
pp. 113-223.
8. cAbd Allah b Miskawaih, Adab al-fuis wa-al-'arab (cf. C. Brockelmann,
Geschichte der arabischen Literatur [Leiden, 1943-49], supplement 1:584-
85) and Tahdhlb al-akhlaq (Beirut, 1966).
9. For the literature of the Arabic "Mirrors for Princes," cf. G. Richter, Studien
zur Geschichte der alteren arabischen Furstenspiegel (Leipzig, 1932); for the
Persian andarz literature, cf. A. Christensen, L'Iran sous les Sassanides (Co-
penhagen, 1936), p. 426.
10. Kaika'us b Iskandar b Qabus b Wushmgir, Qabusnama, ed. R. Levy (Lon-
don, 1957); R. Levy, trans., A Mirror for Princes (London, 1951); other transla-
tions by F. Diez (Berlin, 1811) and A. Querry (Paris, 1886).
11. Nizam al-Mulk, Siyasatnama, ed. C. Schefer (Paris, 1891); ed. Mudarrisi
Chahardihi (Teheran, 1956); ed. S. A. R. Khalkhali (Teheran, 1931), a variant
text; translations by C. Schefer (Paris, 1891), B. N. Zakhoder (Moscow, 1949);
H. Darke (London, 1960), K. E. Shabinger (Freiburg/Miinchen, 1960).
 64 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
(Nasihat al-Muluk of Abu Hamid ;al-Ghazzali. (d. 505/1111)/2
written during the last years of his life. On the popular level
of society, Muslim rules of ethical conduct were set forth by
the manuals of sufi literature, e.g, the Kitab al-lumac of Sarraj
(d. 378/988),13 the Qut al-qulub of Makki (d. 386/996),14 and the
Risala of Qushairi (d. 465/1074).15 Within this complex structure
a type of Islamic custom and ponduct took shape, rooted partl^
intlslamic law and partly in a way of life that was derived from?
widely different sources.
The Arabic language has a number of terms for "custom" (and
its connotations of "use" and "wont" on the one hand, and "be-
havior" and "conduct" on the other hand), namely sunna, cada,
cuif, da'b, adab, and others. The development of the concept of
sunna (pi. sunan), which goes back to the Qur'an and the pre-
Islamic Arab tradition, is best understood in relation to its vari-
' ous opposites. In the Qur'an the sunnat Allah (the wont of God,
often used parallel to sunnat al-awwalin, the wont of the fore-
fathers) refers predominantly to events that recall particular acts
of divine punishment in past generations. These acts of punish-
ment stand in stark contrast to the\ayat Allah (the signs of God),
the mighty works of divine omnipotence which God has estab-
lished in nature and history. The{hadith elaborates a distinction
between ihe\sunna of the Prophet (sunnat an-nabi), a standard
of behavior, and the Book of God (kitab Allah), a code of con-
duct, whose mutual relationship is discussed at length in the
treatises on <usul al-fiqh. Muhammad's normative behavior, in-
cluding his deeds, utterances, and unspoken approval [flcl, qaul,
taqrii), is defined in opposition to innovation (bid'a), i.e., actions
in disagreement with the practice established by Muhammad's
example or the early tradition of the Muslim community. When
12. Abu Hamid Muhammad b Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Nasihat al-muluk, ed.
J. Huma'i (Teheran, 1351/1972); F. R. C. Bagley, trans., Ghazall's Book of Coun-
sel for Kings (London, 1964); the work was originally composed in Persian and
later translated into Arabic (frequently entitled At-Tibr al-Masbuk), cf. F.
Meier, Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 93 (1939):
395-408.
13. Abu Nasr cAbd Allah b cAli as-Sarraj, Kitab al-lumac ft at-tasawwuf, ed. R.
A. Nicholson (Leiden, 1914).
14. Abu Talib Muhammad b 'All, Qut al-qulub fi mu'amalat al-mahbub wa-
wasf tanq al-murid ila maqam at-tauhid, 4 vols. (Cairo, 1351/1932).
15. Abu al-Qasim <Abd al-Karim al-Qushairi, Ar-Risala al-qushairiyya (Cairo,
1385/1966); cf. R. Hartmann, Al-Kuschairis Darstellung des Sufitums (Ber-
lin, 1914).
THE ADAB L I T E R A T U R E OF C L A S S I C A L S U F I S M 65
it is defined as one of the five categories of actions (ahkam) in
the classification of shari'a law, the notion of sunna takes on the
restricted meaning of meritorious or recommended action (man-
dub) as opposed to ^reprehensible action (makruh).16 In a wide
sense, the term sunna is used in the well-know:K(Jiendiadyjrof
ahl as-sunna wa-al-jamaca, the self-description of the Sunni
majority community. Although in this sense sunna is under-
stood in contrast to shi'a, those who uphold the cause of the
Prophet's family (ahl al-bait), it is to be noted that the Shia ad-
heres to the normative sunna of the Prophet provided it is trans-
mitted through authorities who are trustworthy in Shiite eyes.
It appears that the technical denotations and the wide range of
connotation associated with the term sunna may have led to the
predominant use of the non-Qur'anicftzcfa (pi. cadat) as the most
general and common word for custom. As such, the term may
refer to good and bad actions, and also to actions that are reli-
giously and legally indifferent, but it specifically denotes the sur-
vival of pre-Islamic customary usages (frequently also termed
<urf) in the local law of particular regions of the Muslim world
!
•jj (dai al-islam). Though not one of the usul al-fiqh, snyfadal'urf,
ideally,\is admissible law in dai al-islam so long as it is not con-
trary to the established law of Islam. In fact, however, the cus-
tomary law based on \adat often developed parallel to and some-
times in violation of the shaifa.17
The rarely occurring term 'da'b (habit) may be understood as
related to a dab by way of metaplasm through the inversion of
the first and second radical. If this is so, it would entail a charm-
ing etymology, namely, that the plural adab derived originally
from ad'ab, the extinct plural of da'b (according to the pattern
of abai, the plural of bi'i), and subsequently adopted the singular
adab, whereupon adab monopolized the plural adab, whereas
da'b formed the new plural ad'ub.™
The referent of \adab (pi. adab), which like cada is not to be
found in the Qur'an, may best be understood in its historical
16. J. Schacht, Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden, 1960), pp. 524-29 (art.
Shari'a); A. Wensinck, ibid., pp. 552-53 (art. Sunna).
17. G. H. Bousquet and S. T. Lokhandwalla, Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edi-
tion, 1:170-74 (art. cAda).
18. K. Vollers, Katalog der islamischen Handschriften der Universitatsbiblio-
thek zu Leipzig (Leipzig, 1906), p. 180; C. A. Nallino, Racolta di scritti (Rome,
1948),6:1-17.
66 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
evolution. In its oldest sense, 'adab denotes a custom, a practical
^norm of conduct, and may be regarded as a synonym to sunna in
the sense of the traditional norm of conduct derived from the ex-T
emplary behavior of the ancestors. This primitive sense of adab
developed in three directions during the first three centuries of
Islam. In its ethical sense, adab came to mean personal quality,
good upbringing, and courtesy as Bedouin social life was refined
in the urban environment of nascent Islam and through contact
with foreign cultures. In its social senseA adab (used most often
in the plural) .came to acquire the meaning of etiquette in eating,
drinking, dressing, and elegant life-style in public and private. In
its intellectual sense, adab (used predominantly in the singular)
came to imply the sum of profane knowledge acquired by an ed-
ucated Muslim who, like Jahi?; (d. 255/868), as pointed out by
Gabrieli, was "not only cultivated in Arabic poetry and prose, in
maxims and proverbs, in genealogy and tradition of jahiliyya
and of the Arabs at a time when they were hardly yet Islamized,
but broadened out his range of interest to include the Iranian
world with all its epic, gnomic, and narrative tradition, the In-
dian world with its fables, and the Greek world with its practical
philosophy, and especially its ethics and economics.'"19
In making these distinctions one has to notice, however, that
the three senses of adab often overlap and are rarely realized in
their typological purity by individuals. This can easily be dem-
onstrated when one consults the works of the Arab lexicogra-
phers, the Lisan al-caiab, the Taj al-cams, or others, which ap-
pear to be well aware of diverse levels of meaning of adab.20 It
may also be noted that Orientalists have entertained the conjec-
ture that the teim\qkhlaq. (plural of the Qur'anic khuluq) may
have been substituted for adab as denoting the ethical forms ,of
conduct, at a time when Muslim authors adopted the Islamicly
tinged term of akhlaq for Muslim ethics in reaction to the im-
pact of the ethic of Persian origin that was spread under the term
of adab.21
The fidabj, occupy an extremely (important place in the sufi
way of life, so much so that a third/ninth century sufi could coin
the following shorthand definition of sufism: "The whole of suf-
19. F. Gabrieli, Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, 1:176 (art. Adab).
20. E. W. Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon (London, 1863), 1:35.
21. R. Walzer and H. A. R. Gibb, Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, 1:326
(art. Akhlak).
THE ADAB L I T E R A T U R E OF C L A S S I C A L SUPISM 67
ism is ways of behavior (at-tasawwuf kulluhu adab}."22 These
disciplinary rules of the sufis are known under the technical
terms of .adab as-suflyya anadab al-muridin, i.e., the proper
ways of behavior of the sufis or novices, sometimes separated
into ladab az-zahii (external conduct) and adab al-batin (inner
attitudes). It appears, however, that by a da iutheisu/I literature
understands predominantly outward* conduct as distinct from
inner attitudes, which are usually termed itiaqamat (stages or
way stations representing virtues acquired by the sufiin his
mystical itinerary)' or ahwal (states or dispositions experienced
by the mystic as divine gifts)'. This is also illustrated by the ex-
planation added to the above-mentioned definition of sufism:
"To each mystical moment (waqt), each state (hal)j and each
stage (maqam) belongs a discipline (adab]. Whoever adheres to
the ways of behavior (adab) of the mystical moments has reached
the rank of mature men. Whoever neglects ways of behavior is
far from where he supposes (God's) nearness and is driven away
from where he expects (His) acceptance."23
These ways of behavior grew naturally out of those sufi groups
that crystallized in the regional centers of the third/ninth cen-
tury, particularly inilfaq'and Khorasari. The development of their
radab is marked by three characteristic features.^First, the sufis
derive their rules of discipline from the iadfti,and-profess their
allegiance to the ideal model of the Prophef as'/'the epitome of
the ways of behavior (majma* al-adab),"24 from whom all adab
are to be learned, thus conforming? as it were, to the consensus
(i/znzz') of the Muslim community with regard to social conduct.
Secondly/the • sufis- adopt-new ways of behavior by the indepen-
dent effort (ijtihad) of developing their institutions^, e.g., the
ceremonial investiture with the sufi garb (khiiqa), the establish-
ment of convents (khanaqah), the listening to spiritual music
(samac), and the forty-day retreat (chilla).^Thirdly, /the.su/fs give
equal emphasis to mystical union (tauhid) and ascetic discipline
22. Abu cAbd ar-Rahman Muhammad b al-Husain as-Sulami, Tabaqat a$-suf-
iyya, ed. Shariba (Cairo, 1372), p. 119 (statement by Abu Haf§ al-Haddad, d.
267/880 or 270/884).
23. Ibid., p. 119.
24. Abu Hafs cUmar as-Suhrawardl, 'Awarif al-macaiif (Beirut, 1966), p. 281; R.
Gramlich, Die Gaben dei Eikenntnisse des 'Umar al-Suhrawaidi (Wiesbaden,
1978), p. 251.
25. clzz ad-Din Mahmud al-Kashani, Misbah al-hidaya wa-miftah. al-kifaya
(Teheran, 1365/1946), p. 146.
68 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
({a'dib) and consider the latter as ancillary to the former. Ta'dib,
the ascetic practice in which the carnal soul is blotted out so as
to free the spiritual self of man, facilitates tauhid, the mystical
experience in which the self passes away and subsists in God.
This process of self-mortification (mujahada) leading to illumi-
nation (mukashafa) has been termed the greater holy war (al-
jihad al-akbai}} as opposed to the lesser holy war (al-jihad al-
asqhai] against the unbelievers.26
The importance of the adab in sufismris reflected in the cen-
tral place accorded to questions of adab in the sufi primary
sources from the fourth/tenth to the seventh/thirteenth century.
From the Kitab al-luma' of Sarraj and the Qut al-qulub of Makkl
through the Risala of Qushairi and the Kashf al-mahjub of cAli
b cUthman al-Hujwm (d. 469/1077) until the cAwarif al-macanf
of Abu Hafs cUmar as-Suhrawardi (d. 632/1234), a significant
body of information is to be found in the Arabic and Persian
manuals of sufism. Next to the material on adab, integrated into
the handbooks of sufisrn, there are certain treatises exclusively
concerned with adab; in particular, works by such authorities as
Sulami (d. 412/1021), Ansari (d. 481/1089), and Abu an-Najib as-
Suhrawardi (d. 563/1168). Although the handbooks have been
available in print for a considerable time and are generally well
known, some of the particular treatises on the sufi adab litera-
ture have been published in critical editions only during the last
twenty-five years.
Sulami compiled two treatises that specifically deal with sufi
adab, the Kitab adab as-suhba27 and the Jawami* adab as-
sufiyya,28 He also wrote two short tracts that, to some degree,
fall within the scope of sufi adab literature, namely, the Kitab
al-arba cin29 and the cUyub an-nafs.30 In discussing the sufi ways
of behavior in special treatises, Sulami follows an already estab-
lished tradition of sufi tracts, some of which are cited in Ibn an-
Nadim's (d. 385/995) Fihrist and Hujwiri's Kashf al-mahjub?1
26. Abu al-Hasan CA1I b 'Uthman al-Jullabi al-Hujwiri, Kashf al-mahjub, ed.
V. A. Zhukovsky (Teheran, 1336); R. A. Nicholson, The Kashf al-mahjub (Lon-
don, 1936), p. 200.
27. Kitab adab as-suhba wa-husn al-'ushra, ed. M. J. Kister (Jerusalem, 1954).
28. Jawami* adab as-suftyya, ed. E. Kohlberg (Jerusalem, 1976).
29. Kitab al-aibafln (Haidarabad, 1369/1950).
30. 'Uyub an-nafs wa-mudawatuha, ed. E. Kohlberg (Jerusalem, 1976).
31. Ibn an-Nadlm, Fihrist, pp. 184-85; Hujwiri, Kashf al-Mahjub, 439 trans-
lated by Nicholson 338; cf. Geschichte des aiabischen Schrifttums (Leiden,
THE ADAB L I T E R A T U R E OP CLASSICAL SUFISM 69
Neither the manuals nor the particular treatises on sufi adab
make it their aim to give a minute account of actual Sufi ways of
behavior. Content with general formulations and enumerations
of sufi practices, they appear to be principally intent on the apol-
ogetic goal of showing critics of sufism that sufi practices clearly
fall within the framework of normative Sunni conduct based on
the practice of the founding generation of Islamic society. To this
end they adduce extensive proof-texts from hadith-liteiataie and
stress the proper performance of the ritual duties of Islam. This
situation changes abruptly with a short treatise by Ansari, a code
of sufi conduct presented below in translation, which deals with
sufi adab in an extremely succinct and detailed fashion.
Ansari's code of sufi conduct, entitled Mukhtasai fi adab as-
sufiyya and edited by Laugier de Beaurecueil, is based on the
unique manuscript SehitAliPasa 1393 (folios 39a-49a) that was
copied in 770/1368.32 This Persian treatise, a summary account
of sufi adab in seven chapters with a short introduction and a
brief conclusion, confines itself to ways of behavior peculiar to
the sufis, namely, their manners in dress, at prayer, in the con-
vent, at mealtime* when accepting invitations/while listening to-
spiritual music, and in traveling. The tract was probably com-
piled shortly after Ansari's death by a close disciple who faithfully
recorded the teaching of the master. As a whole the treatise has
an uneven structure. The first chapter on sufi dress is dispropor-
tionately large as compared with the other chapters. It also ap-
pears that the first chapter has woven through it symbolic expla-
nations that are almost totally absent from the rest of the tract.
It may be possible, therefore, that the first chapter was revised at
some stage by Ansari's commentator.
It should be noted that Ansari's tract appears to be the same as
1967), 1:644, 649, 659, 663, 676; for an example: Burjulani (d. 238/852), Kitab
as-suhba; Muhasibi (d. 243/857), Adab an-Nufus; Yahya b Mu'adh ar-Razi (d.
258/872), Kitab al-muildin-, Ibn Abi ad-Dunya (d. 281/894), Kitab al-ikhwan-,
Hakim at-Tirmidhi (d. 285/898), Adab al-mundin and Adab an-nafs; Junaid
(d. 298/910), Adab al-muftaqii ila Allah; cAli b Muhammad al-Misri (d.
338/949), Kitab al-mutahabbln and }ami< as-saghn fi'1-adab; Abu <Abd Allah
ar-Rudabari (369/979), Adab al-faqii/ for the time after Sulami, see also Abu
Jacfar Muhammad b Yazdaniyar, who wrote Raudat al-muridin in 430/1038 (cf.
J. A. Williams, Ph.D. diss. Princeton University, 1957), Wazzan (d. 5th/llth
century), Adab al-muiid, and Hujwiri, Asiar al-khiraq wa-al-macunat (cf.
Kashf al-mahjub, trans. Nicholson, 56).
32. Bulletin de I'institut franfais d'azcheologie orientale 59 (1960): 203-40
(with French translation and notes).
 70 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
the Adab al-muiidin (ms. Aya Sofya 4792, folios 738b-741b,
copied in 816/1413) whose authorship is ascribed by F. Meier to
Najm ad-Din al-Kubra (d. 618/1221).33 There is no doubt that the
two versions are identical word for word, except for a very few
details. The absence of quotations from sources later than An-
sari, the complete independence of the work from Abu an-Najib
as-Suhrawardi's Adab al-muridln3* (hardly explicable in a work
by Kubra, whose sO.fi affiliation is commonly traced back to Abu
an-Najib via cAmmar al-Bidlisi);35 the cross-reference to Ansari's
Manazil as-sa'inn within the work;36 the strong plea for Sunni
attitudes in the sufi master that is consistent with the fervent
Hanbali trend of Ansari,37 yet hardly compatible with the Shiite
leanings of certain Kubrawis;38 and finally the conformity of the
treatise with the thought and style of Ansari/9 all suggest that
the work was compiled by a direct disciple of Ansari and later
plagiarized either by Kubra himself or one of Kubra's early
followers.40
Ansari's tract, though embedded in a well-established tradi-
tion of sufi adab literature, is nevertheless an original work with
a very specific focus on the external conduct of the sufis. It "is
succinct and refrains from any lengthy quotation of Qur'anic
verses, hadlth statements, or sufi sayings. Moreover, it is not ad-
dressed to a general audience, as would be the case with an apol-
ogetic tract for the sufi cause, but reflects the directives of a sufi
master for a group of his immediate disciples. These guidelines,
given in minute detail and with great precision, constitute a val-
uable and significant document about sufi conduct in the fifth/
eleventh century.
The stress on behavior by the sufi sources in general and An-
33. F. Meier, "Ein Knigge fur Sufis," Rivista degli studi orientali 32 (1957):
485-524.
34. Abu an-Najib as-Suhrawardi, Adab al-muridin, ed. F. M. Saltut (Cairo,
1974); another edition by M. Milson (Jerusalem, 1978); M. Milson, trans., A
Sufi Rule for Novices (Cambridge, 1975).
35. F. Meier, Die Fawa'ih al-gamal wa-fawatih al-galal des Nagm ad-Din al-
Kubra (Wiesbaden, 1957), pp. 18-21.
36. Cf. below, translation, paragraph 42.
37. Cf. below, translation, paragraphs 5 and 6.
38. M. Mole, "Les Kubrawiya entre sunnisme et shiisme aux huitieme et
neuvieme siecles de I'Hegire," Revue des etudes islamiques (1961), pp. 61 -142.
39. S. L. de Beaurecueil, Khwadja cAbd Allah Ansari (Beirut, 1965).
40. R. Gramlich, Die schiitischen Derwischorden Persiens: Erster Teil (Wies-
baden, 1965), p. 11.
THE ADAB L I T E R A T U R E OF C L A S S I C A L SUFISM 71
sari's code of sufi conduct in particular is rooted in the sufi mas-
ters' firm conviction that theory and practice are intimately
linked in Islamic mysticism. This inner unity of the theory and
practice of sufism may reflect the unity of belief and practice
characteristic of Islam as a whole. The roots of sufism in reli-
gious practice and conduct enabled sufism to persist as a unify-
ing bond and a force of renewal within Islamic society from the
sixth/twelfth to the eighth/fourteenth century, when the tradi-
tional order of Islamic society was in a state of fragmentation.
The foundation for this remarkable strength in a time of political
and social break-up was laid in the classical sufisrn of the third/
ninth to the fifth/eleventh century. In this period, the sufi adab
developed from variegated practices of individual sufis and re-
gional groups of mystics into a basically uniform and regulated
sufi way of behavior. In this evolution, sufism dissociated itself
from the need to defend itself against attacks by the religious
leadership of the majority community, and turned towards the
permanent establishment of its own institutions. Ansari's tract
on adab reflects sufi practices and institutions in an already
firm and consolidated state and provides a glimpse of the kind of
man whovwas educated in these -siyx institutions.
A Compendium on the Conduct of the Sufis
and Those who Follow the Path of God (Translation)
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, His help
we seek.
(1) The master, guide and mystic, Abu Isma'il 'Abdullah al-
Ansari said: "Know that sufism (tasawwuf] consists of four
things: purity (safa}, loyalty (wafa}, annihilation (fana} and sub-
sistence (baqa}."*1 Sahl-i Tustari42 says: "Sufism is being free of
41. The definition takes its clue from the initial letters of safa, wafa, and fana
o baqa, resulting in suf (wool), from which tasawwuf is commonly derived.
42. Sahl-i Tustari (d. 283/896); see G. Bowering, The Mystical Vision of Exis-
tence in Classical Islam (Berlin and New York, 1980); L. Massignon, La Pas-
sion d'al-Hallag (Paris, 1922), 1:28-32; idem, Essai sur les origines du lexique
technique de la mystique musulmane (Paris, 1968), pp. 294-300; idem,
Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden, 1961), 488-89 (art. Sahl at-Tustari)
and 500 (art. Salimlya); Subhi Furat, Islam Ansiklopedsi 10:322-24 (art. Sehl
ut-Tusteri); I. Goldziher, "Die Dogmatische Partei der Salimijja," ZDMG 61
(1907):73-80; M. K. J. Jacfar, Min Turath as-sufiyya (Cairo, 1976); C. Tune,
Sahl b cAbd Allah at-Tustari und die Salimlya (Bonn, 1970).
72 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
worry, filled with serenity (flkr), and cut off from humanity for
God's sake."43 The meaning of his words is the following: the
sufi ought to be far from all confusion and full of serenity, with
his heart detached from all creatures and his hope put in God.
(2) Know that the sufis have numerous rules of conduct (adab}
about how to sit, get up, sleep, dress, eat, drink, accept invita^
tions, listen to music, comport themselves.at home, on a jour?*
ney and in all situations. Whoever puts on the frock (khiiqa) and
takes up the sufi way of life has to know those rules of conduct
and put them into practice so that his exterior (zahii) will be
adorned through them and his interior (batin) will be graced
with the Reality (haqiqat} of sufism through the blessing of
those rules.
(3) It has been said: "The interior of one who is not pleasant,
is not sound/' namely "whoever has a pleasant exterior, pos-
sesses a sound interior."44 One ought to have an exterior of good
manners so that the interior will be adorned with all shades of
Reality. In fact, the exterior maintains a trace of the interior, and
the interior has a notion of the exterior. The Shaikh al-Islam,
cAbdullah-i Ansari has said: "Smoke tells about the fire and dust
about the wind; the exterior gives an account of the interior and
the disciple (shagird) of the master (ustad)."45
I. RULES OF CONDUCT FOR PUTTING ON THE FROCK«
(4) Whoever manifests the desire (imdat) to become a sufi and
wants to put on the frock (khirqa)46 ought to receive it from»a
master (pir) who is equally expert in the Law (shari'at), the Path
(tanqat}, and the Reality (haqiqat}.47 He has to be well-versed in
the principles of the Law, knowledgeable in the manners of the
43. Kalabadhi, Kitab at-ta'anuf li-madhhab ahl at-tasawwuf, ed. A. J. Arberry
(Cairo, 1934), p. 9; A. J. Arberry, trans., The Doctrine of the Sufis (Cambridge,
1935), p. 10; Mustamli, Sharh-i ta'arruf (Lucknow, 1328/1910), 1:74.
44. Sularm, Kitab adab as-suhba, ed. M. J. Kister (Jerusalem, 1954), p. 86 (husn
adab az-zahir 'unwan husn adab al-batin); cf. also Abu Nu'aim al-Isfahani,
flilyat al-auliya' (Cairo, 1391/1971), 10:121 (statement by Sari as-Saqati, d.
253/867).
45. Sulami, Jawami' adab as-suftyya, ed. E. Kohlberg (Jerusalem, 1976), p. 18
(para. 46), with a similar statement. I have been unable to trace the statement
in Ansari's works.
46. For various interpretations of the sufi dress {khirqa, frock, and muraqqa'a,
patched frock); compare R. Gramlich, Die schiitischen Derwischorden Per-
siens: Zweiter Teil (Wiesbaden, 1976), pp. 172-74.
47. The tripartite division of religion into Islamic Religious Law (shari'at),
Mystic Path (tanqat), and Spiritual Reality (haqiqat) is frequently employed in
THE ADAB L I T E R A T U R E OP C L A S S I C A L SUFISM 73
Path, and familiar with the secrets of Reality. Thus, if a difficulty
in matters of the Law presented itself to the novice (muiid), the
master would solve it through his .knowledge-("iZrn'jj if a vision
(waqica)4S occurred on the Path, he would elucidate it through
his cognition (maciifat);t and if a mystery (siri) appeared in the
Reality, he would explain it through his intuition (baslrat}.49
(5) The frock is not to be received from the hand of someone
who is a master's descendant and a person held in respect, who
has many disciples and is honored in the company of kings, sons
of this world and rulers. Such a person ought not to be a master
in sufism. Keeping his company would only increase the corrup-
tion of the heart and religion. The master has to be a Sunni since
no innovator (mubtadti} ever possesses .divine friendship (wila-
yat). In fact, innovation (bid'at) is unbelief, and no unbeliever
can be a friend of God (wall}. For example, if you see an innova-
tor who possesses apparent miraculous power (kaiamat}, take
care not to be deceived, for this is the devil's delusion designed
1 to make men fall into error; the devil has snares against which a
man of intuition ought to protect himself. The devil's greatest
traps are the mystical state, the renunciation and the prayer of
1 an innovator. In fact the people are deceived by his apparent as-
ceticism, they imitate him and associate with him until, step by
step, he sows the seed of innovation in their hearts and makes
them stray from the path of the sunna. When you reflect on the
outcome of their undertaking, unbelief and error appear. May
God keep us aloof from the company of the innovators.
(6) Indeed, the novice ought to receive the frock from the hand
of a Sunni master who is expert in the Law, the Path, and the
Reality. Whoever accepts the frock has to be able to endure the
labor and affliction of the Path, and to perservere in the ascetic-,
'exercise (nyadat}\d spiritual warfare (mujahadat} of the peo-
ple of Reality without turning back, because whoever turns back
after having turned to sufism is a deserter of the.Pjath (murtadd-i
tanqat}. One who deserts the Path is worse than one who deserts
sufism. Ansari sees it reflected in the constitution of man, the Law represent-
ing the body (tan), the Path the heart (dil), and the Reality the spirit (jan); cf.
Rasa'il-i Khwaja 'Abd Allah-i Ansari, ed. Wahid-i Dastgirdi, Armaghan, 1319,
Risala-i waridat, 22-23.
48. For the translation of waqi'a as "vision," see F. Meier, DieFawa'ih, pp. 109-
13; R. Gramlich, Derwischorden Zweitei Teil, p. 215.
49. For cilm and ma'rifat, see R. Gramlich, Derwischorden Zweiter Teil,
pp. 123-38; for baslrat, ibid., pp. 421-22. It may be noted that the author jux-
taposes shari'at and cHm, tanqat and ma'rifat, and haqiqat and baslrat.
74 CLASSICAL ADAB
the Law, because the deserter of the Law (murtadd-i shancat]-xe;f
turns to his previous state by uttering a single word (kalima)
while the deserter of the Path does not return even by the efforts
of men and genies,50 Whoever has been found a traitor once will
not be trusted a second time. The great masters said: "It is im-
possible to recapture the mystical state after it has ceased to
be."51
(7)lWhen«the: novice wants to put on the frock, .he, first hasjtp
take off and discard the robe he wore in the world. The best dress
is that of wool (pashmln) and the first to wear it were Adam and
Eve. When they came into the world they were naked. Gabriel
came and brought them a ram. Having shorn off its wool, Eve
spun it, Adam wove it, and they put it on. Moses, too, wore
wool.52 The sufi derives his name from wpob(su/).53 When he
puts on wool, he seeks to accomplish what it requires. In fact,
the word^su/ consists of three letters, 'sad, waw and fa'. With the
-sad>he embraces 'sincerity,;{sidg), purity (safa),' firmness;(saj-
ybat), patience (sabi}>, and integrity (saltih}; with the Waw, loy?
alty;(wfl/fl); union (wasl], and ecstasy (waj.d^ and with the £ai,
freedom from .sorrow\famj-) and joy of -life(farah), so that wear-
ing wool has its full meaning for him.54
(8) If the novice wears the patched frock (muraqqa'}, he says,
50. The deserter of the Law (mwtadd-i sharfat], the apostate, returns to his
faith by pronouncing the Muslim profession of faith [shahada], whereas the de-
serter of the Path (mwtadd-i tariqat) cannot recapture the lost mystical state,
which is a divine gift independent of human effort. For the translation of
thaqalain by "men and genies/' see E, W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon
(London and Edinburgh, 1863), 1:344.
51. Talab al-hal ba'd az-zawal muhal; I have been unable to identify the au-
thor of this statement.
52. Many ahadith claim that the prophets, from Adam to Muhammad, wore
wool; cf. A. J. Wensinck, A Handbook of Early Muhammadan Traditions
(Leiden, 1971), p. 46; idem, Concordance, 3:443-44; Abu Ishaq-i Mahmud b
Uthman-i Kazaruni (d. 426/1035) cites Adam and Eve as the first who wore
wool, spun, and wove it, and also quotes Moses as having worn a woolen garb;
cf. Firdaus al-murshidiyya fi asiar as-samadiyya, ed. F. Meier (Leipzig, 1948),
p. 283.
53. The etymological derivation of the term sufi from suf, wool, follows the
more likely explanation of the term (other unlikely derivations: from Greek
sophos, wise man; from Arabic saia', purity,- or from ahl as-suffa, the people of
the bench, who lodged at the mosque of Madina in early Islamic times).
54. The technique of combining clusters of meaning with letters (huruf) of the
Arabic alphabet is frequently employed in sufism. It developed into a specula-
tive literature on letter symbolism; cf. H. Ritter, "Die Anfange der Hurufi-
sekte," Oriens 7 (1954): 1-54; A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam
(Chapel Hill, 1975), appendix; T. Fahd, La Divination arabe (Strasbourg, 1966).
THE ADAB L I T E R A T U R E OF CLASSICAL SUFISM 75
"Whatever lies hidden between me and the Lord, I shall stitch it
together." The word irnutaqqa' also has four letters, mim, m', qaf
and fain. -With the -mini the novice embraces .cognition \mactifat),
(love (mahabbat), and humility (madhallat); with the/ra', com-
.passion {m'fat}, mercy (rahmat), ascetic exercise (uyaddt), and
tranquility {rahat); with the qaf, contentment (qana'ap], tfiear-
ness to God (quibat), spiritual strength \quwwat-uhal}, and
truthful speech (qaul-i sidq); and with the c'aint, religious knowl-
edge (-eilnti), passionate love- (cishq)>, intense zeal:(.cuZuww^izizn-
!mat), and fidelity to one's vow (cahd-i iuku\.K
(9) If someone asks, which color56 should the frock (khiiqa} be
when the person wears it, I answer: if he has tamed his carnal
sDul'.(.Bfl/s), has slain her with the-sword of. spiritual, warfare and-
suffering, and has attended her funeral, he shall wear a black or
dark blue robe. In fact, it is the custom of people in mourning to
wear>black^(.5iyJli)^Qr..dark':blue:(]czzfoud)'. If he has repented of all
transgressions, scoured his life's'robe with the soap of contrition
and ascetic =exercise, and has cleansed the, surface s of his heart,
purifying it- from the: mark of the memory of others, ,he shall
twear a white (sapid) robe.57 If, in his striving, he -has gone beyond
the lower world) has reached' the higher world, "and has-been
filled with celestial energy, adorned with stars, he shall- wear -a
blue (azrfl<j).robe,;the color of the sky.58 If he;has passed all stages
and stations of .the my stic Path, has-found his share in each stage
and station, and if a ray has shone upon him from the lights
of the mystical states, he shall wear a , robe of different colors
55. The author appears to prefer the woolen garb to the patched frock; cf . trans-
lation para. 7. It has to be noted that he does not give an explanation of the term
khiiqa (frock) by way of alliteration, although he does so for the term mn-
iaqqac (patched frock).
56. For an analysis of the conception of color in sufi circles, see G. Bowering,
The Dreams and Labors of a Central Asian Sufi (forthcoming).
57. Black or dark blue are colors of mourning in Islam. The dress of white wool
is mentioned in Dailami, SIrat-i Ibn-i Khafif, ed. A. Schimmel (Ankara, 1955).
58. Blue is frequently worn by sufis-, cf. Hujwiri, Kashf al-mahjub, p. 59; trans.
Nicholson, p. 53; Ansari, Rasa'il (Kanz as-salikm), p. 68; Ibn Munawwar,
Asiar at-tauhid (Teheran, 1332/1953), pp. 194, 286. The phrase "adorned with
stars (sitara zinat)" recalls Mithra's chariot, which is decked with stars (stahi-
paesah), as kindly mentioned to me by Mr. Hooshang Rahnama, Philadelphia;
cf. I. Gershevitch, The Avestan Hymn to Mithra (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 283,
294; H. Reichelt, Avesta Reader (Strasbourg, 1911), pp. 114-115, 269; cf.
Yasna 57,21 and 9,26.
59. One notes the word play between lamca (flash, here "ray") and mulamma'
(motley, here "of different colors").
76 CLASSICAL ADAB
(10) If he has affixed the seal of security to his exterior anddiir
terior, and has made his heart a treasure house of secret's, he
shall sew a braid (faiawiz) on his robe. If he has sat on the throne/
of love, has reclined on the couch of knowledge and conformity
to God's command, he shall stitch a hem (Aur-sJ) onto it. If he has
put on the armor of opposition to the carnal soul and the devil/
and has placed on his head the helmet of resistance against tem-
poral power, he shall reinforce the collar (qabb).60
(11) If he has left the path of collusion with the carnal soul and
has taken the way of war with her, treating her roughly, he shall
put on a GQarse^garmerLUiihcsim).61 If he has wounded and
bruised himself with a thousand darts- oi spiritual warfare, has
swallowed a thousand cups of poison, and has tortured his na-
ture with the needle of renunciation, he shall wear a. tattered'
coat (itfzanmkM).62 If he has torn up the robe of his existence,
and has brought his owrrbeing to annihilation) he shall wear^a
cloak (labacha). If he has thrown himself into the shackles of
the divine commandment and interdiction, and has taken the
fetters of the Law upon himself, he shall stitch patterns (ashkal]
onto his coat.-63 If he has wrapped himself in loyalty and has
faithfully fulfilled the contracts of the Law and the Path, he shall
throw a>mantle [rida) around himself.
(12) If he has become free' and secure and all creatures have
become secure and free towards him, he shall put a turban
(.dastflrj'onihis head? If he has thrown behind himself all that is
other than God, he shall let-the loose end (shakh) of the turban,64
60. For the braid (farawiz), the hem (kuisi), and the collar {qabb), cf. Hujwm,
Kashf al-mahjub, p. 68; trans. Nicholson, p. 56.
61. Khashln ("rough garment"), not khishan ("dark blue") as in Nicholson, the
Kashf al-mahjub, p. 69; cf. Meier, Die Fawa'ih, pp. 126-27; R. P. A. Dozy,
Dictionnaire detaille des noms des vetements chez les Arabes (Amsterdam,
1845), p. 40, note 4.
62. Hazarmikh (literally, "thousand nails") means a dervish's patched garment
(cf. M. Mo'in, An Inteimediate Persian Dictionary (Tehran, 1347s), 4:5136;
j. W. Redhouse, A Turkish and English Lexicon (Constantinople, 1890),
p. 2163; I. A. Vullers, Lexicon Persico-Latinum, 2 vols. (Bonn, 1864), p. 1452;
Khaqani, Tuhfat al-'Iraqain, p. 200, mentions the more explicit dalaq-i hazar-
mekh; A. Hartmann, An-Nasir li-Din Allah (Berlin and New York, 1975),
p. 244 ("Derwischgewand, hergestellt aus mehreren kleinen Einzelteilen" with
reference to Ibn Battuta, Rihla, 2:47-48; Gibb, Travels, 2:297).
63. One notes the wordplay between shikal (shackles) and ashkal (patterns).
64. Qushshashi, writing in 1069/1659, states that the Prophet used to throw
back the loose end of the turban; As-simt al majid (Haidarabad, 1327), p. 103.
THE ADAB L I T E R A T U R E OF C L A S S I C A L SUPISM 77
Jiang down in-back.- If he has placed his goal before his eyes and
has taken into possession the object of his quest, he shall let the
I loose end hang down in front. If he has left behind the harm
caused by people and has become weak and lean through ascetic
exercise and spiritual warfare, he shall-put a scarf (izai) on his
head.65 If he has reduced his own qualities to nothingness and
has reached the realm of divine subsistence and being, he shall
fold the scarf (over his head and shoulders) in the form^oidara-
,alif.66
(13) If he has become shackled by the Law, and has become a
tested expert of the Path, he shall put on stockings-(jauxab),67 If
he has kept his step aloof from filth and has set his foot in the
world of purity, he shall wear shoes (pachila). If he has liberated
his eyes and tongue from the temptations of the devil and has
become worthy of contemplating God, he shall wear a face,-veil
'(ruysutra). In sum, his outer state has to conform to his inner
state, because the sufis manifest outwardly what they experi-
ence inwardly, whatever they do.
(14) The great masters said: "The meaning of the-word mm-
aqqac (patchedfrock) is maim waqafa (he went and felLdown),"68
that is to say, whoever runs away, discarding the patched frock,
falls in such a way that he will not get up again.
(15) The neckband (zih) of the^patched frock is the sword-belt
of the profession of divine oneness,69 which he hangs around his
neck. The open neckline (/Ibjiof the patched frock is the shelter
of the secret and the refuge of men; that is, whoever confides a
secret to rne, I will not divulge it, and whoever seeks shelter with
me, I will give it to him, even if he were an unbeliever. Know
that the sleeve (astiu). of the patched frock is the weapon: with it
I march armed against the enemy. The skirt (daman) of the frock
65. One notes the wordplay between azar (harm) and izar (scarf).
66. The scarf is folded in a loop over the shoulders, the head and the chest, re-
sembling the shape of the letter alpha, i.e., in the form of lam-alif. This lam-
alif, pronounced la and meaning "not," is the beginning of the Muslim profes-
sion of faith (shahada), which affirms the oneness of God by negating any
possibility of partnership in His nature.
67. One notes the wordplay between mujarrab (tested expert) and jaurab
(stockings).
68. Marra waqa'a is a kind of popular etymology without linguistic foundation.
69. The text has to be amended: wa-zih-i muraqqa' hama'il-i tauhid ast.
Hama'il (sword belt) refers to a belt suspended from the shoulder and crossing
diagonally across the back and chest, so that the sword rests on the hip.
78 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
is the shield with which I protect my Muslim brother. The cap**
(kulah) is the crown of nobility I have placed on my head after
having dethroned pride and arrogance. The turban (dastar) is the»
rule of security/0 which signifies that the Jew, the Christian, and
all men are secure in their relation with me. The girdle (miyan^
band] is the belt of service I tie around my waist.
(16) The carpet (wafa] is the rug of mercy I have spread out on
the ground, because I show mercy and compassion to all men:
The prayer rug (sajjada) I have rolled out is the carpet of near-
ness to God: on it I set the foot of reverence and service. The siaff
(casa\s the cane of wandering, the companion of solitude and
the protection against harm. The gourd [iakwa\d the ew_er
(ibriq) are the spring of passionate love and the fountain of long-
ing.71 The satchel (Jem/) is the trove of secrets, the dwelling of
virtue, and the chest of knowledge and mystical state. The san-
dal (payafzai),is the means to enter into the divine presence, to
travel in obedience, and to flee everything that is other than
God. The straps (pataba)- are the guardians of the limbs, the
prison of passion, and the purity of body and dress. The balance*
(taiazu) of ritual prayer is the yardstick I measure friend and foe
by, the touchstone of the heart, and the tongue of the inmost
being.72
(17) ^Phe^tear-ing'-up'of'the froeksymbolizes that.I-tear apar«t*all
that-is'OtheFthan^Gad^whatevepitbe. Holding the turban spread
out signifies that if a brother commits an error, I cover my eyes
with it so that I may not see his error.73 Finally, the sufi has to
seek to realize in his interior whatever he does outwardly, so that
he may be truthful and not lying, conforming and not dissem-
bling, sincere and not hypocritical, genuine and not pretending.
70. One notes the wordplay between dastaz [turban) and dastur (rule).
71. Mashrab-i shauq (fountain of longing) may be preferable to the actual text,
shaiab-i shauq.
72. Taiazu, literally "scales," may refer to an hourglass or a sundial. If the text
is accurate in this place, it may refer to a measuring instrument that deter-
mines the time of ritual prayer. The word tayyar in the phrase "the tongue of
the inmost being" (tayyai-i sin) appears to be employed in the sense of "the
tongue of the balance," cf. E. W. Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon (London, 1874),
vol. 5, 1904.
73. The sufi ritual of tearing up the frock occurs at the moment of ecstasy
when the sufi has lost self-consciousness. The expression, nasib flzu giriftan
(holding the turban spread out), may refer to a gesture of sufi dance or ecstasy
when the turban is held spread out like an open net (nasib).
THE ADAB L I T E R A T U R E OF CLASSICAL SUFISM 79
2. RULES OF CONDUCT FOR SITTING DOWN AND GETTING UP
(18) The sufi has to sit properly on the prayer rug, facing the
direction of Mecca, his left leg folded under him and his right
foot brought over, as someone sits before his teacher.74 It is per-
missible to drop to the knees or sit cross-legged, but his leg
should not be uncovered. He holds his hands together and in-
serts them into the sleeves without slipping them beneath his
robe. It is' not permissible that his hands be uncovered beyond
the wrist.
(19) During a gathering he shall not stretch out his uncovered
leg,75 blow his nose or spit. If he has to cough or sneeze, he shall
place the sleeve or the hand over the mouth, avoiding great noise
while sneezing. As much as he is able, he shall restrain himself
and suppress the noise, since the Prophet says: "If one of you
yawns he shall not say 'ah' because it makes the devil laugh."76
He shall not constantly scratch himself and move his hand over
his hair and face.
(20) Sitting on the prayer rug,, the sufi has to keep its require-
ments in view. The requirements of the prayer rug..are: to sit down
An reflection and reverence, occupy oneself with God's recollec-
tion and meditation, apply the heart when considering whether
or not one's obedience is acceptable at the divine court, discover
which act of obedience will be more pleasing to God, and put it
,into practice.
(21) He shall not say many words, and when he speaks he shall
say only that which is necessary. While speaking he shall not
gesticulate, raise his voice or make inappropriate movements.
When getting up, he shall rise on the right foot, placing his right
foot forward and sliding it into his right slipper; then he shall
draw out the left slipper so that his naked foot does not touch
the ground.77
74. In this position the weight of the body rests on the instep of the left foot,
while the sole of the right foot is placed flatly on the ground so that the lower
right leg is in an upright position while the left leg is folded under the body.
75. Cf. Sarraj, Luma', 201.
76. According to a saying of Tustari (see note 42), the sufi should not say akh
in grief, since it represents the name of Satan, but ah, which recalls the name
of God; cf. Sarraj, Lumac, p. 203; F. Meier, Die Fawa'ih, pp. 65, 68 (Arabic text).
For the relevant ahadith, see Wensinck, Handbook, 263.
77. The right shoe is to be put on first and the left shoe to be taken off first, so
that the right foot remains covered inside the shoe as long as possible; cf.
Hujwm, Kashf al-mahjub, 451; trans. Nicholson, 346.
80 C L A S S I C A L ADAB
(22) While walking he shall neither strut nor saunter, neither
look to the right nor to the left, neither ahead nor behind, but
keep the head bowed down. On the road he shall neither talk nor
recite the Qur'an, except if he recites it in his heart or mentally.
He shall not go to the market except in case of necessity. He
shall not tarry on the road, being cautious of doubtful demeanor
and occasions for reproach, and guarding himself against setting
foot in unclean places. He shall not hasten his step, particularly
if he walks in a group. Following a funerary procession or mak-
ing a visit to the sick, going to the Friday prayer or other ritual
prayers, he shall likewise walk with decorum so that at each step
a good work be written down on his behalf.78
3- RULES OF CONDUCT FOR ENTERING THE CONVENT
(23) When first entering a convent (khanaqah),79 the sufi shall
wipe off his feet at the convent door without stamping on the
ground. When entering he shall not greet anyone. He shall pull
out the bag containing his slippers (kafsh) and place them before
himself. He shall pull his left foot out of the sandal (payafzae]
and place it on the slipper without sliding it in until he has put
the other slipper on his right foot. Then he shall slide his right'
foot in the slipper and finally slide his left foot in the other.-
Then he shallleave to perform the ablutions and return to say a
prayer of .two ritual units (rateat), get up and greet those present.80
(24) There are two reasons for not greeting anyone imme--
diately upon entering the convent. First, one should not greet an-
other without having performed the ablutions because salam
(the word of greeting)81 is one of God's names; in the view of
men of mystical knowledge, it is the path of good manners in the
service of God not to utter the salam without being ritually
78. Some of these rules about walking are mentioned by Hujwiri, Kashf al-
mahjub, 456; trans. Nicholson, 350.
79. For khanaqah (sufi convent, hospice), see J. S. Trimingham, The Sufi Or-
ders in Islam (Oxford, 1971), pp. 166-80; F. Meier, Abu Sacid-i Abu 1-Hayi
(Leiden and Tehran, 1976), pp. 302-12; K. A. Nizami, "Khanqah Life in Medie-
val India," Studia Islamica 8 (1957): 51-69.
80. The whole ceremonial is also described in detail by Suhrawardi, 'Awarif al-
ma'arif, ch. 12; cf. Gramlich, Die Gaben dei Eikenntisse, pp. 100-106.
81. The author uses the word salam on two levels of meaning simultaneously,
namely, on the one hand "peace, greeting" and on the other hand "the One who
bestows peace, God." In proper names such as cAbd as-Salam or geographical
names such as Dar as-Salam, the second level of meaning appears to be implied.
THE ADAB L I T E R A T U R E OP C L A S S I C A L SUFISM 81
pure. As a matter of fact, one day when the Prophet left his
room, a companion greeted him. Having no water at hand to per-
form the ablutions the Prophet wiped his blessed hand on the
wall, purifying himself with sand, and only then returned the
greeting, saying to the man: "When I am not in the state of ritual
purity do not greet me, because if you greet me while I am not in
the state of ritual purity, I will not return the greeting." The
second reason is that the sufi avoids greeting his companions
unexpectedly, because they are immersed in recollection and
meditation and are absorbed in God. Should he greet them unex-
pectedly, he would distract them from their mystiGaLmoment
«(-wa<jt)i82 If he has performed the ablutions and come back, they
will have prepared themselves to return his greeting and their
mystical moment will not be disturbed.
4. RULES OF CONDUCT FOR EATING
(25) When the sufi eats-his meal, he shall first wash his-hands,
sit down on his left leg, and not, put his bowl on the*bread. In the
beginning of the meal he shall say, "In the name of God!" and at
the end, "Praise be to God!" He shall begin the meal by taking
some salt, then put into his bowl as much as he.wants to eat, and
,not leave anything in his bowl. He shall take small bites and
chew carefully, without taking a second bite before swallowing
82. Sarraj defines waqt as the instant between past and future summarizing
Junaid's (d. 298/910) definition of waqt as the moment between two breaths,
the previous and the next (Lumac, 342). Shibli (d. 334/945) condensed his con-
ception of waqt into a paradoxical and ecstatic statement (shath); "I am the
moment. My moment is glorious (cazlz), divine. There is no other than I in the
moment, while I am passing away" (Lurna', 405). An anonymous sufi saying,
j
"my moment is eternal (waqtimusaimad)," is understood by Sarraj as an ec-
static utterance, meaning that "the mystical state (hal) obtaining between the
mystic and God does not change in any of his moments (auqat)" (Luma', 364).
Hujwiri states that the sufi ought to possess "the knowledge of the moment
(<ilm-i waqt)" (Kashf al-mahjub, trans. Nicholson, 13), and be happy "with
God in the present (andai waqt}" (ibid., 367). He defines waqt as "that whereby
a man becomes independent of the past and the future, as, for example, when
an influence from God descends into his soul and makes his heart collected
[mujtami'} he has no memory of the past and no thought of that which is not
yet to come" (ibid., 367). He also quotes Kharraz's (d. 286/899) statement that
"the most precious of human things is the state of being occupied between the
past and the future" (ibid., 368) and the Prophet's saying "I have a time [waqt)
with God in which no angel (malak-i muqanab) or prophet (nabl-i mursal)
rivals me" (ibid., 368).
82 CLASSICAL ADAB
the first. He shall not blow on hot food, since the Prophet said:
"Blowing on food chases the blessing away!"83
(26) Buring the meal he shall neither use the toothpicksnor
spit out anything he has taken into his mouth. He shall not
clean his hands with the napkin before having finished eating.
After the meal, he shall lick clean his fingers and his bowl. He
shall neither use a knife to cut the bread, nor put his sticky fin-
gers into the salt, nor dip in the vinegar a piece of bread that was
previously soaked in the soup. As far as possible he shall not
drink water during the meal because of two reasons: first, from
the \medicalrpoint of' view, »it is harmful; and- second, >from*the*»
point-of-view" of good manners, it is distasteful for the'others"
when they see his greasy lips touch the water bottle.
(27) He shall keep his head straight ahead without watching
what the others eat, and eat what is before him, neither grabbing
food around his bowl nor saying a word while he is at table. To
prevent the impression that he is content with little while the
others eat a lot, he shall not withdraw his hand from the food
until the group has finished eating. When he takes his meal in a
group and happens to observe a supererogatory fast, he shall
break it;, it is preferable, to conform to the group and not show off
before them that he is a saintly man and an ascetic, so as to avoid-
vainglory.
(28) WhBn*he*has*finished, he shall conclude the meal with
some salt, then use the toothpick and throw any leftovers in a
basin. When he washes his hands (after the meal) he shall crouch
on the balls of his feet, putting alkali ashes in his left hand and
pouring water with his right. He shall wipe the hands over his
mouth and lips and then wash the left hand with the right. He
shall wash his fingers and the palm of his hand to the extent that
they are soiled, and he shall not wash the back of the hand,
which would be a sign of show and stupidity.
(29) Having'washed,-his-hands*in'thet~deseribed»,manner, he
shall rinse his mouth with water, spitting it out in the basin in
such a manner that the eyes of the group do not stare at him and
that no spittle or mucus is thrown into the basin. In case he is
not finished using the toothpick, he shall wash it and clean his
83. For these rules about eating, see Hujwiri, Kashf al-mahjub, 454; trans.
Nicholson, 348.
THE ADAB LITERATURE OF CLASSICAL SUFISM 83
teeth. It is better to have cleansed the teeth before washing the
hands, so that any trace of food has disappeared from his mouth
and between the teeth when he rinses his mouth. Having cleaned
the hands of food he inserts them into the sleeves or dries them
with his scarf, because it would be improper to have the whole
group share the same towel to dry their hands.
5. RULES OF CONDUCT FOR ACCEPTING INVITATIONS
(30) The-su/J-shall-accept-an dnvitation,ii, someone-extends-it
•to Jiimr, unless the meal were offered to the detriment of orphans
or he knew that it had arisen from unlawful possessions. When
.he accepts an invitation, he shall sit down where the host has
him seated, respond to the desire of the host, and not take leave
unless the host permits him to do so. He shall eat his fill but not
take any victuals home, except what the host had given him by
his own disposition. After the meal he shall not busy himself
with making conversation, because God said: "And when you
have had the meal, disperse, neither lingering for idle talk."84 He
shall not stay on late, except if his host invites him to remain. In
his host's house he shall not look in all directions and inquire,
"What kind of carpet is this?" and "What kind of vessel is this?",
since it would be an occasion of suspicion.
(31) FChe-Jipstv shall -treat shis> g^est properly, without .making,
any-fuss^and^simply put. out-what he^hasi»He shall seat his guest
at a good place, neither urging him to take a seat, eat, or relax,
nor restraining the guest when he desires to leave. He shall not
bring his son to the guest that he may caress and kiss him, be-
cause not everybody likes other children like his own. When he
invites someone as his guest, he shall not get a large group to-
gether in his house, because this would be burdensome and not
everyone has the strength to endure it. He ought to place lawful
food before his guest, and should not say: "I spent such and such
an amount for this meal." He shall not make the guest feel obli-
gated but himself feel obligated because a Muslim is eating at his
table. He shall be firmly convinced that, when leaving his house,
the guest takes the sins of the host with him and leaves blessings
behind, and that the host will not be taken to account for all the
food left behind by the guest.
84. Qur'an, pp. 33, 53.
84 CLASSICAL ADAB
6. RULES OF CONDUCT POR LISTENING TO MUSIC
(32) The sufi ought not to induce the listening to*ffiusio
(•sam<3$)85 nor provoke the experience. When it comes about he
shall not remain heedless but be attentive to his mysticaLmo--»
iment (waqt) before God. When a sudden inspiration overcomes
him, he shall remain as cairn as he can. If the inspiration is vio-
lent, impelling him to move, he shall not force his movements,
because the blessing would leave his moment and escape him.
He shall not influence anyone to follow his movements, but if"
someone influences him to follow, he shall concur.
(33) Listening'to music necessarily««includes three things<"a»
place, "a;;time and fellow mystics,86 The place (ra'akan) ought to
be a large area with spacious surroundings so that the group is
inaccessible to the eyes of strangers. During the session the lis-
tener ought not to be unconstrained, doze off, scratch himself, or
blow his nose. He shall avoid combing his hair, stroking his
beard or straightening his clothes, and shall not sit there with a
distracted heart and begin to read. He shall profit as from a wind-
fall from listening to music in the company of the dervishes.
(34) As to thestime (zaman}, the novice has to know the appro-
priate moment to practice listening to music. From an external
point of view, the night is more suitable than the day: during the
day there is a multitude of people while at night^a man.okmere
spkitual3»talk«(:sSl22fe1«ga2-)»appears distinct from a man of «true»
rnystic'experience-jsSitfcxhaZ-), Also, the person listening to mu-
sic should prefer listening to music to sleep, for one bitten by a
snake does not fall asleep. At night the minds are concentrated,
the thoughts not distracted, and one is secure from the curiosity
of people and strangers.
(35) From the point of view of Reality, tim&is the niyst-icaLmo-
ment" (-wczgi).- When the moment has arrived, day and night are
equal, because "the moment is like a cutting edge/'87 When the
moment has come, it does not last, for the sword cuts and passes
85. For samac (listening to music), cf. M. Mole, "La danse extatique en Islam,"
Les Danses saciees (Paris, 1963), pp. 145-280; F. Meier, "Der Derwischtanz,"
Asiatische Studien 8 (1954), pp. 107-36; J. Robson, Tracts on Listening to
Music (London, 1938).
86. These three necessary requirements of samac can be traced back to Junaid;
see Sarraj, Lumac, pp. 186, 272.
87. Cf. Hujwiri, Kashf al-mahjub, 482; trans. Nicholson, p. 369.
THE ADAB LITERATURE OP CLASSICAL SUPISM 85
through everything before it. Thus it has been said: "The $ufi is
with the moment."88 Every sufi who says, "Tonight I will prac-
tice listening to music," has no part in true sufism. Do not be
bound by that which is not yours! How do you know whether it
will be given to you tonight or not? Let not the money slip
through your fingers when you hold it in hand. When the mysti-
cal state occurs, the moment has arrived. When the frock is
flung into the center and falls,89 the moment has arrived, for suf-
ism has no place for procrastination.
(36) The novice ought to avoid those who obviate and oppose
•his purpose, and should not listen to music except in the com-
pany of his fellow mystics because of the verse, "assuredly I will
chastise him with a terrible chastisement,"90 the terrible chas-
tisement being the company of strangers. Yusuf Husain-i Razi
said, "There« are-three dangers of- the' su/Ji-getting^ogether-wi"
young boys;-sittmg.together-with* strangers/^ andtbeing-lediO
women."91 —••-'
(37) One day Junaid was invited to someone's house, where
listening to music was practiced but had no effect. Junaid said,
"Try to find out what has happened." They inquired and found
that the food was lawful and no stranger was present. "Look well
what is the cause of your failure," he replied, ^y.chance.the slip-
pers- of a siz/zVhad been mixed up.-.with those of a. common" man.
This was the reason why listening to music had no effect.
(38) It is improper to join in listening to music if the singer is a
beardless- youtht(rzmrad),92 because it is a kind of affliction and a
subject of reproach: indeed the carnal soul and the devil are eni
emies. The Prophet said, "Do'not sit together witbthe-sons.of
the mighty and kings, because one experiences with them*the'
•same lust-as 'with-young-girlsi"93 _^—-
(39) The use of drums with bells is permissible according to
Imam (Shafici, but forbidden according to Imam Abu Hanifa/4
88. This saying usually appears in the sources as as-sufiibn waqtihi, "the sufi
is the son of his moment"; cf. Qushairi, Risala, p. 231.
89. In ecstasy the frock is torn and thrown off. Dor miyan amad may mean
'that the frock is flung into the center of the gathering.
90. Qur'an, 27,21.
91. Yusuf b al-Husain ar-Razi (d. 304/916); I am unable to trace the source of
this statement.
92. Cf. Hujwiri, Kashf al-mahjub, 542; trans. Nicholson, p. 416.
93. H. Ritter, Das Meei der Seele (Leiden, 1955), p. 428.
94. Shafi'I (d. 204/820); Abu Hanifa (d. 150/767).
 86 CLASSICAL ADAS THE ADAB LITERATURE OF CLASSICAL SUFISM 87

Listening to music is a relaxation for stifi groups. It ought to take He has to observe them so as to be worthy of companionship.
place according to the way of the sunna, with reverence, with The rules of conduct concerning his inner being are another
good manners, and in conformity to the Law so as to produce matter involving many chapters with innumerable stages and
tranquility, generosity, true life, lofty ranks, and relevations of stations, beginning with ascetic exercise and spiritual warfare.
the unseen. Each occasion of listening to music contrary to these Whoever wants to know those rules of conduct ought to read,
conditions entails affliction, disobedience, suspicion, and reli- comprehend and understand "3?he Travelers' Stations,"98 a work
gious harm, for acting on one's own is one thing, being a stiff written by the Shaik al-Islam, cAbdullah-i Ansari. This ideal is
another. not.r_ealized by setting out to meet and listen to the masters, be-
7. RULES OF CONDUCT FOR TRAVELLING
cause it is a question of action, not of words, since it is not
enough to know what water is in order to quench one's thirst.
(40)^he,noyieeought'tovtravelforvthreereasons: making-a'pil3 One may utter the word "sugar" for a thousand years without
grimage* visitingrfu/f»masters>, or undergoing "'ascetic'.exercises'. experiencing its sweet taste, because one has to put the sugar in
Each journey undertaken for another reason than these three is a the mouth so that sweetness may reach the throat and his dis-
waste of time and a loss for the traveller.95 The novice ought to position become sweet. May God not make us stop at words but
have a suitable travel companion -who-shares-Ms isuffering^his may He make us share the Reality through His favor and kind-
zeal; his secrets^ and his desires. If he is able he should travel to ness, His liberality and generosity. This is the end of the Com-
the extent that he can avoid trouble and impediments. He shall pendium on the Conduct of the sufis. Praise be to God! His be
not depart without staff and ewer. It has been said that every the good success!
novice who travels without a ewer may be assumed to have
abandoned ritual ablution and prayer. He shall hold the staff in 98. 'Abdallah al-Ansari al-Harawi, Les Etapes des itinerants veis Dieu (text
and trans, of Ansari's Manazil as-sa'irin by S. L. de Beaurecueil) (Cairo, 1962);
the right hand and the ewer in the left. cf. cAbd al-Mucti al-Lakhni al-Iskandari, Shaih manazil as-sa'irin, ed. S. L. de
(41) He ought not to part with four things, neither on the road Beaurecueil (Cairo, 1954); S. L. de Beaurecueil, Khwadja 'Abdullah Ansari
nor,at-rJest:-a.ltoothpick, a comb, a pair of nail clippers, and a box (Beirut, 1963), pp. 222—57; for a recent publication on Ansari, see W. M. Thack-
of coliyrium./6 Each of these four ought to accompany him in all ston's translation of the Munajat (Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, Intimate Conver-
sations) (New York, 1978), pp. 163-226.
situationsr*He should be continually in a state of ritual purity97
and not depart in a state of impurity, go on foot if his strength
permits it, and devote himself more than ordinarily to ascetic
exercise and spiritual warfare. During the journey he shall put a
belt around the waist and roll up the sleeves so as to be better
prepared; it is better that he walk quickly. He shall pronounce
the eulogy of "God is most great" at each slope he climbs or de-
scends.»He shall not beg on the way nor sleep in mosquesj except
when he finds no other place, for when asleep, a man does not
escape the incidents of sleep.
(42) These are the'rules of'conduct concerning-the exterior,
which the" novice has to practice in the beginning of his "quest*
95. Sarraj, Luma', p. 190; Hujwlri, Kashf al-mahjub, p. 450; trans. Nicholson,
p. 345.
96. Hujwrri, Kashf al-mahjub, p. 450; trans. Nicholson, p. 345.
97. Sarraj, Luma', p. 145; Hujwiri, Kashf al-mahjub, p. 450; trans. Nicholson,
p. 345.
 Part Two

ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL

 The Tuhfa i nasa'ih of Yusuf Gada:
An Ethical Treatise in Verse from
the Late-Fourteenth-Century
Dehli Sultanate
SIMON DIGBY

This paper is concerned with the work called Tuhfa i nasa'ih or

Tuhfa an-nasa'ih [A present of counsels], which, for reasons de-
tailed below, may be ascribed with confidence to the last decade
of the fourteenth century of the Christian era and to a milieu
connected with the great Indo-Muslim capital city of Dehli. The
number of surviving manuscripts and of recorded lithographed
editions shows that it enjoyed popularity as a work of edification
and instruction among Indian Muslims throughout the Mughal
period and until the beginning of the twentieth century.
The popularity of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih sets it apart from other
ethical works produced in the Dehli Sultanate. Its transmis-
sion is in striking contrast to that of the two great "Mirrors for
Princes" of the Dehli Sultanate, works of a far higher literary
quality. Two manuscripts of the Adab al-haib wa ash-shajacal

At the author's request, Delhi has been spelled "Dehli" in this chapter, in order
to convey indigenous pronunciation (except when the reference is to the mod-
ern city of Delhi).
1. Fakhr i Mudabbir, Adab al-harb wa ash-shaja'a, ed. E. S. Khwansari (Teh-
ran: Shamsi 1346); Barani, Fatawa i jahandari, ed. A. Salim Khan (Lahore:
1972).
 92 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
of Fakhr i Mudabbir and but one of the Fatawa i jahandan of
Diya' ad-Din Barani have survived the ravages of time. Although,
as we shall see below, the popularity of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih owes>
something to its author's Chishti connections and to erroneous
ascriptions to Chishti shaikhs of importance, the number of
manuscript copies recorded exceeds that of any sufi devotional
work of the Sultanate period; and the number of recorded litho-
graphed editions greatly exceeds even those of Amir Hasan's Fa-
wa'id al-fu'ad.2
As in the case of other Indo-Muslim works, errors in the de-
scription of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih have traveled from catalog to cat-
alog, and it is therefore necessary to establish:
1. That this Persian poem is an Indo-Muslim work of the period of the
Dehli Sultanate.
2. The correct date of composition.
3. What reliable information exists regarding the author.
The Tuhfa i nasa'ih is a verse treatise in anamusual, perhaps
unparalleled literary form. The author describes his poem as a
tmathnax/i} but it does not follow the universally accepted verse
form of a Persian mathnawi, of mutually independent baits or
couplets, the hemistich of each of which rhyme with one an-
other. Metrically it can best be classed as an extended*<jasMa'
but with subject matter and arrangement uncharacteristic of this
verse form. The baits are in the meter mjaz muthamman*(eigl[ii
"feetw"of the measure* "musiafilun) with the mwi m'. For the
benefit of those more familiar with European prosodic notation,
one may explain that each couplet is a quantitative octameter,
each foot being - - " -, with a caesura between the two hemi-
stichs and the terminal rhyme -ai. The number of baits in the
Tuhfa i nasa'ih is variously estimated by differing colophons or
unusually industrious catalogers between 771 and 785. The
numbers most often mentioned seem to be 775 and 776, and the
range of variation is remarkably small. We may accept, there-
fore, that the textual transmission has been subject to few inter-
2. Amir Hasan Sijzi, Fawa'id al-fu'ad, ed. M. L. Malik (Lahore: 1966). Despite
the popularity of this collection in fourteenth-century Dehli (see Barani, TSrlkA
i Fliozshahi [Calcutta: 1862], p. 346), manuscripts are scarce in public collec-
tions. This relatively critical modern edition is based on three nineteenth-
century lithographed editions and three Urdu lithographed translations.
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OF Y U S U F GAD A 93
polations (some possibly of the author himself) and few losses
due to the carelessness of scribes.
The versification, by the standards of courtly Persian poetry,
verges on doggerel, partly as a result of the intractable and mo-
notonous rhyme scheme that the author has chosen, but there
are also many false quantities that cannot be righted by any tex-
tual emendation, a tendency to add or omit short vowels in con-
sonantal groups in accordance with the lax standards of popular
Indo-Muslim pronunciation, and equally in accord with this tra-
dition, a tendency to ignore the genitive idafa.
The syntax agrees with that of Indo-Persian writers of the four-
teenth century, showing the influence of Modern Indo-Aryan
causative verbal constructions and a general lack of conform-
ity to the self-consciously correct Persian norms that was char-
acteristic of later Mughal authors. In the poem we find -refe^
«enees to ,non-Iranian,habits—e.g., tke^eating^ktamfeu^pfln)—
and also common North Indian words constantly employed by
fourteenth-century Indo-Persian authors (Barani, Amir Hasan,
Amir Khusrau, cAfif)—e.g., karoh, "kos" (a,measure of distance),
lak, "a .lac'.'«.(10D)000)/»pflg/J a- turban.;*The linguistic-evidence
Strongly indicates that the Tuhfa i nasa'-ih is<an,InLdian-<work,
most probably written in the fourteenth or fifteenth century^of
the Christian era.
This evidence is strongly supported by that of the distribution
of manuscripts. Subject to the vagaries or errors of catalogers, in
the published catalogs to which I have had access or reference
there are seventeen recorded manuscripts in collections in South
Asia and eleven in collections in the western world (including
St. Petersburg [Leningrad] and Philadelphia); many of the latter
are of demonstrable South Asian provenance. There appears to
be no corresponding distribution of manuscripts in Iran or Cen-
tral Asia, though copies of the late-nineteenth-century litho-
graphic printings must have reached Iran and Central Asia in
consignments from Indian booksellers.3
Having established the likelihood of the composition of this
3. In the search for catalog entries regarding manuscripts of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih
I must acknowledge the assistance afforded by the late Professor C. A. Storey's
unpublished notes and index cards in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society of
Great Britain and Ireland, London.
94
ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
work in South Asia, we may turn to the internal evidence pro-
vided by the text itself regarding authorship and date of composi-
tion. The author calls himself Yusuf Gada (Yusuf the Beggaij).
The third poem of the work/ the madh or eulogium in praise of a
Muslim holy man, is addressed according to the common rubric
to Shaikh al-calamain Mahmud Nasir ad-Din-, a variant rubric
more specifically states Bandagi Shaikh Mahmud Nasir ad-Din
Chiragh i Dihlawi. Even given that the less specific rubric Shaikh
al-calamain is commonly found in sufi sources of the Dehli Sul-
tanate referring to the great shaikhs of the Indian Chishti tradi-
tion and that the laqab Nasir ad-Din with the ism Mahmud may
be expected in conjunction with each other/ the identification
with the great Chishti shaikh of mid-fourteenth-century Dehli
may be regarded as extremely plausible. This section cl-early re-
fers to the death of the shaikh in question: "The travelers (of the
su/f path) became blind when that Lord of vision departed."5 We*
are therefore limited to a date of composition after the reliably
recorded death of Shaikh Nasir ad-Din Mahmud in A.H. 757/
A.D. 1356.
The conclusion of the work records <the date of completion. In
order to get all the information into a single couplet, the final
couplet is in a rather crabbed style, metri gratia omitting idafas:
Hifsad nawwad (u) panj digar hijia muhammad mustafa
'Ashir
idbf i akhiiin waqt i duha' wz i qamai
In the year of the Hijrat of Muhammad Mustafa, seven hundred
ninety and five
The tenth of the latter Rabic, a midday, Monday.6
This corresponds to the Christian date 24 May 1393. There
is about it the measure of confusion that we would expect in
scribal traditions of older Indo-Muslim texts in the transcription
of this date as found in some manuscripts. In one of the India
Office Library copies, nawwad has been corrupted by the trans-
position of a single dot to bud (was), yielding a date of A.H. 705.
According to Dorn, the date in the St. Petersburg manuscript
4. The conjunction derives from Qur'an, 17:81-82.
5. Ms. A, fol. 2a; lithograph, p. 4; Ms. B, fol. 3b. For the three texts used in pre-
paring this paper, see note 12 below.
6. Litho., p. 87; Ms. B, fol. 95b.
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OF Y U S U P GADA 95
read A.H. 752, which Ethe, while cataloging the India Office Li-
brary manuscripts, thought, in view of the reference to Mahmud
Nasir ad-Din, had "decidedly the better chance." Dorn's reading
and Ethe's opinion are duly quoted by other catalogers, but Sar-
faraz, dealing with the manuscript in the Bombay University li-
brary and reading with attention the couplet which I have cited
above, drily remarked: "I am afraid that 752 has no chance at
all." Sarfaraz has given much the best published description of
the contents of the poem.7 His only error I have been able to de-
tect is a miscalculation of the equivalent Christian date by about
three months. One may safely say that a majority of the manu-
scripts and lithographic transcriptions give the date as 795, and
that this date is historically possible. For a volume concerned
with a much broader topic, as is this collection of essays, I per-
haps should not have devoted so much space to establishing this
small but significant detail, yet it relates to a general point that I
wish to make, that in almost every.aspect of older Indo-Muslim
history it is unwise to accept,the descriptions or received opin-
dons of earlier scholars as a safe basis for the erection of mor/e
•ambitious theoretical structures.
As mentioned above, at least twenty-eight copies of the Tuhfa
i nasa'ih are recorded in catalogs of manuscripts. Of these, six
are in the Asafiyyah Library, Hyderabad, Deccan, but unfortu-
nately this catalog, does not distinguish between manuscripts
and lithographic printings. Twelve manuscripts bear dates in
their colophons. The earliest is Ethe, India Office Library 2559,
dated A.H. 1097/A.D. 1685-86. Six are of the twelfth century
Hijri and five of the thirteenth. The latest of these, which is in
the Lewis Collection at Philadelphia, is dated A.H. 1261/A.D.
1845. No fewer than twenty-three separate lithographic print-
ings have been noted, of which eighteen are to be found in the
India Office Library, four (one duplicate of an edition in the I.O.L.)
in the British National Library, and two in the writer's own collec-
tion. The earliest recorded printing is of A.H. 1282/A.D. 1866-
67, and the latest of A.D. 1928. Editions of 1914 and 1924 carry
an interlinear Pashto translation and one of 1920 an interlinear
Urdu verse translation; all of these were printed at Lahore. Re-
7. Shaykh cAbd al-Qadir-i Sarfaraz, A descriptive catalogue of the Arabic, Per-
sian, and Urdu manuscripts in the library of the University of Bombay (Bom-
bay, 1935), pp. 129-32.
96 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
corded places of printing of these lithographs are Bombay (two:
1283/1866-67, BNL; 1289/1872-73, SD), Delhi (two), Lahore
(eight, including those with interlinear translations), and Hyder-
abad (one, SD). Many printings have interlinear glosses and com-
mentaries and supercommentaries on the margins, the latest
additions to which are sometimes those of the scribe for the
lithograph, who may also be the manager of the press. Although
the commentaries are of value in identifying hadith on which
Yusuf Gada's opinions were based, they are often misleading in
their interpretations of verses whose meaning would be obscure
to a nineteenth-century reader.
The India Office Library's heavy holding of Lahore printings
probably reflects more zealous remittances from that place to
the library's official collection in London. The late date of the
printings with interlinear vernacular translations reflects the rea-
son for this work eventually passing out of currency in the pres-
ent century, viz., the decline of Persian as a vehicle for elemen-
tary instruction among the Muslims of South Asia, particularly
in the teaching of children in their home household or under the
instruction of a local maulawi. No printing after A.D. 1928 has
been recorded.8
The Tuhfa i nasa'ih is therefore a work completed in the last
decade of the'fourteenth century, about !five> years before the ca-
tastrophe of Arnir-Timur's-'invasion of DehH> not predominantly
su/fin content but by an" author-with metropolitan Chishti*affil>
iation>. Although Yusuf Gada expressed the hope that it would
8. For the India Office Library holdings, see A. J. Arberry, Catalogue of the Li-
brary of the India Office, II (pt. VI): 542. Arberry does not note the places of
printing of a number of editions, but the I.O.L. does not appear to have received
copies from Bombay or Hyderabad, Deccan. The place of printing affords only
approximate evidence of the market for which the edition was intended. Thus
many lithographs printed in Bombay were intended mainly for the market
in Hyderabad state, in some cases being actually commissioned from there,
whereas the Lahore printings with Pashto translation must have mainly circu-
lated in the North-West Frontier Province and Afghanistan.
Modern Iranian bibliographers, following Khan Baba Mushar, Fihiist i ki-
tabha i chapi (Tehran), 2d ed., p. 812, do not indicate to what extent their list
derives from Arberry's catalog or is based on copies held in Iranian libraries. No
manuscripts from Iran appear to be recorded. In the later nineteenth century,
lithographic editions of specifically Indo-Muslim texts reached the Persian
booksellers from India, and introduced such works for the first time to an Iran-
ian readership.
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OP Y U S U P GADA 97
attain a world-wide reputation, it was written for his young son,
called in the text Abu al-Fath Rukn i Din (Rukn ad-Din). The
son is called "my pretty-faced boy" (022 walad i khwush laqa),
"new moon" (mah i nan), and "soul of his father" (jan i pidai);
he is not yet pubertal (baligh). Given that Yusuf Gada was a dis-
ciple of Nasir ad-Din Mahmud (d. A.H. 757) and that the poem
was written thirty-eight Muslim years later, this suggests that
he became father of this son at a moderate age. Yusuf Gada was
unlikely to have been accepted as a rauiid of the Shaikh before
he was twelve or thirteen years old. If his son was fourteen years
old or younger in A.H. 795, he must have been born in A.H. 781
or later. At the nearest perimeter, Yusuf Gada would have been
thirty-seven Muslim years old at the time when this son was
born to him, which is well within the bounds of probability. 'If
we take into account Yusuf Gada's extremely unfavorable senti-
ments towards women, which are examined below, it is not
unlikely that these reflect a late marriage or previous marital
experience.
The date of composition and the age, of the author- are impor-
tant in enabling us to reject two false ascriptions of the Tuhfa i
nasa'ih, which may have played a role in its subsequent popu-
larity among Indian Muslims, particularly in the Deccan. Yusuf
Gada would have been acquainted with other disciples of Shaikh
Nasir ad-Din Mahmud, and therefore with Sayyid Muhammad
Gesudaraz, who claimed to be the principal heir of the Shaikh's
baiaka (spiritual authority). Gesudaraz left Dehli shortly before
Amir Timur's invasion on his progress to the Deccan capital of
Gulbarga. Yusuf Gada's work would have been in circulation as
a recent composition in the same Chishti circles. It is probable
that one or more manuscripts of the Tuhfa i nasi'ih accom-
panied the entourage of Gesudaraz on his southward migration
and would have been placed in the khanqah library at Gulbarga.
In one of the manuscripts in the Mulla Firuz Library at Bom-
bay there is apparently an ascription to Sayyid Muhammad Ge-
sudaraz himself. This may be rejected on the following grounds:
1. Gesudaraz was the author of numerous Persian compositions, the
highly literate style of which is in total contrast to that of the Tuhfa i
nasa'ih.
2. In his elegant Persian ghazals he most frequently used the takhallus
 98 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
Muhammad; and there is no record of Yusuf among his personal
names.9
An attribution that is found beside all the notices in the
Asafiyyah catalog is to Sayyid Shah Yusuf, known as Raja or
Raju Qattal, the father of Sayyid Muhammad Gesudaraz. This is
repeated in the Peshawar catalog. Against this ascription the fol-
lowing evidence appears decisive: According to Gesudaraz' own
testimony, recorded in early-fifteenth-century sources, he was
born in A.H. 721, and became a disciple of Shaikh Nasir al-DIn
on 16 Rajab A.H. 736, after the death of his father.10 He would
therefore have been seventy-four Muslim years of age at the date
of the composition of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih—and his father already
fifty years in his grave.
The popularity of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih in the Deccan is attested
not only by the numerous copies in the Asafiyyah Library in
Hyderabad, but also by its translation into Dakni verse by Qutbi,
one of the court poets of the seventeenth-century Sultan cAbd
Allah Qutbshah of Golkonda. Apart from the false sanctity con-
ferred by these ascriptions, an independent reason for the popu>
larity of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih is that it provided for South Asian
Muslims with a lower1 level of education; and especially for^the
childrenCoi 'such 'Muslim's^ Ja! comprehensible guide- to the good
Iife4n an* easy 'mnemonic verse forrrf. It can be classified with
numerous other short verse treatises, mostly of later date and
often bilingual vocabularies, under the heading nisab as-sibyan
(the capital stock of children). One may contrast the fate of the
Tuhfa i nasa'ih with that of a longer prose work with a similar
9. In his Dlwan called Anis al-cushshaq, Gesudaraz often does not append any
takhallus to his gbazals. Apart from Muhammad, he also refers to himself as
Abu al-Fath and Muhammadi, if all the ghazals in this brief Dlwan are cor-
rectly ascribed to him; see Anis al-cushshaq, ed. M. H. S. cAta Husaini (Haid-
arabad [Dn.]: A.H. Fasli 1360). The presence of the kunya Abu al-Fath among
the personal names of Gesudaraz, which is also that of the young son of the
author mentioned in the Tuhfa i nasa'ih, probably aided the identification,
which we reject below, of Yusuf Gada with the father of Gesudaraz, particu-
larly if, as we conjecture, a manuscript of the work was carried by the en-
tourage of Gesudaraz to the Deccan and later formed a part of the khanqah
library at Gulbarga. The coincidence of kunya also suggests that, in the naming
of his son, Yusuf Gada may have been influenced by the presence of Gesudaraz
at Dehli.
10. Muhammad cAli Samani, Siyai i muhammadi (Allahabad: A.H. 1347),
pp. 3, 6, 10-11.
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OF YUSUF GADA 99
melange of contents, written in the fourteenth-century Dehli Sul-
tanate, the Miftah al-jinan [The key of paradise] by Muhammad
Mujlr, which appears to have survived in a single manuscript.11
A critical edition of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih is a desideratum; it
would not be a work requiring great labor as it is a comparatively
short poem. For the purposes of this paper I have collated read-
ings from an old manuscript, unfortunately defective at the close
and therefore lacking a colophon, but probably of sixteenth/
seventeenth-century date, as well as another of seventeenth or
early-eighteenth-century date, with the readings of a lithograph
published by the Haydari Press of Bombay in 1289/1872-73.
From this brief collation points of interest emerge. Some variant
readings may be second thoughts of the author in copies which
he circulated, e.g., in the lithograph, he cites as his authority
'ulama'i mu'tabar (reliable 'ulama')-, but in the two manuscripts
consulted, he cites Nucman i namwai (the famous Nucman, i.e.,
the jurist ash-Shibli). Secondly, a number of phrases and baits,
which would have been immediately intelligible in the Dehli
Sultanate, were not equally so in later times; there is a tendency
on the part of copyists to amend the phrases or drop the bait.12
Thus, in a passage discussed below, the manuscript (f. 16b)
11. British Museum Ms. Egerton 691; see the notice in Rieu, Catalogue of the
Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 1:40-41.
12. The first Ms. (Digby no. 59) was acquired by A. H. Harley, Principal of the
Anglo-Muhammadan Madrasah, Calcutta, in 1928, probably in eastern India. It
measures 6Vi by 3% inches and is written in a minute, rather archaic nasta'liq
hand, twelve lines to the page, breaking off at the fortieth bob, twenty-nine
folios. The second manuscript (Digby no. 170), which the writer acquired after
the initial draft of this paper, bears a note saying that it was "bought at the sale
of Mr. Orme, May 1796." Mr. Orme may be the historian Robert Orme (1728-
1801), though if this is the case the manuscript must have entered his posses-
sion after he finally returned to the United Kingdom. Below the colophon it
bears an owner's note dated in the twentieth year of Shujac ad-Daula, Nawwab-
Wazir of Awadh (A.D. 1773-74). The manuscript was copied for a sayyid
(name erased) who was resident at Kalpi, an old fortified Muslim settlement in
southern Uttar Pradesh, which for a brief period in the early fifteenth century
was the center of an independent sultanate established in the aftermath of the
downfall of the Dehli Sultanate; the manuscript may therefore represent a lo-
cal tradition of Muslim learning. The author is described as "Makhdum al-
a'zam . . . Yusuf Gada," a curious example of exaggerated reverence for the
written word. The manuscript measures 9% by 6 inches, and is written in
clear, broadly spaced nastacllq, nine lines to the page, 95 folios and 4 blanks
from an earlier rebinding. Spaces for the rubrics are blank, but the titles of the
<foflbs_ttcharxter s 1 have been inscribed in various hands in the margins. The
100 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
reads poshad baiate chun kase, the lithograph (p. 38) ankas ki
poshad canya (he who wears something borrowed). The section
is discussing employment by the Sultan, and baiat, also barati
jama, were common Dehli Sultanate usage for "a robe of office
or uniform from the Sultan," although this usage will not be
found in the Persian lexicographical tradition of later times.
Elsewhere the first manuscript (fol. 6a) drops a bait which is pre-
served in the lithograph (p. 13) and appears to be original:
manuscript also contains the date-verse in the form quoted in the text of this
chapter.
Collation of the three texts used in this paper discloses one point that can be
settled only when an edition of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih based on the wide range
of manuscripts or lithographed printings, or both, is prepared. Some of the
more striking baits (couplets), which, as I have argued, can best be set in a late-
fourteenth-century context, are absent from one or more of the texts that I
have consulted. The omitted couplets usually occur at the close of the babs
(sections). The explanation that I favor is that these additional couplets are not
copyists' interpolations, but are afterthoughts of Yusuf Gada himself. Of the
texts used, Ms. A represents the earliest stage of compilation, Ms. B an inter-
mediary stage, and the Bombay lithograph a more complete version.
Against this theory it may be argued that the sequence corresponds to the
recognizable age of the three texts. However, I do not think that such a random
argument will commend itself to any scholar who has worked on Indo-Persian
texts of all periods and is aware of the idiosyncrasies of place and time that
distinguish them.
Ms. B and the lithograph agree in the final couplets as regards the date of
composition with the majority of recorded manuscripts, and also as regards the
number of sections [babs), namely forty-five. B states that the work is of 781
verses (baits) and the lithograph 786. B is in a state of confusion after the forty-
fourth bab, called forty-third in this manuscript. The discrepancy in number-
ing, common to A and B, derives from the omission of bab 21 on the obligation
of children towards their parents. B, however, includes most of the baits of this
section as well as the anecdote of the companion of the Prophet cAlqama,
which illustrates the moral of this bab, in the concluding matter. Another
characteristic of this late portion of the text in B is the reproduction of the first
hemistichs of baits without the concluding hemistich, as on fol. 90b. I find it
impossible to account for the textual peculiarities of B at this point by any pro-
cess of textual corruption or damage in an intermediary manuscript. I conclude
that at this point B derives from an original author's manuscript which was
here no more than a rough draft. Because Ms. A lacks its final folios, breaking
off at the fortieth-forty-first bab, one cannot say whether it represents an ear-
lier finished recension of the author.
These problems of the textual recension of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih parallel, in a
minuscule way, those of the transmission of a more important work of the
Dehli Sultanate, Barani's Tarlkh i Fiiozshahi; see S. Digby, "Muhammad bin
Tughluq's Last Years in Kathiawar and His Invasions of Thaththa," Hamdaid
Islamicus 2:1 (1979): 83. , „,,»
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OE YUSUE GADA 101
When you see Mahmud, Ahmad, and Taj i Din as laborers on ev-
ery side
Shadi, Qabul and Zirak who have become muqta's and famous.13
This bait, which appears among the Signs of Doomsday, seems
to reflect the bitter civil war that was taking place between the
royal slaves and the free population of Dehli in the decade in
which Yusuf Gada was writing. Shadi and Qabul were charac-
teristic names of slaves, and slaves of both these names had at-
tained high offices of state in the fourteenth century. Muqta' was
the standard term for "governor" of an important town or prov-
ince during the Dehli Sultanate, but would probably not have
been intelligible in this sense to ordinary South Asian Muslims
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
As Sarfaraz describes it, the-Tuhfa i nasa'ih "treats^in-forty-
five sections, of various religious observances and ethiealrsubjee-ts
su.ch as the Unity of ;God;.the~Articles of-Faith^AblutionS; Prayers7,
•Legal Alms, Fasting, Pilgrimage, 'Reading of ^the^Qur-an/'Gon-
.tentment, Marriage, Charity, Lawful and Forbidden Food, etc."14
It would be out of place here to provide a table of contents. More-
over, remarks relevant to some of the topics that we shall survey
appear in widely separated sections; and Yusuf Gada frequently
combines injunctions on a wide variety of subjects into single
couplets, e.g.:
All the time give thanks to God; buy a Qur'an out of your own
property;
Buy a bow and a thumb-ring; serve your father and mother!15
13. Ms. A, fol. 6b, this bait omitted; litho., p. 13; Ms. B, fol. 13b. An attractive
alternative reading was suggested by the lithograph, shadi qabulan zliagan
(low-born Shadi-Qabuls), but Zirak (skilful) is attested elsewhere as a name
for a slave in this period; see Amir Hasan, Fawa'id al-fu'ad (Lahore: 1966),
pp. 5-6. The sense is confirmed by Ms. B which reads shadi qabula ziraka,
which represents not the plural, but a slightly pejorative form of the singu-
lar name.
14. Op. cit., pp. 129-30.
15. Bab 41, missing in Ms. A; litho., p. 75, reads teal, "an Arab (horse)"; Ms. B,
fol. 79a, ya zih'e, "and/or an archer's thumb-ring," lectio difftcilioi and metri-
cally better. Though Yusuf Gada elsewhere exhorts his son to learn to ride, an
Arab thoroughbred war-horse was probably beyond the means that Yusuf Gada
thought that his son would possess; see S. Digby, War-hoise and Elephant in
the Dehli Sultanate (Oxford: 1971), pp. 37-38.
 102 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
This is one of the courses of action that lead to wealth (section
42), The following section is on actions that lead to Paradise,
where in one couplet we find a comparable conglomeration:
Be generous to guests,- make war with the kaflis (unbelievers);
If anyone tells you a secret, do not reveal it to men.16
The author is equally capable of expressing divergent or contra-
dictory opinions within the same couplet, e.g.:
If you reject futuhe (sufl alms), you will be afflicted with hunger (in
the future);
Some notable shaikhs have rejected futuhe.17
Do not take a Qur'an on a military expedition, or a woman who is
legally free (hurza);
If a military expedition has strength, take both of them on it.18
There are also unresolved contradictions in the general advice
that he gives his son. Poverty is praised, but there is also a sec-
tion of advice on thirty (not very practical) means towards ac-
quiring wealth; in yet another place he tenders much more prac-
tical advice regarding ways of earning a livelihood. Apart from
many promises of palaces of gold or of jewels in paradise follow-
ing particular courses of action, he does not hesitate to promise
lavish rewards in the present world. Thus a section on forty
causes of poverty and misfortune concludes:
If you avoid all these forty, writing them in your heart and soul,
You will never once became needy; you will receive a hundred jewels
a day!19
In a didactic work this naivete may not be wholly artless; extrav-
agant statements are more likely to attract the fancy of a child
and the precepts are more likely to impress themselves on the
youthful memory. A further contradiction is that Yusuf gives in-
structions to his son as how,,ta avoid the shame of beggary, while.
16. Litho., p. 77; Ms. B, fol. 80b.
17. Litho., p. 82; Ms. B, fol. 90b.
18. Ibid. In both this and the preceding couplet, Ms. B reproduces only the first
hemistich, with variations. In note 11, above, a reason for the •confusion of the
manuscript at this point is suggested. This implies that these apothegmatic
and sometimes self-contradictory baits are among the author's latest additions
to the poem.
19. Litho., p. 74; Ms. B, fol. 78b.
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OP Y U S U P GADA 103
using the pen name Gada (the Beggar). There is a comparable
case from his period and probably from among his personal ac-
quaintances, as Harnid Qalandar, codisciple and biographer of
Shaikh Nasir ad-Din Mahmud, was also a panegyrist of Sultan Fi-
roz Shah Tughluq and no ordinary illiterate and dirty qalandar.20
We cannot dwell at length on Yusuf Gada's eschatology. At
the outset of the poern he has a fine and graphic account of the
dead in their graves after their first visit by the inquisitorial
angels; the dead are alive there as are the living, conscious of
whether a male or a female sparrow is perching on the cenotaph.
He has a spirited description of the final Day of Judgment and
the contrasted fates of the righteous and the sinners, and con-
cludes this extended section with the portents that the Day is at
hand. These begin with the episodic elements which in Muslim
tradition largely derived from the Apocalypse of St. John, Dajjal
the Anti-Christ, the reappearance of Jesus, and the rising of the
sun in the west, and proceed to signs of the evil of the times. In
one couplet, which we have quoted above, there is an unmis-
takable reflection of the conditions of the Dehli Sultanate. Other
couplets concern ills for which evidence is to be found in the pe-
riod and environment in which he wrote; but they may also be
considered endemic or epidemic in Islamic society on earth: a
multitude of women, some riding horses; a craze for building
palaces; and the erection of many mosques with but a few wor-
shippers within them.21
At the close of the work there are further descriptions of
heaven and hell, with equally vivid detail: heaven with its four
streams proceeding from the center, one of them of khimr, the
intoxicants forbidden on earth; hell withiSjnakes as. large as moun-
tains and scorpions as large as camels, each with four hundred
'fortresses full of poison, in, its. tail.22 Yusuf Gada is inclined to
20. The situation and preoccupations of Hamid Qalandar are discussed in my
two forthcoming papers, "Qalandars and Related Groups," International Con-
ference on Islam (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem: 1977), in press, and
"Tabariukat and Succession Among the Great Chishti Shaikhs of the Dehli
Sultanate," presented to the Indian History Seminar-Workshop, Center for
South Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, October-November
1979. Hamid Qalandar's panegyrics on Firoz Shah Tughluq are included in the
Jawnpur anthology, British Museum Ms. Or. 4110.
21. Ms. A, fols. 4a-6a; litho., pp. 7-13; Ms. B, fols. 7b-13b.
22. Litho., pp. 76-80; Ms. B, fols. 80a-83b. B lacks the couplets regarding the
snakes and scorpions of hell.
104 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
promise *saqai (hell) for a large variety of acts, partly, one sus-
pects, because it fits into his rhyme scheme as conveniently as
zai (gold) and guhai (jewels). Nevertheless, one of the more at-
tractive features of his beliefs is that no Muslim (mu'mzzz.)*3agll
endure the pains of hell forever, but only for a period according
to the measure of his sins; for unbelievers this is.not the case.
Again for the sake of brevity, we have no space for an extended
notice of Yusuf Gada's opinions on Muslim religious obser-
vances. He describes these in considerable detail and also has
notices of such siz/Lpractices as dhikx and samac. The total of
religious observances inculcated is sufficient to occupy a consid-
erable portion of an individual's life, and more of life would be
consumed by his instructions regarding auspicious and inaus-
picious acts, hours, days, Muslim months, and zodiacal man-
sions and seasons. As the concept of adab embraces both moral
authority and etiquette in the individual's ordinary daily behav-
ior, a sample of his advice on the latter aspect may be desirable,
bearing in mind that his manual has probably exercised a signifi-
cant influence on the manners of Muslims in South Asia in later
centuries. I have selected his section on the gdabjzi.:eatingf(sec-
tion 14):
When you eat food, eat it once in a day and night;
That will be nourishment which suffices you, anything more causes
illness and headache.
When you are hungry and eat, know that food has no ill-effect;
If you eat when you are sated, that food eats your heart and liver.
Eat food in your own place, don't stretch out your hand in front of
others;
Take a small and moist mouthful and chew it well.
When you want to eat, first wash your hands;
When you have eaten wash them, for this comes in the Tradition [of
the Prophet].
Eat food with reverence, speak the name of God over each mouthful.
Don't eat lolling on a bed, or with a cushion behind you.
If a crumb falls on the ground, take it up bit by bit;
Put salt at the beginning and end; keep your eye on the mouthful.
Don't criticize anyone's food; eat whatever you are offered;
Don't say that it's bitter or tasteless or any such thing.
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OF Y U S U F GADA 105
If you wish surely to become rich and find endless wealth,
Clean your teeth when you have eaten food, my son.23
There are further instructions on the adab of eating, as on
those of drinking water, wearing clothes, embarking on jourr
neys, visiting the sic'k-»and attending mourning, and many other
contingencies of human life. Whatever traditions Yusaf Gada
draws upon— and some of these we shall examine later — one
has a strong impression from the Tuhfa i nasa'ih of an individual
with idiosyncratic personal views who has left his imprint on
subsequent Indo-Muslirn culture. In this he resembles *Barani,
the greatest historian of the Dehli Sultanate, although within a
shared intellectual environment Yusuf Gada's personal preju-
dices differ from those of Barani. Both writers had strong Chishti
stifi allegiances; neither was largely concerned with suft topics.
Both had a grounding in the religious sciences of Islam. Both ex-
pressed themselves freely in the colloquial Persian of the Dehli
Sultanate. In the writings of both, an ascetic ideal evidently con-
flicted with a keen appreciation of the pleasures of the world.
Yusuf Gada does not appear much less hostile than Barani to the
Hindu population of India, though the term Hindu does not oc-
cur at all in his poem. Nevertheless his remarks upon kafiis and
this view of -jihad as a current obligation, together with his re-
marks on military matters, seem to fit well with the environ-
ment of the Dehli Sultanate.
Yusuf Gada sets the borders of old age at the fortieth year of
•life. From the evidence cited above, he had passed this when he
wrote the Tuhfa i nasa'ih,2* We have here a further parallel with
the writings of the historian Barani, whose major work, the
T^nkh i Firozshahl, attained its final form when he was border-
ing on senility.25 Barani described the evils of the times with
acidity and gloom. A similar moroseness is reflected in Yusuf
Gada's account of the signs of the approach of the Day of
Resurrection:
recognize a multitude, ot women*a&f a^ •sign*ofethe
^Resurrection;-'*
23. Ms. A, fol. 14a-b; litho., p. 32; Ms. B, fols. 34b-36a.
24. Yusuf Gada's age is discussed near the beginning of this chapter.
25. For an examination of Barani's failing memory of the sequence of re-
cent historical events, see Digby, "Muhammad bin Tughluq's Last Years,"
pp. 79-88.
 106 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
When you see women riding horses, the Resurrection will come more
swiftly.
Another sign is that people will study branches of knowledge,
without acting;
You will see few worshippers, but find more mosques.
When you see people engaged, heart and soul, in building,
Pray for death at that time; consider dying preferable.
When in every direction you see Mahmud, Ahmad, and Taj-i Din as
laborers,
Shadi, Qabul and Zirak become Governors and famous men,26
Nomads, peasants, drovers, shepherds, and ploughmen,
With never a shoe on their feet, nor a turban (pag) on their heads.
You will know the Resurrection without doubt, when you see people
in the cities
Occupied each in building a splendid palace.27
Both'Yusuf Gada and Barani are elderly moralists, keen*to
point out the evil consequences of unlawful, licentious, andtprof-
•ligate-acts. Yet in the recollections by Barani of his youthful par-
/ ticipation in the courtly follies of the reign of Jalal ad-Din Firoz
JKhalji, there is an aura of regret for vanished and reprehensible*
I pleasures that adorns his tale rather than points the moral which
Ljvjth much vigor he professed to expound.28 A similar conflict is
at times evident in Yusuf Gada's poem, between, on the one
hand, remembered practices and desires and, on the other, the
usually somber and grave rules for the conduct of life that he
sought to inculcate into his son. His remarks on the buying of
concubines and on the pursuit of an independent livelihood,
both quoted below, contrast with his view of the sanctity of pov-
erty and with his ideas on sorrow, trouble, and illness. These are
upheld as signs of God's special favor:
Know-that affliction and calamity are a favor sent down upon [Godte]
..friends; ~* "*
His enemies do not receive this favor, only the faithful of good
conduct.
26. See note 12 above.
27. Ms. A, fol. 6a; litho., pp. 12-13; Ms. B, fol. 13a-b. B has the reading butan
(idols) for bina' (building), which breaks the continuity of sentiment with the
previous bait.
28. Barani, Ttaikh i Fizozshahi, p. 200.
i NASA'IH OF YUSUF GADA 107
THE
When affliction strikes you, give alms [in thanksgiving] from your
soul and heart:
The Sultan does not give poison except to a trustworthy and able
man.
«
This illustration, though inept or inappropriate in justifying
the ways of God to Man, is in keeping with Yusuf Gada's other
views about the service of the Sultan, examined below. His re-
marks on ill health continue:
A body which you see without diseases verily is without blessing
(baiaka);
God loves that body which day and night has pain and headache.
Affliction, O my soul, is a kingdom of which not everyone is worthy;
Job knew its worth and Georgius and the famous Jonah . . .
(God's) enemies have a hundred kinds of favor, sufficient in this
world;
His friends are distressed and lack their bread . . .
When God cherishes a servant, wishing to make him one of His
friends,
He is infirm of body, sorrowful of heart, and sees no prospect of
wealth.29
In contrast to the afflictions of the ancient prophets, cited
from the allusions in the Qur'an and the later expository Qisas
al-anbiya' literature, Yusuf Gada refers to the comforts in this
world of*the<oppressor Eharaoh-otEgypt (Fir'aun):
Pharaoh the dog was for four hundred years on his throne;
He was not ill a single time, nor even saw injury.30
When you hear that an acquaintance is injured or sick, you should
straightaway go to visit him,
Even if he is over a kaioh [a kos, about an hour's walking distance]
away.
If you visit a sick man, give him something;
Seek his prayers, my love, in any difficult matter . . .
29. Ms. A, fol. 28a; litho., pp. 67-68; Ms. B, fols. 70b-71a.
30. Ms. A, fol. 28b; litho., p. 68; Ms. B, fol. 71a.
108 ADAB AS ISLAMIC I D E A L
When you see someone ill, immediately give alms;
Do not give medicine to the sick man, only alms, my son!31
Like most of the descriptions of the subject in medieval Euro-
pean and Eastern literature, Yusuf Gada gives a harrowing de-
scription of old age. In the literature of the Dehli Sultanate, once
more there is a parallel in Baranl's references to his own tooth-
less decrepitude/ gonlrasted withhis'errin'gyouth:-
When your age reaches forty years, sit not idle one instant;
Abandon erring and sin; increase obedience and worship.
If you do not do so, but act to the contrary,
Erring oft, obeying little, get ready for the fire of Hell.
Know that man's ordinary span of life is sixty to seventy years:
You have spent one third in games, and one third heedless from
intoxication;
Know that in the last third which remains there is misfortune and
calamity;
Your hands and feet will swell, and your head will ache a hundred
times a day.
You will not find health for a moment, but pain and misfortune all
the time; *"
No sweet sleep will come at night, and you will cry out till the
dawn. . .32
If (an old man) looks at beauty, he or she will immediately show • j •'
distaste;
The lovely and the sugar-lipped will sit as far away as possible,
from him.
When your hair has gone white the beautiful flee,
For old age is as nothingness; otherwise why should they turn away
from you?
If a king be fortunate, the whole of the world within his grasp,
When he is a weak old man he has neither appetite nor comfort. . .
When the musk has turned to camphor, the scarlet judas-tree to
saffron,
31. Ms. A, fol,28b; litho., pp. 68-69; Ms. B, fols. 71b-72a.
32. Ms. A, fol. 27a; litho., p. 65; Ms. B, fols. 67b-68a.
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OF YUSUF GADA 109
The arrow of your stance to a bow, your body become thin as a
bowstring,
No one will look towards you and no friend will once ask about you;
No one will employ you and you will not receive a wage.33
However, the Help of the helpless is at hand:
Come to Me that I may cherish you better than this;
I will give you a-hundxe4houris in paradise, and endless palaces of
jewels;
I have mercy upon the old which is without bound or count;
Your hair is white from My light; I shall not burn it in hell.34
As the old are incapable of work, you should work while you are
ablebodied and consider youth a blessing. When you see the old
you should serve them with heart and soul, so that you become a
<good>old man (pii) and a powerful5 shaikh.35
At this point there is a significant variant between the read-
ings of the texts that I have consulted. The manuscript reads
shaikhe dhu al-qadi (scanned qadai, "a powerful shaikh"}; the
alternative reading is shakhse ("a person"). On account of the
linkage piz-shaikh (pn, "old man, elder" and/or a sufi shaikh),
the former reading is preferable. "EheTuhfai z2asQ'iAiisulargely»a
guide-to practical etMcs for. aJV!tU:sllmwho<is.no.t,gQingataipass
hisJife as a sufi in"a-khanqah,,vflao is notgoingvtp pass,his life
liv-ing otifutuhat(alms) > orieven.more dubious income, from land
grants",' or from !the-» forms- of-- communal "-labor'-OF self-support
which-may have occasionally occurred in the khanqahs of medi-
evaHndia. Nevertheless, Yusuf Gada, like most of the authors of
the Dehli Sultanate, had sufi allegiances and participated in sufi
observances, hi his pen name he adopted a sufi garb. The advice
given reveals a characteristic quirk in the thinking of Yusuf
Gada, and shows how this functioned at several different levels
of morality and practicality.
After his descriptions of the ills of old age and of God's mercy
toward the old, he has in fact concluded with a reference to the
33. Ms. A, fol. 27b; litho., p. 66; Ms. B, fols. 68b-69a.
34. Ms. A, fol. 27b; litho., pp. 66-67; Ms. B, fol. 69b.
35. The allusion is a commonplace of Persian literature. PIT means "old," "el-
der," and also a "sufi teacher." This is a slightly condensed version of baits
which follow those quoted above.
110 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
one field of life in which old age gave a practical superiority. In
pretentions to spiritual authority as a sufl shaikh, a venerable
age was a clear asset (cf. the remarks of Sayyid Muhammad
Gesudaraz, who stated that he was in the habit of praying to God
for an early death, until he realized that God had destined him to
live to a very advanced age in order to demonstrate to those who
doubted it his succession to the baiaka of Shaikh Nasir ad-Din
Mahmud.36
After the exposition of Yusuf Gada's views on this aspect of
the individual human predicament and before we turn to his ad-
vice on how to gain a livelihood or his attitudes towards the Sul-
tan and the state, we may examine his injunctions regarding
family life.
Yusuf Gada had aaview of women more, unfavorable than that
commonly prevailing among the literate classes in the medieval
Islamic environment. We have noted their preponderance as a
sign of the approach of Doomsday. His forty-fourth section on
hell begins:
Hell is for unbelievers, rebels, and heretics;
women' pfliirflt) resident in i
Nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of every thousand are in
paradise;
Out of every thousand women nine hundred and ninety-nine are in
' hell.37
The advice he gives to his son on marriage (section 12) shows
an ideal>'of*almpst«total male -dominance ancUfemale^subssBa-
ence,- limited only by the Islamic prohibitions on extramarital
sex; but it reveals that Yusuf Gada has little hope that his idea of
the perfect wife for his son will be realized. In defense of his
views on women, it may be said that they are not as cynical and
facetious as those expressed by Sacdi in the Gulistan, a literary
classic which has been even more popular than the Tuhfa i'
nasa'ih as an ethical guide for the upbringing of Muslim chil-
dren in South Asia.
While you have strength refrain from marriage,-
My son, know that in marriage there is calamity, anxiety and grief.
36. Siyar i muhammadi, p. 5; cf. Digby, "Tabairukat and Succession," cited in
note 20.
37. Litho., p. 78; Ms. B, fol. 82a, first misia* defective.
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OF Y U S U F GADA 111
"When you can contain yourself no longer, take a wife, beautiful and
abstinent,
Who will obey you, serve you and be your solace eve and morn,
"Who will not bring any anxiety before you, but will herself bear all
the anxiety and grief:
If she does not possess this quality, divorce her as quickly as possible.
W-heEuyou marry, (she should be) in four things lower than,,.yQu:
In-years, height, rank, and wealth;.
But when you are about to ask for a wife, you should never ask for
one who is not
Superior'to you in good-nature, looks, manners (adab] and t-he-fear.
of-God.
Don't marry a short fat woman or a tall thin one:
You should never marry an older woman; she will bear a worse son.
You should never marry a woman who weeps, nor one with hairy
legs;
Avoid a demanding one who is an ugly deceiver.
The woman who causes trouble, with prancing legs and-feet,
Who speaks ill of you to your face and whom you always see with her
head closed [to reason];
Who, when you speak softly, answers back and shrieks,
Who goes out without permission and wanders around from door to
door;
Who, when people come to her, complains to them about you,
And says how exceedingly unhappy she is, though she is comfortable;
Who does not ever cover her head, nor wash her face, hands and feet,
Nor put antimony on her eyes nor comb her hair;
Who secretly talks about you and considers your guests enemies;
Who eats her food before you do; and eats more than a man:
He who has such a wife, consider him verily in hell.
If you have such a wife, straightaway put her out of the door.38
If you desire ease in this world, immediately go and buy a concubine
38. Litho., p. 29, line 2, has here an interlinear gloss explaining that Yusuf
Gada meant "divorce her!"
112 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
Like a moon of the fourteenth night, sweet-voiced and silver-bodied,
And if you find her good, abstinent, and content—and she serves you,
Get on with her and live happily; but if not, buy another.
Don't see lust in the face of another's woman: how could she be
yours?
Also don't look in the face of a young boy: keep away from him.
If you commit sodomy or adultery, even kissing and touching,
The good deeds of all your life become as nothing.39
This section is followed by another, on bringing the bride
home and the rules for sexual intercourse. These are fairly de-
tailed and show Yusuf Gada's characteristic melange of Islamic
law and a large body of auspicious and inauspicious acts, times,
and settings, that will affect the character and capabilities of the
child engendered.40
In writing the Tuhfa i nasa'ih for the instruction and edifica-
tion of his son, Yusuf Gada demonstrates, by implication rather
than overt expression, a high view of parental obligations to-
wards male children. His sole reference to daughters is to the
effect that on^e^bjrtha.QfiaTgM-.one.should-sacrifice.-axsheep, but
on the^birthi.Qfjra^boy:;a'braceio£-sheepv After an exhortation to his
son toward unremitting hard work, a slightly obscure couplet
seems to express the opinion that as a result of industry and en-
deavor one will be in a position to feed one's wife and family:
Become like the nether millstone; endure labor and bring benefit;
Otherwise you will wander from door to door seeking bread like a
helpless fool.
Sell it and buy bread to give to your wife, daughter, and son.41
It is clear from his injunctions on employment that Yusuf Gada
does not see it as part of the parental role to ensure that his son
enjoy a prosperous rather than an honored position in life. Con-
templating his son's future, he recognizes that he may exist with
wealth to spare or in want and poverty: „<
39. Ms. A, fols. 12a-13a, litho., pp. 27-29; Ms. B, fols. 30a-32a.
40. Ms. A, fols. 13a-14a; litho., pp. 29-31; Ms. B, fols. 32a-34b.
41. Ms. A, fol. 21a; litho., pp. 53-54; Ms. B, fol. 55a.
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OF YUSUF GADA 113
When you turn away an asker, or withhold a morsel from him,
You will receive for this sin a thousand years in hell. . .
These precepts are for the rich, not for the poor and hungry;
If he himself is in need of bread, how can he give it to another?42
'
Yusuf Gada is not indifferent to the acquisition of wealth, but
rather to its avaricious retention. One cannot oneself[take it be-
-)
I yjand-the grave, nor is it right to hoard it for one's children, for
'*"* whom the Lord will provide:
""*
Consider the fellow who makes a profession of avarice the enemy
of God;
A man is beloved of God who scatters gold and silver . . .
Do not put treasure under the ground for a daughter or a son;
When the need befalls them, no one will give them the information.
Consign them to God's keeping: you die; He does not die:
Do not grieve about their affairs, put worry out of your heart.43
One may here note that the practice of the burial of treasure (in a
context other than that of grave-goods) has been common in
South Asia at almost all periods.
Yusuf Gada's exposition of die..rights,vpfrparents over their
children (section 21) is short and simple:
Be generous to your parents, so that you may receive uncounted
reward;
Know that their service is a duty according to the Qur'an and the
Traditions.
Dofalls
whatever
<\y is that bird which in the they
snaredesire, and without doubt you will enter into
of manliness;
Paradise,
As the Creator has told the Prophet. Remember, my famous one.
Serve all, and without doubt you will become one who is served;
He who performs service becomes a lord with a crown on his
42. Ms. A, fol. 21b, omits second bait; litho., p. 54; Ms. B, fol. 55b, reads
badani for baiam in the first bait, manifestly incorrectly, and also omits the
second bait, which, as in other cases quoted in this paper, appears to be a late
>l addition by the author.
43. Ms. A, fol. 20b; litho., p. 52; Ms. B, fol. 53a-b. B again omits the last coup-
,> let, which concludes the bob.
114 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
Consider good him who gives honor to his parents;
Such a man has honor in the two worlds, and is respected among
all men.44
Yusuf Gada exhorts his son to acquire cilm (knowledge?—sec-
tion 4). From his remarks it is clear that he had in mind "educa-
tion" in the narrow sense of the scholastic sciences which down
to the present day form almost the whole curriculum of Muslim
madrasas and were also the main subjects in which individual
teachers instructed their pupils. What we should nowadays call
the humanities, as well as most useful arts and sciences and
works on sufi practice and self-discipline, were extracurricular.
Yusuf Gada himself possessed some grounding in cilm of this
kind. His extracurricular education was much slighter. He had
some knowledge of ^nujum, (astrology—on the borderline of the
medieval curriculum) and probably also with /a'7 < and talbn
(omens and the intepretation of dreams). At one point he urges
his son to acquire a smattering of astrology:
Learn enough astrology for you to know the time
For marriage, and the direction of prayer; and also when to go on a
journey.45
I find no evidence in the Tuhfa i nasa'ih of Yusuf Gada's famil-
iarity with Persian akhlaq literature. Of Persian poetry within
the high literary canon (including Amir Khusrau and other poets
of note in the Dehli Sultanate) there is a single echo of a very
well-known couplet by Sacdi:
If you wish to dwell a while beside anyone,
If he says that day is night, show him the Pleiades and moon.46
"4
44. Litho., pp. 40-41. This brief bob, followed by an illustrative anecdote
of one of the Prophet's companions, cAlqama, and his behavior toward his
mother, is absent from both manuscripts at this point. However, Ms. B in-
cludes three out of the four baits with some variant phrases on fols. 83b-84a,
after which the tale of cAlqama follows.
45. Litho., p. 82, bob 45. This is the last bob of the work. Ms. A is defective
after bob 40/41; in Ms. B, bob 45 is absent, replaced by couplets on a variety of
topics, which have been incorporated under their appropriate headings in the
text represented by the lithograph. Despite this, Ms. B concurs in the state-
ment that the poem was to consist of 45 babs-, see note 11.
46. Ms. A, fol. 20b; litho., p. 52; Ms. B, fol. 53b. Cf. Sacdi, Gulistan, bob 1,
hikaya 32:
If he himself says that day is night,
One must say, "Behold the moon and Pleiades!"
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OF YUSUF GADA 115
therefore, Yusuf Gada means the scholastic sciences.
They were to be acquired for their own sake, not for the limited
number of prospects of employment that they would open to
his son:
If you learn cilm for the sake of God, without doubt it will save you,
Not to pronounce fatawa (legal opinions) nor to act as a.,qadi,
(religious judge); nor for bread in another employment.47
If a man acquired much cilm and yet performed little^worship
(fibada], he was nevertheless closer to God* than pious ascetics
The superior grace which a learned man (calim —ci/zn) has over the
pious and the ascetics
Is like the superior grace which the Prophet had over the very least of
mankind.48
not; in Yusuf Gada's opinion, a^suitable'-means for
gaining a livelihood. As we see below, he regarded with disfavor
all forms of official employment under the Sultan. His eleventh
section is on "professions, contentment, and beggary." In it he
displays a fairly coherent succession of thought regarding what
was an honorable way for the individual to survive in society:
Do not be ashamed or modest at pursuing a trade, my soul;
Learn; a trade and also <ilm, become a master of arts,. possessor of,-
more than one accomplishment;,
Learn cilm and also a skill, so that you will not go round many
doors (begging);
The man who has a skill will not ask for bread from door to door.
Eat from your own labor, and from the toil of your hand;
Do not beg anything from anyone, and you will become like sugar
and honey.
Work immediately, for laziness is like unbelief;
Consider a man who is idle like an ox or an ass.
The couplet was so well known that it was quoted in the original Persian by
the seventeenth-century French traveler Francois Bernier, who remarked,
"There is no Mogul who does not glory in repeating this proverb in Persian
verse!" [F. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, trans. I. Brock, ed. A. Consta-
ble, London, 1891, p. 264.)
47. Ms. A, fol. 6b; litho., p. 13; Ms. B, fol. 14a.
48. Ms. A, fol. 6b; litho., p. 14; Ms. B, fol. 15a.
116 ADAB AS I S L A M I C I D E A L
If on your back you bring stones or firewood from the wilderness,
And you sell them and eat bread—this is better than your eating a
hundred pieces of bread from your father.49
If you eat squeezed vegetables and drink bitter and salt water,
This is better than if you go to the Sultan and consume sherbet and
other delicacies.
Do not linger at anyone's table, waiting for a chance to eat;
Whomever you see like this consider worse than a dog.
Follow a trade and eat your bread; profess patience and satisfaction;
If you do not beg from anyone you will without doubt find a palace
of gold.
If you take from anyone, people call you a beggar (gada),
But if you give to anyone, people call you a "real king."
I will give you an excellent piece of advice, lend ear and hear well;
Do not tell your condition to anyone; toil and eat your bread;
And in the Law (shari'a) without doubt to beg is condemned.
If you have bread for the day, whether fresh or dry.
If you want possessions and gold for honor and prestige,
Truly know that such possessions will be burning in hell like a spark.
If you sow a field and it provides a living,
Cultivate and you will bear away plentiful fruit.
The benefit of this toil is counted in the world,
Cultivation benefits a whole world, its profit is not limited.
At no time let your hand get out of practice with bow and arrow;
Learn to swim and ride a horse, also a camel.50
A further chapter (section 18) is concerned with buying and,
selling. It distinguishes between commodities in which trade is
auspicious or commendable and those in which trade is repre-
hensible and unlucky:
Engage in trade, my dear; among means of livelihood consider this
good;
Trade in sheep is most auspicious, also buy horses and cattle.
49. Litho., p. 26, has an interlinear gloss remarking that this is an exaggeration!
50. Ms. A, fols. llb-12a; litho., pp. 26-27; Ms. B, fols. 28a-29b.
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OP Y U S U F G A D A 117
Do not buy grain with the intention of selling it dear; and do not trade
in slaves either;
Refrain from these two and you will not become an accursed regrater
(profiteer).
In trading in slaves or in grain you will never find blessing;
You will lack a grave-cloth, and someone else will eat the profit.
In whatsoever you see someone's injury, whether it be firewood or
straw or lime-plaster,
And especially human foodstuffs [?], this is truly regrating.
If you have grain of your own growing, and make stores of this,
You will not be a regrater, according to the famous Nucnian.51
Yusuf Gada proceeds to give the practical advice that one
should never swear oaths in business; if the oaths you swore
were true, your sustenance would be diminished. You should al-
ways weigh and measure what you buy before you bring it from
the shop to your house, and you should never sell without weigh-
ing or measuring. (Elsewhere he recommends buying and selling
grain by measure rather than weight.) Two couplets follow con-
cerning the purchase of concubines, and ascertaining their men-
strual state before engaging in intercourse. The section con-
cludes with an injunction against lending money at interest
[riba'}, a sin which Yusuf Gada assesses as worse than having
committed incest with one's mother seventy times!52
As we know from Barani and Ibn Battuta, measures against re-
grating and profiteering by grain dealers in times of scarcity oc-
cupied the attention of the Dehli Sultans, as they do that of the
rulers of South Asia in modern times.53 In the late fourteenth
century the supply of skilled and able slaves probably did not fill
the demand. Barani lamented that slaves from Central Asia were
almost unobtainable, and the Sultan Firoz Shah Tughluq made
special arrangements in the tax farm of the province of Guja-
rat for an annual supply of high-quality slaves.54 These circum-
51. Ms. A, fol. 16a; litho., p. 37; Ms. B, fol. 40a. The lithograph and Ms. B agree
in reading "according to trustworthy 'ulama'" in place of "according to the fa-
mous Nu'man." Their reading apparently reflects the later choice of the author.
52. Ms. A, fol. 166b; litho., pp. 37-38; Ms. B, fol. 40b.
53. Barani, Tarikh iFIrozshahi, pp. 304-06; Ibn Battuta, Rihla, ed. Defremery,
3:148, 290.
54. Barani, Tarikh i Firozshahi, p. 314; Sirhindi, Tarikh i mubarakshahl,
p. 132.
118 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
stances may have some bearing on Yusuf Gada's view of slave-
dealing as an inauspicious trade.
We may proceed to Yusuf Gada's opinions about obligations
.towards the ruler and the state/ and upon gaining a livelihood
from such service. His attitudes, I suggest, reflect the conditions
of the Dehli Sultanate. He foresees, in passages quoted above,
that his son will be likely to participate in military expeditions,
and urges upon him the necessity of practice in military arts.
Obedience to the Sultan in time of emergency, when he is waging
war on rebels to authority, is incumbent:
Never come out against monarchs or draw the sword against them, '•»
Even if they do wrong, a hundred kinds of violence and oppression. v
Make war against rebels under the standard of the Sultan;
When you see anyone who has become a rebel, kill him as quickly as
possible.55
In his chapter on employment) Yusuf Gada briefly expressed his
view on waiting upon the favor of the Sultan:
11 i
Eat squeezed vegetables and drink bitter and salty water:
This thing is better than if you go to the Sultan and consume sherbet
and other delicacies.56
In his discussion of the reasons why God brought afflictions on
his chosen servants, we have quoted the analogy that the Sultan
gives poison^only to trustworthy advisers; and in his views about
the desirability of the acquisition of cilm (the theological sci-
ences), that such knowledge was not to be employed in giving
legal decisions or in acting as a qafa (judge). It is not surprising
that Yusuf Gada, in his chapter on "companionship" of the Sul-
tan, advis&d his son in forceful terms against undertaking any
form of ofEeial'employment (section 19):
1Be"a<KSflrwesiiand-sit'in'isolitude;. do not
ask for food from anyone; /
Know that contentment is a kingdom, a mansion full of pearls and I
jewels.
Do not yourself go near the Sultan; know that the Sultan is such
a one;
When you long for the Sultan, there will be fear and danger for you. ',
55. Ms. A, fol. 5b; litho., p. 11; Ms. B, fol. 12a.
56. Bab 18, extensively translated above; see note 51. •>
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OF YUSUF GADA 119
Never seek kindness and generosity from kings;
* When you take a village or land, you will fall down in front of
a door.57
Do not follow the King's employment; know that there is continuous
; misfortune in it;
You will see little ease, more discomfort and punishment.
'' Do not consider the employment of the Sultan unexceptionable—like
|» an official robe;
When someone else wears an official robe, you should not consider
him trustworthy . . .
' Keep away from mirs and maliks-, know that proximity to them is a
> deadly poison;
When you sit by a malik, every moment you will see a hundred
dangers . . .
"*' By contrast, you should sit with daiwesh&s and not refuse them if
^ they ask something from you.
If you do so through greed of money, two-thirds of your faith will
, depart.
When the Sultan is generous, never become proud about this;
K You should regard the sugar which the Sultan gives as poison rather
than sugar.
Consider the tenderness of maliks as a calamity, their favor as wrath
^ and anger;
You will not obtain comfort from them, they do not show affection
v to anyone.
When you go into the Sultan's assembly, you must guard your tongue:
Do not say anything in front of him, and when you come out be as
one who is deaf.
"^ Do not go to Kings uncalled; if they summon you, go instantly;
Obey their commands; know that this category is obligatory.
If anyone is obedient in a just act which the King performs,
Consider this better and more than sixty years of private worship.58
57. There is an allusion here to zamin i uftada, land that was not currently in
cultivation, a phrase common in official land grants.
58. Ms. A, fols. 16b-17a; litho., pp. 38-39; Ms. B, fols. 40b-42a. The syntax of
the last bait is obscure, but it would be difficult to interpret it in any other way.
120 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
Gada's views .on employment and. on the service;Sfsthe
Sultan stand in sharp contrast to those of the main politicaljthe-
orist-whose /writings have survived from the Dehli Sultanate,
Barani. Barani spent most of his life as a nadim (courtier) of the
Dehli Sultans, although he apparently was never trusted with a
post of political responsibility.59 Yusuf Gada regarded such em-
ployment not only as dangerous—which it must often have
been—but also as uncommendable, even odious. Yusuf Gada re-
garded humble and manual occupations as entirely honorable,
whereas Barani's political theory, as expressed even in the open-
ing sentence of his great history, was permeated by belief in a
divinely established division between noble and base, with in-
herited aptitudes for one's allotted position in society, a stratified
society in which social mobility was an evil—a belief that has
strong parallels with the traditional Hindu vamasramadharma,60
The nearest approach to this point of view in the whole of Yusuf
Gada's work is in the two couplets cited above, which appear to
reflect the conditions of the late fourteenth century, when the
slave party was pitted against the free urban population and a
number of people from tribal or other low indigenous origins
were attaining positions of influence (e.g., the Meo chief Bahadur
Nahar).61 By contrast, one may note that in Barani's writing the
status of a slave was no bar to the possession of inherited noble
aptitudes; his noblesse d'epee consisted mainly of the "great"
Turkish slaves who rose to command the armies of the Sultanate
or ascend its throne.
The conflict between the attitudes of Barani and Yusuf Gada
is not explicable in terms of the general Islamic education or the
sufi allegiances of the two writers. Barani was probably better
grounded in traditional cilm than Yusuf Gada himself. iBothjWjrit-
ers,,were murids (disciples) of the same line of Chishtishaikhs'.
Yusuf Gada's thinking regarding the undesirability of associat-
ing with monarchs and taking their employment is in accord
with many pronouncements of the Chishti shaikhs-, but he is
59. Fatawa i jahandan, intro., p. 25.
60. Cf. Barani's theory of the development of inborn aptitudes among the noble
and the base, Fatawa i jahandan, pp. 295-97. For a Persian rather than Indian
source for Barani's formulation, see Ibn al-Balkhii, Faisnama, ed. Le Strange
and Nicholson (London: 1931), pp. 30-31.
61. For the events of this decade, see Digby, War-hoise and Elephant, pp. 74-82.
j
THE TUHFA I NASA'lH OP YUSUF GADA 121
clearly opposed to their practice of taking fatuhat (alms)62 and
he has a conception of the duty of serving the Sultan in certain
political contingencies which is nowhere expressed in the re-
marks of the Chishti shaikhs.
A manual that endeavors to explain the elementary duties of
Jslajnjcnust inevitably contain some referenee-to^iJiMfthe'obli-
gaiion^ofMnaking^ war upon kafirs (uribelieyersJiwYetaf-ronT'the
vigofwith which Yusuf:Gada expressed'his-;views*on*this*sub-
ject,-*as*well as his injunctions elsewhere concerning:conduction'
a»mllitary expedition, maintaining a.proficiency in;mih'tary arts,-
and*marching beneath.the bannerof one's Sultan^dt-seems-prob-
able*that,he regarded making .war upon unbelievers*as*a*con-
tingenc,y,,that was likely-to occur in the c_o.urse_of,his son?s4ife:
Make war upon the kaflzs; know that this war is a duty -"""'"^
At such time as you see that the kafiis have been making a general
disturbance.
If you flee once from war, you become a coward fit for hell;
This is one of the greatest of the major sins; avoid it totally.
If there are ten believers and twenty-one of the enemy,
Know that the time when they show their faces is a lawful one,
my son.63 ___ ... -
He devotes further attention to the occasions when it is lawful
to slay kafirs. Considering these remarks in the context of the
Dehli Sultanate, it seems probable that Yusuf Gada was thinking
not only of the Hindus, but also of the Mongols, whose assaults
had been a serious danger to the Sultanate in the early four-
teenth century. Only a few years after the composition of the
Tuhfa i nasa'ih there occurred the catastrophe of the invasion of
Amir Timur. On this occasion both sides saw the contest as a
jihad against the infidels. The*MstoriansKof^theJT4murid*'Court
<blithely-'described the massacr,e,.of i?"Hindus"-"taking*refuge in•'dig'
greafrmosque of Dehli, yet at Dehli itself -an- cfdgah»that*wasrorre
of*the*first buildings erected after^hee.yent.bejars an inscription
62. Cf. K. A. Nizarni, Some Aspects of Religion and Politics in India During
the Thirteenth Century (Bombay: 1961), pp. 199, 227. Nizami minimizes the
question of the acceptance of futuhat in the Chishti khanqahs.
63. Ms. A, fol. 9b; litho., p. 23; Ms. B, fol. 25a. Both A and B lack the last bait,
again at the close of the bob.
122 ADAS AS ISLAMIC IDEAL THE TUHFA I NASA'IH OF Y U S U P GADA 123

referring to the invading host as "accursed Mongols and dev,ilish ature on this subject, much of it ultimately derived from the cul-
i^zrs."64 ture of the Mediterranean world in late classical times. Yusuf
This may lead to the vexed question of the possible influence Gada's auspicious and inauspicious days are either those of the
of Hindu beliefs, practices, and social observances upon Yusuf Islamic months or those of the days of the week as governed by
Gada's writing. A modern school of Indo-Muslim historians, the planets. One may suspect a pervasive influence of the Indian
somewhat influenced by their own political predicaments, has environment, but the work itself does not provide the evidence
been inclined to emphasize the syncretistic nature of Indo- in which K. M. Ashraf thought "its particular interest" lay. The
Muslim culture. Of the writers of this school, the late K. M. Ash- similarities to Hindu belief and practice are a part of the general
raf has made use of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih) his views on it may be tenor of life in the civilizations of the Eurasian landmass during
quoted: "Its particular interest lies in showing how far Hindu be- the medieval period.
liefs and practices and other common superstitions were being
incorporated into the scheme of orthodox Muslim life in Hin-
dustan."65 This appears to me grossly to overstate the case. One
may think that one sees the influence of the Hindu environment
in Yusuf Gada's preference for female hypergamy, but to estab-
lish this, one would have to demonstrate that it was not prac-
tised elsewhere in the medieval Muslim world. Some of Yusuf
Gada's references to kaftis we have examined above; he does not
even once use the term Hindu, though at times he refers with
deprecation to the Jews, of whose presence there is no evidence
in medieval Dehli. Similarly, injunctions that one should not go
to heathen women for the interpretation of dreams, and that it is
lawful to condole with ahl i dhimma (non-Muslim protected
peoples) in the case of death,66 are ambiguous and probably de-
rive from eariier Muslim tradition.
o1!fcestof^u6rror-i^ to which Yusuf Gada appeals are^the
jfrad^
rts^aiid^
The considerable portion of the content of the Tuhfa i nasa'ih
devoted to auspicious and inauspicious acts and situations re-
veals no overt Hindu influences. In the medieval world these
preoccupations extended well beyond the frontiers of India, and
Yusuf Gada's sources must be sought in the body of Islamic liter-

64. Zafar Hasan, list of Protected Monuments . . . of Delhi (Calcutta: 1922)

3:164-66.
65. K. M. Ashraf, Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (reprinted,
Delhi: 1959), intro., p. xxii.
66. Ms. A, fol. 29b; litho., p. 70; Ms. B, fol. 73b. Yusuf Gada here refers to the
Hidaya as his authority. A reference to an indubitably Indian custom at Mus-
lim burials shortly follows this—the placing of tambul (pan) on the grave; Ms.
A, fol. 29b; litho., p. 71; Ms. B, fol. 74a.

Adab al-Mufti:
The Muslim Understanding of
Values, Characteristics, and
Role of a Mufti
M. KHALID MASUD
This chapter deals with four texts that treat of the adab of the
mufti in order to analyze some aspects of the values and charac-
teristics understood by Muslims to qualify the mufti as a spe-
cialist on Islamic law. Its objective is to develop an analytical
framework for studying the conceptual system of personal and
moral authority among Muslims in South Asia.
Adab and Authority
The chapter examines the concept of authority as a conceptual
tool employed by a society to define and maintain social order.
During the formative period of Muslim society the political
scene was dominated by military generals who controlled all
other institutions. Power and fear seem to have provided the
basis for authority in this period. Hence the term ahl ash-shuia
(the people to be consulted) used in early Islam to denote the
group of people in authority was replaced by ahl al-hall wa al-
caqdl (people who could untie and bind), a shift from a participa-
tory process of decision making to an authoritarian one.
1. M. Khalid Masud, "Ta'rikh i islam men ahl i hall o 'aqd ka tasawwur," Fiki o
nazar (January/February, 1964), 55-69. This article explains that the term was
first used by Abu al-Hasan Ash'ari (d. 330/935). Ash'ari's period was marked by
AL-MUFTI 125
The world view developed in this system stressed a hierarchy
of authorities and the creation of fear to sustain deference to
them. The highest and absolute authority belonged to God alone,
and man was merely a slave ('abd) with no authority of his own.
Authority in anyone other than God was delegated by Him or
derived from Him. The perfection of man consisted, therefore, in
obedience to authorities, the highest being God.
A number of competing orientations sought to embody this
world view. As recent studies have shown, it would be an over-
simplification to see Islam as a monolithic development of con-
cepts related to shari'a. Marshall G. S. Hodgson, for instance,
has discussed shari'a, tasawwuf, batiniyya, adab, and falsafa as
five rival cultural orientations.2 Franz Rosenthal has identified
kalam, tasawwuf, falsafa, and adab as four contending sys-
tems.3 Gustave E. von Grunebaum speaks of two competing
scribal cultures, that of faqlh and of katib, within Islamic civi-
lization.4 Without going into detail, it may be suggested that dur-
ing the formative period of Islam there arose several conceptual
systems, often contesting for supremacy, which espoused ideals
of the perfect man and of the social order.
Out of these systems, adab (the ideal of the educated man),
shari'a (the ideal of legal man), and tariqa (the ideal of holy man)
became most prominent. The first was least the ideal of the reli-
gious or piety-minded. The tanqa ideal stressed the transforma-
tion of a person from within. The shari'a ideal laid emphasis on
rituals and formalities in order to mold man's moral attitude;
the perfection of man in this system consisted of obedience to
the revealed laws of God. The ideal of this system was a "legal
man" who mastered the knowledge of the rules of shari'a in or-
der to live his life according to them. Moral authority may, in
this same way, be defined in terms of the perfection of the ideal
within each particular system: the more one achieves perfection,
the more one becomes an authority in that system.
These systems did not develop in complete isolation but inter-
the excessive power of Turkish soldiers, in whose hands the Abbasid caliphs
were reduced to puppets.
2. Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam (Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 1974), l:238ff.
3. F. Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant (Leiden: Brill, 1970).
4. Gustave E. von Grunebaum, Islam and Medieval Hellenism: Social and
Cultural Perspective (London: Variorum Reprints, 1976), 15:5ff.
126 ADAS AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
acted and affected each other's development. One may, however,
note that the concept of the absolute authority of God and the
ideal of legal man developed by the shari'a conceptual system
significantly shaped the other systems. Thus the tariqa system
developed compendia of rules for external behavior of sufts,
similar to shari'a, even to the extent that it developed parallel
systems of rituals on the pattern of fiqh. The adab system was
also affected. Adab, which earlier stood for education and cul-
ture, came to stress formalism and manners. The term adab,
particularly in its plural form adab, carne to mean rules and
codes of behavior.
The effect of the dominance of the shari'a conceptual system
may also be seen in the semantic development of the term 'alim
(one who possesses cilm, knowledge). In brief, it is significant to
point out that in South Asia a distinction is maintained among
'alim, sufi, and adib, particularly between an 'alim, who repre-
sents the conceptual system of shari'a, and sufi, who stands for
the tariqa system. In certain contexts, the term calim retains its
generic sense, which includes sufis and others. In its specific
context, however, the term 'alim or faqih (pi., fuqaha': a special-
ist in Islamic law) denotes one who knows shari'a sciences. In
fact, the term faqih is used for several functionaries within the
shari'a system. The major roles and functions of a faqih are
those of qadi (judge), muhtasib (censor), mufti, and mudanis
(teacher). Often these roles may be alternated or combined in
one person. A mufti is a specialist who is consulted by individu-
als as well as by officials of the state on points of Islamic law. He
may also issue statements on questions of public morality in his
own right.
In fiqh the term adab often has been used in two senses. First,
adab stands for such legal requirements as are commendable,
though not obligatory. Second, it refers to the books or chapters
relating to the conduct of the qadi. In the latter use, which is
more common, emphasis is laid on a type of behavior that be-
comes a habit or skill, "because unless it is a skill (malaka) it
cannot become adab,"5 It is this second meaning that we exam-
ine here.
5. Qadi cAbd an-Nabi Ahmad Nagari, Jamf al-'ulum, better known as Dastur
al-'ulama' (Hyderabad, Deccan: n.d.), 1:15.
ADAB AL-MUFTI 127
Finally, the semantic development of the term adab from its
original meaning of "invitation to eat" to "culture" and "code of
behavior" deserves investigation. It is interesting to observe,
however, that during its passage from Arabic, through Persian, to
Urdu, the term lost some of the meanings that it had in Arabic,
but retained some it had acquired in Persian. Thus in Urdu adab
commonly means "respect" and "regard," implying a standard of
moral perfection in the context of a hierarchical system of social
relations. One might speculate that in the Indian environment
this juncture of education and hierarchy gave to adab a character
somewhat unique.
The Sources
As noted above, the various systems produced adab literature to
define the values and characteristics of the ideal person in that
particular system. Manuals and codes of conduct were written.
In the shari'a system the most common subject was adab al-
qadi, which often also included adab al-mufti. Very few books,
treatises, or chapters are found under the title adab al-mufti,
and still fewer as adab al-faqih or adab al-'alim. The subject
of adab has been dealt with by several jurists, including al-
Ghazzali and Mawardi in the medieval period, but mostly as part
of the wider adab system.
However, during the Ottoman period there appeared a few sig-
nificant texts on adab al-mufti. The renowned Ottoman text on
the subject, also frequently quoted in South Asia, was Ibn
cAbidin's Rasm 'uqud al-mufti. In South Asia, however, a brief
survey of biographical and historical sources has disclosed that
very few books on the adab of mufti or 'ulama' exist.6 The few
titles that we have come across belong to the nineteenth cen-
tury. They are Khadim Ahmad Farangi Mahalli (d. 1855), Zakat
wa taqwa fi adab al-fatwa-, Naqi cAli Khan Barelwi (d. 1880), al-
Kawakib az-zuhia fi fada'il 'Urn wa adab al-'ulama'-,7 Siddiq
Hasan Khan (d. 1889), Dhakhr al-muhti min adab al-mufti^
6. Rahman 'All, Tadhkira i 'ulama' i hind, ed. and trans. M. Ayyub Qadiri (Ka-
rachi: Pakistan Historical Society, 1961), p. 177, editor's note.
7. Ibid., p. 530.
8. Ibid., p. 250.
128 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
Qadi cAbd an-Nabi Ahmad Nagri, Dastui al-culama';9 and Akbar
Shah Khan Najibabadi, Micyar al-culama'.l° In addition to these,
however, the adab for a mufti was also discussed among jurists
in compendia of fiqh. Fatawa literature included sections on the
subject as well. The sources of the present study of adab al-
mufti are the following: , 8. Distinction between ifta' and qada'.
1. Anonymous (Adab al-muftin), Panjab University manuscript no.
Ard. II 23/399. (Hereafter, Adab.)
2. Section on "adab al-mufti" in Makhdum Muhammad Jacfar Boba-
kam's (dated after 976/1568) al-Matana fi maiamma al-khazana
(Karachi: Ihya' al-adab as-Sindi, 1962), pp. 17-30. (Hereafter, al-
Matana.)
3. Adab al-muftiin the Kitab adab al-qadim Fatawa i cAlamgin, vol.
3 (Kanpur: Majidi, 1932), pp. 142-43. (Hereafter, 'AlamgM.) An En-
glish translation of this section is included as appendix A of this
paper.
4. Fatawa daz al-culum deoband, vol. 1 (Deoband: Dar al-cUlum deo-
band, 1962), pp. 67-105. (Hereafter, Fatawa deoband.)
The choice of these sources is chronologically significant, for
they represent the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and twen-
tieth centuries respectively. Before going into an analysis of their
contents, a brief introduction with an outline of the structure of
discussion is in order.
The first, the main source of this paper, is a hitherto unpub-
lished Panjab University (Lahore) manuscript. Nothing is known
about the author, or even about the title. It is not traceable in
any other major catalog. On the basis of the internal evidence
derived from the titles of the books mentioned in the text, the
cataloger of the Panjab University collection has concluded that
the treatise belongs to the fifteenth century.11 The treatise, con-
sisting of twenty-two folios, is divided into the following eight
sections:
1. Definitions of ifta' (functions of a mufti),
2. Certain subtleties and inner meanings of the words ifta' and mufti.
3. The rules relating to ifta'.
9. See note 5.
10. Akbar Shah Khan Najibabadi, Mi'yaz al-'ulama' (Najibabad: clbrat, 1935).
11. Qacli cAbd an-Nabi Kaukab, Fihrist mufassal (Lahore: Panjab University,
1975), pp. 167-68.
.1 ADAB AL-MUFTI 129
4. Adab and commendable manners regarding ifta'.
5. The question of issuing a fatwa according to a school of law other
than that to which the mufti adheres.
6. The responsibilities of fatwa seekers and their adab.
7. A few problems and theorems.
Al-Matana, also known as Fatawa al-bubakani, is a recension
of another South Asian fiqh text, Khazana ar-riwayat by Qadi
Jagan of Gujarat (d. circa 920/1512). Al-Matana was produced in
Sind in the sixteenth century. Very little is known about the life
of the author. His book has, however, been a very popular legal
text. The first book in al-Matana deals with the merits and vir-
tues of knowledge. A discussion about the merits of fiqh as the
science par excellence is followed by chapters on adab al-mufti.
The discussion deals with the august and solemn character of
the position of the mufti, his manners and the current methods
of issuing a fatwa. It also treats the hierarchy of original au-
thorities on which one must rely, and the etiquette of dealing
with those seeking fatawa. These discussions end with a narra-
tion of the excellence of Abu Hanifa, the founder of the Hanafi
school of Islamic law, and his disciples.
Fatawa i 'alamgiri was compiled by a group of scholars during
the years 1664-72, under the patronage of the Mughal king
Aurangzeb cAlamgir. The book on adab al-qadi includes a brief
one-page section on adab al-mufti. First, it gives the basic re-
quirements in terms of intellectual and moral characteristics
and achievements of a mufti. Further, it lays down the terms and
conditions for issuing a fatwa. Lastly it gives the general adab
of fatawa.
Dar al-cUlum Deoband, a well-known center of Islamic learn-
ing in South Asia, has a dai al-ifta', established in 1892, that at-
tends to hundreds of queries each year.12 The responses issued
from this department are now being compiled and published.
The introduction to the first volume includes a comprehensive
treatment of the adab al-mufti. The subjects dealt with in this
volume include a definition of fatwa.; the significance of the
functions of a mufti; the history of the institution of ifta'; the
12. For a history of Dar al-cUlum Deoband, see Barbara Daly Metcalf, Islamic
Revival in British India: The Deobandi cUlama (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1982).
130 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
role of the mufti in the present age; the need of ijtihad (legal rea-
soning); the duties and responsibilities of a mufti; methods of
reasoning; and a history of ifta' in South Asia.
Having introduced the sources/ we now proceed to a systema-
tic analysis of their contents. The key term, fatwa (pi., fatawa},
is the opinion given by the mufti, the specialist on Islamic law.
Ifta', issuing responses, is the function of the mufti, Mustaftlis
the person who asks for a fatwa, the petitioner. Istifta' is the act
of petitioning or the question submitted for fatwa.
Although the other three sources do not discuss the literal or
technical meaning of fatwa and ifta', the manuscript Adab deals
with it in detail. It explains that the term fatwa is derived from
fata', meaning energetic youth.13 The author argues that the
term has four essential elements relevant to its technical mean-
ing: new occurrence, strength, freshness, and the exposition of
ambiguity.14 He also describes the inner significance of the term,15
derived from its numerical value, its verb form, the number of its
letters, its relation to corresponding terms, and so on. The term
mufti is then given added significance in the manuscript by de-
fining an calim (scholar) as faqih or mufti,16 A similar equation is
made by al-Matana and Fatawa deoband.
Qualities and Characteristics of a Mufti ""
The qualities and characteristics of a mu/tfare usually described
in the adab al-mufti as conditions for acceptability as a mufti.
He is expected to fulfill both professional qualifications and
moral virtues.
(a) Qualities: The Adab does not mention moral qualities of a
mufti among the conditions of his office. It deals with them indi-
rectly in the section on subtle and hidden meanings of the term
ifta'. Qualities such as the following are given: freedom from
greediness and ambition; self-reliance; generosity; humility; ab-
stinence from the forbidden; a smiling and untiring nature; and
strong will.17 Al-Matana recommends humility/8 freedom from
13. {Adab al-muftSn wa al-mustaftin] Ard. n 23/399, folio 4a (henceforth re-
ferred to as Adab}.
14. Ibid., fol. 5b.
15. Ibid., fols. 6a-7b.
16. Ibid., fol. 3a. •'
17. Ibid., fols. 6b-7a.
18. Bubakam, al-Matana fi maramma al-khazana (Karachi: Ihya' al-adab as-'
sindi, 1962), p. 17 (henceforth referred to as al-Matana),
ADAB AL-MUFTI 131
prejudice and from vanity.19 Like the Adab, however, al-Matana
also does not mention them as specific conditions; the 'Alamgiri,
however, sets such moral qualities apart from the professional
qualities of a mufti, but treats them as necessary requirements.
It mentions the following: manliness, soundness of mind, good
conduct, humility, serenity, softness of speech, pleasant face,
freedom from vanity, and emotional control.20 Fatawa deoband's
treatment of this subject is both comprehensive and extensive.21
It enumerates more than sixteen such qualities, including good
intentions, magnanimity, staidness, perception, freedom from
greediness, modesty, piety, intelligence, balance of mind, self-
reliance, cheerfulness, and sense of responsibility.
From the contrast in treatments one may tentatively suggest
that emphasis on moral values increases after the seventeenth
century and is at its peak in the twentieth century. This corre-
sponds with the definition of adab given by the cAlamgin: "Adab
is to cultivate fine characteristics and praiseworthy values in
dealing with people."22 Yet the 'Alamgiri and Fatawa deoband
use the authority of such earlier scholars as Ahmad b. Hanbal23
to treat these values, so the chronological development must not
be overemphasized.
The relevance of moral qualities for a mufti may also be seen
by asking if these qualities are essential for the competence of a
mufti or for the validity of his fatwa. This question has not been
dealt with directly, yet one finds reference to an interesting de-
bate on a similar point in the 'Alamgiri. The point of debate is
whether a depraved person can become a mufti. The cAini and a
number of later jurists, such as the author of al-Majmac, answer
in the negative, whereas the compilers of the cAlamgin maintain
that he can become a mufti. This may appear to contradict their
emphasis on moral qualities.24 The only explanation that we can
offer is that perhaps a distinction has been made from the points
of view of the competence of the mufti and the validity of a
fatwa. The cAim and others viewed the question as that of the
competence of the mufti and therefore maintained depravity as a
19. Ibid., p. 24.
20. Fatawa i 'alamgm (Kanpur, Majidi, 1932), 3:142 (henceforth, cAlamgm).
21. Fatawa dca al-culum deoband (Deoband: Dar al-'Ulum Deoband, 1962),
1:90-97 (henceforth referred to as Fatawa deoband).
22. 'AlamgM, p. 141.
23. Fatawa deoband, p. 90.
24. 'Alamgln, p. 142.
132 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
disqualification. The compilers of the 'Alamgiri on the other
hand looked at the problem as that of a fatwa and considered
that the depravity of a mufti could not invalidate the fatwa.
(b) Characteristics: Some characteristics are derived from the
author's understanding of the place of ifta'. The Adab regards
ifta' as analogous to qada', hence prescribes the conditions re-
quired for the qadi as minimum qualifications for the compe-
tence of a mufti. The author, however, explains that these quali-
fications are necessary only for the formal assignment of a mufti
or if he is supposed to issue formal written fatawa. There are
fewer conditions if a mufti is consulted only verbally.
The 'Alamgiri, in contrast, explains that inasmuch as muftis
often do not fulfill the conditions of ijtihad, they are analogous
to transmitters of hadith. They must possess accurate memory,
for example, for this is necessary for a transmitter of hadith.25
In terms of personal characteristics, all four sources agree that
a mufti must be a Muslim, sane ('aqil), and of age (baligh: hav-
ing attained the age of puberty). The 'Alamgiri and the Fatawa
deoband add further that he must be mentally alert.26 As for age,
the <'Alamgiri explicates further that majority does not mean
seniority of age; a youth can well become a mufti.27 The mufti
must also be of good character ('adl], although the ''Alamgiri
does allow a person of low character (fasiq) to hold this office.
No discrimination in the competence of a mufti is allowed on
the basis of freedom or sex: a slave or a woman can also become
a mufti. Physical limitations such as dumbness do not disqualify
a person from becoming a mufti.28 The 'Alamgiri and al-Matana
also prescribe accurate memory to be an essential qualification
of a mufti.29
Professional characteristics, the skills and capabilities ac-
quired through training and experience, are also discussed. We
shall deal with the content of the formal training in the next sec-
tion; here we shall consider the question of what constitutes this
capability and whether it is a necessary condition. The essential
skill of a mufti is held to be his ability to reason and to interpret
the law. This is often termed ijtihad.
^ \. Ibid.
26. Ibid, and Fatawa deoband, p. 92. , <,
27. 'Alamgiri, p. 142.
28. Ibid. .»:
29. Ibid, and al-Matana. > .
ADAB AL-MUFTI 133
All of the four sources count the capacity for ijtihad as a nec-
essary characteristic of a mufti, but they immediately relax the
condition because it is essentially impossible to find persons ca-
pable of ijtihad.30 Al-Matana therefore suggests that the mufti,
being incapable of ijtihad, must quote authorities. He should act
as a transmitter, not as an interpreter.31 The 'Alamgiri in fact de-
nies very clearly the possibility of ifta' if a mufti is not capable
of ijtihad, concluding that "what is called fatwa in our days is
not in fact so. It is rather quoting the statement of a mufti, for
the benefit of a petitioner."32 The Fatawa deoband confirms this
and says that muftis are now called so onlyfiguratively."33Com-
menting on the characteristics of a mufti, Fatawa deoband
observes:
It is essentially impossible to find a person who fulfills all the condi-
tions required for a mufti. However, since the books on hadith and
flqh, duly compiled and classified, have been published in the modern
age and since the state of memory is not the same as it used to be in the
old days, when a scholar could recall millions of hadith in his mind. . .
persons who have an aptitude for fiqh and hadith, who are skilled in
the studies of the Qur'an and sunna, and who have studied religious
sciences under the guidance of religious scholars in a regular manner of
training and discipline, those who have a profound aptitude for legal
problems may be entrusted with this responsibility.34
From this denial the question arises: what constitutes ijtihad]
Is it a skill in interpreting Islamic law? Or is it knowledge of the
original sources and authorities in Islamic law? Does it mean
the skill or method of arguing from the original sources, i.e, the
Qur'an and sunna] Or is it a method of inferring from the state-
ments of the founders of the schools of law?
The capacity for ijtihad is generally conceived of in the sources
as knowledge of certain sciences. (What are these sciences? We
shall deal with the question in the next section.) It appears, how-
ever, that knowledge (cilm) in this context has a specific mean-
ing. As it becomes clear from the discussion of this point in the
Fatawa deoband, a mujtahid is contrasted with a muqallid (one
who adheres* to a certain school of law).35 A mujtahid has de-
30. See, for example, the Adab, fol. 8a.
31. al-Matana, p. 18.
32. 'AlamgM, p. 142.
33. Fatawa deoband, p. 84.
34. Ibid., p. 82.
35. Ibid., p. 83f.
134 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
tailed knowledge of the rules of law and their basis in the origi-
nal sources of law, whereas a muqallid knows the problems of
law by heart. The knowledge of the mujtahid, therefore, means
more than simple information; it also connotes rational percep-
tion. The mujtahid is commonly misunderstood to be synony-
mous with or analogous to the founder of a school of law. Such
an understanding of ijtihad is not supported by the definitions of
this term, at least in these sources. In this perspective, ijtihad
would mean a method of interpretation of law rather than merely
the knowledge of the sources of law. Within the limitations im-
posed by the sources, it can be exercised within the confines of a
particular school of law by adhering to the principles and doc-
trines of the jurists of that schoool. A mufti may also refer to
other schools of law in certain cases.36
> rated a number of books on rational sciences.39 It is to be noted
Training of a Mufti
Talammudh or apprenticeship is prescribed as a necessary prere-
quisite for a mufti by all the sources37 with the exception of the
'Alamglri, Is this apprenticeship a different system of training or
is it additional to the regular system of education in a madmsal
An answer to this question can only be found implicitly in de-
scriptions of the curriculum of the madiasas in South Asia or in
the biographical dictionaries. Generally madiasas in South Asia
produced graduates who had rigorous training in the Arabic lan-
guage and grammar, with major emphasis on fiqh. The graduates
were called culama'. During this training, or after the graduation,
those pupils who had a special aptitude for fatawd stayed with a
faqlh for some time as apprentices. The system of madiasa edu-
cation revolved around textbooks and the stages of graduation
were classified according to the completion of textbooks. There
was therefore no emphasis on graduation from a certain institu-
tion but rather on graduation from a teacher.
No details about the curriculum are to be found in the bio-
graphical literature. The compilers of the Tarikh i adabiyyat i
musalmanan i pak wa hind have constructed their picture of the
system of education from various places of information. Accord-
ing to them, during the Sultanate period the curriculum was
36. Adab, fols. 16b-17_b; al-Matana, p. 25.
37. al-Matana, p. 18; Adab, fol, 8b; Fatawa deoband, pp. 84-85.
ADAB AL-MUFTI 135
divided into two stages: cdlim and fadil. The student who could
read and write and had elementary knowledge of the Qur'an
and knowledge of the Arabic and Persian languages was called
danishmand. One who completed the essential books of reli-
gious sciences and graduated was called a maulawi. On the com-
pletion of the entire syllabus he became an calim. The curricu-
lum of the fadil required specialized books on religious sciences.
Books on rational sciences such as falsafa and kalam, as well as
books on tasawwuf, were not part of the curriculum but were
taught privately.38
During the Mughal period, however, the rational sciences
came to be included in the curriculum, though the emphasis
varied, depending on the teachers. The Dais i nizami syllabus,
which developed during Aurangzeb 'Alamgir's period, incorpo-
that the system of Muslim education was open. There were no
prerequisites for education that would depend on one's birth or
on hereditary traits.
We have no information as to any special curriculum for the
education of a mufti. The sources on adab al-mufti do list the
disciplines and subjects required of him. The Adab, for instance,
has a comprehensive list of requirements. It specifically pre-
scribes, as a necessary condition for the office of a mufti, knowl-
edge of the Arabic language, grammar, legal hadith, abrogated
verses in the Qur'an, statements of earlier jurists, history, biogra-
phies of the companions of the Prophet, mastery of the doctrines
of the school of law to which the mufti adheres, and principles
and theories of Islamic law.40
Al-Matana explains that the mufti should not only know the
doctrines and statements of jurists, but must also know their
legal proofs. While al-Matana does not prescribe history or biog-
raphies of earlier jurists, it lays stress on the knowledge of the
customs of the people. It also emphasizes that a mufti must re-
strict his opinions to authoritative books of the school. It adds,
however, the condition of knowledge of arithmetic.41
The Fatawa deoband does not specify the required sciences
38. Fayyad Mahmud and others, TZrikh i adabiyyat i musalmanan i pakistan
o hind (Lahore: Panjab University, 1972), 2:278-335.
39. Shibl! Nu'rnlnl, Maqalat.
40. Adab, fol. 8a.
41. al-Matana, p. 18; also 'Alamgiri, p. 142.
136 ADAB AS I S L A M I C I D E A L
except the knowledge of the kitab and sunna, but assumes that
the mufti must have knowledge of fiqh in detail. It also requires
knowledge of local customs.42
Although the focus in this system of training was on learning
of books and graduation was therefore marked by completion of
certain books, the sources very persistently maintain that one
cannot be an calim, let alone a mufti, simply by having read the
required books himself.43 Apprenticeship and discipline are im-
perative. Al-Matana illustrates this point with an anecdote. Be-
fore completing his training with his teacher, Abu Hanifa, Abu
Yusuf assumed the position of a mufti. In order to admonish
him, Abu Hanifa sent a petitioner to Abu Yusuf, whose reply
showed his weakness in perceiving the problem and his method
of reasoning. He carne to his teacher, apologized for his impu-
dence, and remained a disciple until Abu Hanifa's death.44
Similarly, the Fatawa deoband does not allow a person, how-
ever learned he may be, to be called calim if he has not studied
with a teacher. It says:
It becomes clear that notwithstanding the volume of information one
may acquire from the books, their study alone cannot make a person
an authority. Unless one learns the religious science from authoritative
scholars of religion in a regular manner, one remains an ignorant and
uneducated layman.45
It may be interesting to note here that Abu al-Kalam Azad in In-
dia and Abu al-Acla' Maududi in Pakistan, despite their erudi-
tion, were never accepted as culama' by the orthodox, simply be-
cause both did not go through a regular and formal system of
training.46
Ethics [Adab] for the Mufti
The four sources distinguish the adab from the shara'it (condi-
tions), ahkam (rules), and khasa'is (characteristics) of a mufti.
Of the four sources, the Adab enumerates the most adab. These
include the method of referring to authorities, the manner of
42. Fatawa deoband, pp. 85-87.
43. Ibid., pp. 94-95. 4 50. Adab. fols. lOa-lOb.
44. al-Matana, pp. 19-20.
45. Fatawa deoband, pp. 84-85.
46. Cf. Dr. Mushir al-tfaqq, Madhhab aui jadid zihn (Delhi: Jamiah, 1974),
p. 25.
ADAB AL-MUFTI 137
writing fatawa, a code of behavior for dealing with petitioners,
the attitude to the office of a mufti, and professional ethics. The
persisting themes in these adab appear to be respect for knowl-
edge, respect for the authority of law, and regard for the hier-
archical order of authorities in Islamic law.
The most persistent theme in adab for the mufti is respect
(adab) for knowledge. Unless he has sufficient knowledge of the
sources and of the methods of argument, he dare not assume the
office of a mufti or even answer the question of a petitioner.47
All of the sources quote a saying of the Prophet condemning to
Hell those who impudently venture to issue fatawa without
having sufficient knowledge.48 First one must attain the grade of
mujtahid.
All the sources discourage the temptation to exhibit one's
knowledge or, on the other hand, to conceal one's ignorance.49 In
fact they praised a mufti's saying "la adri" ("I do not know").
The Adab explains that the answer "la adri" was often given by
great jurists such as Malik, Shafi% Ahmad b. Hanbal, and others.
In fact, Shafici used to say that one-half of knowledge consisted
of saying "la adri." "La adri" does not indicate false modesty; it
is an attitude of respect for and humility towards knowledge.50
This attitude comes from a sense of responsibility for one's du-
ties as a scholar.
This attitude toward knowledge explains why the sources ask
the mufti to remain silent and not to volunteer his opinion.51 He
should speak only when asked,52 and should give an opinion only
in matters that have actually taken place. He has a right to re-
fuse a fatwa in matters that he considers futile, imaginary, or
irrelevant.53
Muftis are forbidden to answer fatawa without study and de-
liberation. The Adab advises a mufti to study the question thor-
oughly, to understand the context of the question, to consider its
implications, and only then to offer an answer.54 The point is il-
lustrated by the example of Abu Hanifa, who took one year to
47. al-Matana, p. 17; Adab, fol. lOa.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
51. 'Alamgjn, p. 142.
52. al-Matana, p. 18; 'Alamgin, p. 142.
53. al-Matana, p. 18.
54. Adab, fol. lOa.
138 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
answer a question.55 This condemnation of haste does_not en-
courage either inaction or procrastination; these the cAlamgin
and Fatawa deoband expressly forbid.56
The mufti is also advised to quote authorities, saying "accord-
ing to our imam." He must not say "according to me," because
that is disrespectful and vainglorious. The humility of a scholar
consists not only of his realization of the limitations of his
knowledge but also of his recognition of his opinions as tenta-
tive. The sources recommend that a mufti should conclude his
answer by saying "wa allah a'lam" ("and God knows best").57
They also advise the mufti always to be prepared to admit his
mistakes.58 The Adab makes another significant observation. If
the mufti realizes he has made a mistake after the action he
recommended has taken place, he must inform the petitioner if
the matter concerned cibada (dogma and ritual). However, he
need not do so if the matter concerned mu'amalat (human
transactions).59
The other common theme in the adab is the respect for the
hierarchy of authorities in fiqh that a mufti is required to ob-
serve when writing fatawa. These sources all recommend ad-
herence to Hanafi authorities in which Abu Hanifa comes first,
then his disciples.60 This order is expounded in reference not
only to jurists but also to their books. The details of this order
are given in appendix C. The adab insist on adherence to the
Hanafi school to the extent that even if the petitioner specifi-
cally asks the view of other schools, the mufti is to state only
the Hanafi view.61
The sources also prescribe a code of behavior for the mufti as
to how he should deal with the petitioners and how he should
take care of their interests. The most common theme in this re-
spect is regard for the petitioner's convenience. The Adab sug-
gests that if a mufti has an option, he must opt for what is more
convenient for the petitioner. He must also preserve uniformity
55. Ibid.
56. 'AlamgM, p. 142; Fatawa deoband, p. 98.
57. Adab, fol. 13a.
58. Ibid., Ms. 15a and 15b; 'Alamgiri, p. 142; Fatawa deoband, p. 93.
59. Adab, fol. 15b.
60. Ibid., fols. 12a-13b; al-Matana, p. 2 ff.; 'Alamgin, p. 1.
61. Adab, fol. 13b.
ADAB AL-MUFTI 139
in his opinions in similar cases. Also, for the convenience of
petitioners the mufti must be brief, precise, and clear in his
answer.62
A mufti is also expected to be very careful in giving his opin-
ion about matters relating to infidelity and family laws. He must,
as far as possible, refrain from declaring someone an infidel.
Similarly, he must not hasten to endorse a divorce. So long as he
has an option, however remote, a mufti must adopt it in order to
save either faith or marriage.63
A mufti must be hospitable and of moderate temper. He must
receive petitioners cheerfully/4 however great their numbers.65
He should receive all equally without discriminating on the
basis of social status, sex, or age. The 'Alamgiri refers to a prac-
tice among the muftis according to which they did not person-
ally receive petitions from women and children but sent their
ptipils to attend to them. They justified the practice on the basis
that respect for knowledge necessitated that women and chil-
dren, who had an inferior status, should not be received by the
muftis themselves. The 'Alamgiri discouraged this practice and
prescribed that the humility of a scholar required that women
and children should be equally received by the mufti himself.66
Justice and equality must be maintained among the petition-
ers in other aspects as well. They should be served in the same
order as they are received. Nobles, state officials, or persons of
higher status must not be given priority over those who came
earlier.67
The third recurring theme in the adab is respect for the office
of mufti. One implication of this respect is that only those quali-
fied should be assigned this office. Their followers should have
confidence in their scholarship.68 Respect for the office means
that one might decline it, as did Abu Hanifa and other well-
known jurists, even at the expense of severe punishments. The
Adab even recommends that, as ifta' is a collective responsibil-
62. Ibid., fol. 16a; al-Matana, p. 23; Fatawa deoband, p. 98.
63. Ibid., fol. 14a.
64. Fatawa deoband, pp. 94-95.
65. Adab, fol. 12a.
66. 'Alamgm, p. 142.
,5 C 67. Ibid.; Fatawa deoband, p. 98.
68. Adab, fol. 9b.
 ADAS AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
140
ity (faid kifaya), a mufti may decline to answer a petition if he
comes to know of the availability of another mufti in the city.69
The Adab very explicitly recommends:
One must not accept an appointment for the office of ifta', if it is of-
fered by kings or nobles. He should rather accept this office in the
name of the King of Kings (Allah), the Exalted. He should ask his wages
from Him. He should trust Him alone in order that He may guide him
to accuracy and uprightness. The companions of the Prophet and their
successors never accepted any office from the nobles or the sultans. It
is reported that cAbd Allah b. Wahb was offered the post of qadi. He did
not accept i t . . . . He quoted a saying of the Prophet that the judges will
be resurrected among the kings and the scholars among the Prophets.70
Respect of the office thus also requires that a mufti must not
accept any remuneration for his fatwa.71 Sometimes muftis ac-
cepted remuneration under the pretense they were only receiv-
ing wages for the writing of the fatwa, which they argued was
permissible. The 'Alamglri allowed this practice but still re-
garded it as reprehensible.72 The Adab and the 'Alamglri, how-
ever, do not see any harm in a mufti's receiving gifts or accepting
special invitations to dinners.73
y were usually made in the army camps.
Role and Authority of a Mufti
The most important question one may ask about the role and
authority of a mufti is whether he was an official of the state.
Most secondary sources do count the mufti as part of the judicial
system.74 The adab al-muftl literature, however, is not clear. On
the one hand it speaks as though the mufti were an official, urg-
ing scholars not to show eagerness for office and calling upon
rulers to appoint only qualified persons to the post. On the other
hand, it insists on the mufti working as a servant of God, never
accepting any remuneration, and presumably not holding a regu-
lar office. The historical and biographical literature of this period
occasionally use the title of mu/tfbut give no details on appoint-
ment or jurisdiction. Contemporary sources for the Mughal pe-
69. Ibid., fol. lOb.
70. Ibid., fol. 9b.
71. Ibid., fol. 13a; 'Alamgiri, p. 143.
72. 'Alamgm, p. 143.
73. Ibid, and Adab, fol. 16b.
74. M. B. Ahmad, The Administration of Justice in Medieval India (Aligarh,
1941), pp. 115, 119, and elsewhere.
ADAB AL-MUFTI 141
riod do not give any information at all about the appointment of
muftis, whereas detailed information is given about people ap-
pointed as sadr, qadi, and muhtasib. R Saran's detailed inves-
tigations about the Mughal provincial administration also con-
firm that the mufti was not a regular official of state.75 Scholars
who claim otherwise, such as Ishtiaq H. Qureshi,76 Ibn Hasan,77
and M. B. Ahmad,78 have not properly documented their conclu-
sions. My conjecture is that the mufti was not a regular official.
The view that the mufti was a regular official seems to stern
from two sources. First, in other areas of the Muslim world,
especially during the Ottoman period, the mufti was a state
official. Secondly, during the British period in India, for some
time, muftis were appointed as court officials. We, however, do
not consider arguments on the basis of these comparisons valid
enough to refute our conjecture.
Although it has also been suggested that the position of mufti
in South Asia grew out of the official position of muhtasib (pub-
lic censor), this is hard to maintain, because, though we do find
decrees of appointment of muhtasibs, we do not find such ap-
"•!
pointments of muftis. Further, the appointments of muhtasibs
Under Muslim rule, scholars acted as muftis to give general
guidance on matters of doctrine and law. The state, as a token of
recognition of their scholarship, used to bestow upon them rights
to land revenue, called madad i macash. This type of jagli was
also given to teachers. The 'Alamglri recommended such grants.
The institution of mufti underwent a significant change dur-
ing the British period. In the beginning, muftis were attached to
judges in the British courts as consultants on Islamic law. This
situation continued as long as Islamic law remained in force in
75. P. Saran, The Provincial Government of the Mughals, 1526-1658 (Lahore:
Faran Academy, 1976), pp. 345-46.
76. Qureshi, The Administration of the Sultanate of Delhi (Karachi: Pakistan
Historical Society, 1958), p. 158, mentions mufti as a regular officer of the judi-
ciary. He refers to Diya' ad-Din Barani's Tarikh i Kroz Shahi. The latter, how-
ever, does not provide any detail on this point.
77. Ibn Hasan, The Central Structure of the Mughal State (Lahore: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1967), pp. 257 ff. and 315, maintains that a mufti was not neces-
sary in all cases, but does not document this.
78. M. B. Ahmad, The Administration of Justice, pp. 115-19, mentions that
the mufti was a lawyer attached to the court and refers to Barani and Tabaqal i
nasiri as his sources. These sources, however, do not support his conclusions.
142 ADAS AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
certain matters, as the Regulating Act of 1772 required. Gradu-
ally, with the growth of Anglo-Mohammedan Law, and with the
availability of translations of authoritative books on Islamic law,
muftis were no longer required. Therefore, the position of the
mufti as state official, in the British period, came to an end.
At this point the position of the mufti became highly impor-
tant. He was the custodian of shari'a, transmitter and interpreter
of Islamic law. He was also the censor of public morality from
the Islamic point of view. Rapid changes in the economic, social,
and political life under alien rule compelled the shari'a-oriented
Muslims to turn to muftis more than ever before. Consequently
the moral authority of the mufti increased.
The assumption that the mufti did not hold formal office is
compatible with the description of the qualities of the mufti
given above. The adab al-muftl distinguishes between the qadi
and the mufti by explaining that the former is a deputy of the
ruler whereas the latter is a deputy of the Prophet. Thus the
mufti's authority is derived from the Prophet as the interpreter
of Revealed Law.
How is this authority derived? It is not hereditary, but rather
comes through knowledge. A second dimension of the mufti's
source of authority is the teacher-disciple relationship that goes
back via the founders of the schools to the Companions and to
the Prophet.
The mufti's authority derives primarily from the importance
accorded the shari'a. The shari'a system demands that an indi-
vidual Live according to shari'a, and for this someone must offer
guidance on points of law. Not only should that guide be knowl-
edgeable but he himself should be a moral person. A person is
recognized as a guide either gradually or through success in
academic disputations (munazara). This establishes his ri'asa
(authority). The theory of taqlid i shakhsi (adherence to the
opinions of a particular person) bolsters the authority of the
mufti. The theory denies that a layman may consult, let alone
draw inferences from, the legal texts. He is therefore in need of a
specialist, the mufti, to guide him.79
The adab al-mufti literature is silent about the scope and ju-
risdiction of a mufti's authority. No official document is avail-
79. A detailed exposition of this theory is found in Rashid Ahmad Gangohi,
Fatawa i mshidiyya (Karachi: Qur'an Mahal, n.d.), p. 180.
ADAB AL-MUFTI 143
able to instruct us on this point. Another possible source is the
fatawa issued by the muftis. Although books with the title of
fatawa appear in earlier periods, they are unlike the twentieth-
century collections that consist of questions and answers. Ap-
pendix B gives a comparative chart of the subject matter of vari-
ous collections of fatawa. It shows that the scope of fatawa
is wider than that of a regular flqh book. Unlike a fiqh book,
fatawa cover subjects such as exegesis, dogma, public law, et
cetera. In scope, a fatwa is comparable to hadlih, which encom-
passes almost the same range of subjects as a fatwa does. It
therefore shows that the jurisdiction of a mufti embraces almost
all aspects of life. In this sense it accords with the conceptual
system of shari'a.
The conceptual system as well as the authority of a mufti has
been facing a crisis since the advent of the modern age. The
shari'a system is based on the belief in the competence of
shari'a to offer guidance on all occasions for all times to come.
New problems that Muslims have faced in the last centuries
seem to challenge the very foundation of this belief. The mufti
has not completely succeeded in meeting this challenge. How-
ever, a separate paper would be required to study this problem
in detail.80
Conclusion
Following the foregoing analysis of the contents of adab al-
mufti, we may now consider the place of adab.
We may say that adab al-muftiis an expression of the Muslim
understanding of the mufti as an ideal man in the conceptual
system of shari'a. It specifies his ideal qualities and characteris-
tics, and spells out the personal as well as professional qualities
that make him a special person. It is a manual and a code of be-
havior, but does not present a body of relevant knowledge or
rules that one must master to become a mufti, nor does it con-
sist of a system or curriculum of training.
The qualities—personal, moral, and professional—discussed
in adab al-mufti are not hereditary, racial, or inherent. The sys-
80. For details, see Muhammad Khalid Masud, "Trends in the Interpretation of
Islamic Law as Reflected in the Fatawa' Literature of Deoband School: A Study
of the Attitudes of the cUlama' of Deoband to Certain Social Problems and In-
ventions" (M.A. thesis, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, 1969).
144 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL ADAB AL-MUFTI 145

tern of training of a mufti is open to all without discrimination. It may be suggested that the difficulty of recent western stu-
The adab al-muftl aim at creating formal professional skills as dents of Islamic law in understanding the conceptual system of
well as character. Both adab and tariqa concentrate on inner sharl'a by comparing it with the western concept of law may
transformation alone, whereas the shari'a focuses on knowledge be overcome by comparing it with dharma. I would not argue,
and external behavior. The mufti must attain both. however, that this comparison should be undertaken as a quest
The framework of a mufti's authority is the conceptual sys- for sources or as the only comparison possible. On the basis of
tem of shari'a. In that system a mufti is a special person who is my sketchy acquaintance with the problems of Hindu legal the-
respected for his knowledge as well as for his moral character. A ory in the articles of Ludo Rocher ("Theory of Proof in Hindu
mufti loses respect if he does not live up to the moral standard Law") and Daniel H. H. Ingalls ("Authority and Law in Ancient
expected of him by the people. Even in theory, the adab al-muftl, India"), I find that the shari'a system shares several concepts
except in the 'AlamgM, affirm that the legitimacy of the au- with Hindu dharma. They are more like each other than like
thority of a mufti depends on his morality and personal integrity. European law, above all in the breadth of domains of life they
The exception in the cAlamgiri can rightly be taken as a re- address. A comparative study of the shari'a conceptual system
flection of historical change in the adab. Similar changes are ob- in South Asia with systems such as dharma may therefore be
servable in other conditions as well, such as the expectation of a very helpful in developing an analytical framework for the study
capability of ijtihad. The historical change is also reflected in of social and cultural phenomena in Asia. It may prove to be a
the increasing emphasis on moral qualities, although always more meaningful comparison than one made with western legal
with reference to earlier authorities. This may be an influence of systems.
the tariqa, for most muftis and fuqaha' in later periods also be-
longed to sufi orders.
In another sense, however, the adab al-muftl transcends tem-
poral and territorial boundaries. If we analyze the authorities
quoted in the adab we find that original contribution is not very
great. They often refer to earlier authorities. These authorities
are not necessarily South Asian; most of them belong to other
areas. In fact, sometimes it appears that the author is interested
only in presenting authorities on various questions, juxtaposed
without any logical sequence. This is probably because, in this
respect, South Asian Muslims share affinities with, more than
they differ from, Muslims in other areas. An author in South
Asia quite comfortably relies on authorities in periods and re-
gions other than his own. It is therefore extremely difficult to
identify points in the adab al-muftl that may be termed exclu-
sively South Asian.
Perhaps one way it is South Asian is in the similarity of cer-
tain aspects of Islamic law to the local Hindu conceptual sys-
tem. For instance, the definition of Islam and shari'a as a com-
plete code of life is particularly apparent in South Asia. This
concept of sharica is reinforced by the concept of dharma as a
way of life that provides details of codification of rules for every
ritual and divides life into various stages.
 Vft
APPENDIX A
Specimen of Adab al-Mufti
An extract from the Fatawa i
'Alamgiii (Kanpur: Majidi, 1932)
3: 141, 142-43.
"""
Adab means adopting good character and noble virtues when dealing
with people. The adab for a qadi is to abide by what the Law has or-
dained in promoting justice, removing injustice, showing impartiality,
protecting the limits of Law, and following the sunna. i,.
II ''^'i- •;!
(1) The mufti must fulfill the following conditions: good character,
knowledge of the Qur'an and sunna, and a capacity for independent
reasoning.
(a) These conditions are, however, not required when the mufti is
quoting someone's opinion which he has heard.
(b) In that case it will be permissible for him to issue a fatwa even
though he has no knowledge of sources. This is because he is
only quoting what he has heard from someone else. His position
is equivalent to that of a transmitter of hadith. Hence all the
conditions such as intelligence, memory, balance of mind, and
comprehension are required of him as a transmitter.
(2) The jurists are convinced that a mufti must be a mujtahid, and
hence a non-mujtahid who has only memorized the statements of a
mujtahid cannot be a mufti.
(a) He is therefore obliged, whenever a question is put to him, to
cite the statement of such mujtahids as Abu Hanifa.
(i) This explanation makes it clear that what is called a fatwa
in our days is not in fact so. It is rather quoting the state-
ment of a mufti, for the benefit of a petitioner.
(ii) ar-Radi explains that there are two possible methods for
quoting a mujtahid. Either the authority must be mentioned
in that quotation or the mufti must quote from a book com-
monly known, such as Muhammad b. al-Hasan's works or
other similar works by mujtahids.
(iii) In that case it acquires the same status as of al-khabi al-
mutawatii (information that is transmitted by an unbroken
line of informants) or mashhui (that which is well known).
ADAB AL-MUFTI 147
(b) Accordingly, if a statement is quoted from some of the lesser-
known books, as are available these days, it is not permissible to
attribute statements to Muhammad or Abu Yusuf, on the au-
thority of that source.
(c) al-Bahr ar-Ra'iq observes further that if a quotation from a lesser-
known book is given in a well-known book such as al-Hidaya or
al-Mabsut, such a citation would in fact amount to relying on
the latter books.
(3) az-Zahiriyya however, reasserts that the jurists hold unanimously
that a mufti must be qualified for ijtihad.
<& (4) al-Multaqat has adopted a flexible attitude. It records: if a mufti is
I accurate on more occasions than he errs, he is permitted to be a
I mufti. If he is not qualified to exercise ijtihad, he is not permitted
'f to issue fatwa except by way of citation. al-Fusul al-imdadiyya fur-
1 ther qualifies that a mufti should transmit only those statements of
jurists that he has carefully preserved in his mind.
(5) Personal immorality is not a bar to becoming a mufti.
(a) Some jurists have, however, disagreed. cAini as well as many
modern jurists hold the contrary view, as do the Majmac and its
commentary, which agree with cAini.
(6) There is, however, no difference of opinion about Islam and sanity
as essential conditions for a mufti.
(a) Some jurists have also added the qualification of mental
alertness.
(7) However, freedom, masculinity, and ability to speak are not condi-
tions for a mufti.
(a) The fatwa by a dumb mufti is valid, provided his signs are easily
comprehended. In a certain case if someone asked a dumb mufti
if something were permissible and he nodded his head to say yes,
it would be lawful to act according to this sign.
in
(1) A mu/timust have the following qualities: manliness, mind of a ju-
rist, sound intellect, commendable behavior.
(a) an-Nahi al-fa'iq rightly observes that a fatwa by a qualified per-
son is not reprehensible.
(b) Nevertheless the authorities must thoroughly search for a quali-
fied person and the unqualified must be forbidden to issue a
fatwa.
(2) The conditions of a mufti are as follows: the mufti must preserve
order and justice among petitioners.
(a) He should not incline to the rich, the courtiers of the king, or his
nobles. Rather, he should write the answer for whoever comes
first, rich or poor, and not be partial to anyone.
148 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
IV
The adab (etiquettes) of fatwa are as follows:
(1) The mufti must receive the written question with respect.
(2) He should study the question in depth many times, until the ques-
tion becomes clear to him. Then he should answer.
(3) He should not throw away the paper as is customary with some
officials. The reason is that the name of God is written' on it and
respect for His name is obligatory.
(4) In concluding his answer, the mufti must write at the end, "And
God knows best," et cetera.
(a) Jawahii al-ikhlati adds that in religious matters (dogma) the
consensus of the ahl as-sunna wa al-jama'a requires that the
mufti should write: "And God is the supporter" or "By the sup-
port of God" or "Only God is infallible."
(5) It was the practice of some of the jurists not to receive questions
from women or children. They had disciples who would take these
queries, collect them and rewrite them. They avoided women and
children to show respect for knowledge. Humility, however, re-
quires that the mufti should receive queries from all without
discrimination.
(6) al-Bahi ai-id'iq allows persons of young age to issue fatwa pro-
vided they know the traditions thoroughly; know how to discrimi-
nate among them; are constant in obedience; and are free from lust
and doubt. A scholar is big enough even though minor in age and a
nonscholar is small though advanced in years.
(7) as-Siiajiyya adds that a mu/tf must be tolerant, serene, soft-spoken
and have a happy face.
(8) an-Nahr al-fa'iq provides that a mufti must not venture ifta' un-
less he is asked for it.
(9) When a mufti realizes his error he must withdraw his fatwa. He
must not feel shame in doing so, nor should he be obstinate in
error.
(10) He must preserve the doctrines of his imam, and must know his
principles and methods.
(11) The jurists who specialize in the principles of jurisprudence, in po-
lemics, or in conflict of laws must not dispense fatwa on detailed
points of law.
(12) The issuing of a fatwa is not obligatory for hypothetical queries.
(13) Lethargy in fatwa is forbidden. •;-,
(14) So is the following of hiyal (evading devices) mala fides.
(15) Similarly it is forbidden to ask a question about things one already
knows.
(16) The mufti should not issue fatwa in a state of mind when he is not
ADAB AL-MUFTI 149
in control of his emotions, be they joy or anger. But if he issued a
fatwa in such a state believing that it would not deter him from
accuracy, his fatwa would be valid.
(17) It is better that he should issue fatwa without remuneration and
not accept fees from the petitioner.
(a) However, the people in a city are permitted to fix a salary for
him.
(b) It is also permissible to hire the services of a mufti.
(c) It is most appropriate to consider that permission is given for
accepting remuneration for the writing of the fatwa, yet even
this is reprehensible.
(18) It is obligatory for the imam to fix an amount for the needs of the
teacher and the mufti.
(19) al-Bahi ar-ia'iq adds a further stipulation: every territory has con-
ventions in linguistic usage. The mufti who does not know the
usage of a territory must not issue fatwa about a term.
(20) A fatwa is generally issued on the authority of Imam Abu Hanifa;
Abu Yusuf comes next to him. Then come Muhammad b. Hasan,
Zufar, and Hasan b. Ziyad respectively.
(a) If there is a conflict between the Imam on the one hand and
Abu Yusuf and Muhammad, on the other, the mufti has an op-
tion. If the mufti is not himself a mujtahid he must abide by
Abu Hanifa.
(b) The Hawi al-qudsi maintains that it is best to leave the deci-
sion to the perception of the mufti.
(21) The Khazana al-muftin allows the mu/tf and imam to accept gifts
and special invitations.
(22) at-Tabyin narrates that Abu Yusuf was once asked a fatwa in a cer-
tain manner. He stood up, wrapped himself in a sheet, put on his
headgear and then he responded. This he did to show respect for
the position of ifta'.
 APPENDIX B: Scope of Fatawa Compared with Hadith and Fiqh
'IBADAT MU'AMALAT

J 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Rituals, Social Prob-
dietary Obliga- Penal Proce- Public Exe- Legal prob- Mysti- lems
rules Family Persons Property tions law dure law gesis Creeds theory lems cism {current)

Muslim: $ahiti
(Hadith)
(9th century) + + + + + + + + + + + + — —
'AlamgM (Fiqh
(17th century) + + + + + + + — — — — — — —
Fatawa
Rashidiyya
(18th century) + + + + + + + — + + + + + +

Fatawa Fazangi
Mahall
(19th century) + + + + + + + — + + + + + +

Imdad al-
Fatawd
(20th century) + + + + + + + — + + + + + +
DETAILS OF SUBJECTS: 5. Obligations: sale, partnership, exchange, transfer of debts, 9. Exegesis.
1. Rituals, dietary rules: ritual purity, cleanliness, prayers, fast- hire and lease, pledge, pecuniary transactions. 10. Creeds: heresies, history, dogmas, definition of Muslim,
ing, alms-giving, pilgrimage. 6. Penal law: penalties, larceny, drinking, torts, adultery, 11. Legal theory: sources of law, principles of reasoning, Htihad,
2. Family: laws of marriage, divorce, adoption. apostasy. taqlid.
3. Persons: legal capacity, women, slaves, non-Muslims, found- 7. Procedure: duties of a judge, evidence, agency, lawsuit, con- 12. Social problems: manners, behavior, social etiquette,
lings, missing persons. fession, settlement. 13. Mysticism: Sufi doctrines and practices.
4. Property: objects of property, ownership, mortgage, donation, 8. Public law: election of caliph, imam, administration of 14. Current problems: problems created by modern technology
deposits, loans, trusts, inheritance. government. and ideology.

APPENDIX C: Hierarchy of Authorities in Hanafi Fiqh

I II
General Hierarchy in Case of Conflict
Abu Hanlfa Authoritative Nonauthoritative
(1) position position
1
Albu Yusuf \s . . . . Zufur+ /Hasan
(21 Yusuf + Muhammad 1
\^jt 2. Abu Hanifa +Abu i Vs . . . . Muhammad
Muhammad b Hasan- Yusuf I
ash-Shaybani 3. Abu Hanifa
/ n t Vs. . . . Abu Yusuf+/
(3) Muhammad
£ufur b. Hudhail 4. Muhammad ftbadat ) Vs . . . . Abu Yusuf
I A \. Abu Hanifa +Abu

(4) ('ibadat)
Hasan b. Ziyad 5 Abu Yusuf Vs Muhammad
I5' {mu'amalat) {mu'amalat)
Both positions are authoritative, according to the
'Alamglri. A mufti has an option to choose either of the
two positions.
SOURCES: (Adab al-muftin wa al-mustaftin}-, al-Matana fimaramma al-khazana-, Fatawa 'alamgiri.

The cUlama' of Farangi Mahall
and Their Adab
FRANCIS ROBINSON 1
Watch me. So long as I follow our pious predeces-
sors, follow me; and if I do not follow our pious
predecessors, do not follow me. Our predecessors
were better than we are, because they lived closer
to the time of the Holy Prophet.2
Thus Maulana cAbd ar-Razzaq spoke to the Farangi Mahall fam-
ily. He was telling them that, if they wished to live a perfect and
well-formed life, he was the model they should follow, that he
exemplified the family code of adab or right conduct. Our con-
cern is with this code of adab, which cAbd ar-Razzaq and other
learned and holy men of the Farangi Mahall family exemplified.
To focus on a family rather than on a profession may seem to be
stretching a point, but we start from the premise that in a great
family, tightly knit down the ages by circumstances and by mar-
riage custom, it is possible to discern as distinctive a form of
adab as the forms set out in numerous volumes for the sultan,
the qadl, or the sufi. We shall try to lay bare the various strands
that go to make the particular family code. We shall indicate
what was often shared with learned and holy men elsewhere in
the Muslim world, what was stressed especially by this family,
1. I should like to thank the learned men of Farangi Mahall, in particular
Maulanas Jamal Miyan, Matin Miyan, Mufti Raza Ansari, and Maulawi cAbd
ar-Rahman Sahib, for taking me into their world. At their hands I have learned
much, and not only about Islam and Farangi Mahall. I should also like to thank
Messrs. Kamal Habib and cAqil az-Zafar Khan for spending time so generously
in helping me with translation and for a gloss worthy of the 'ulama' them-
selves. Moreover, I acknowledge with much gratitude the financial support of
the British Academy, the Hayter and Central Research Fund of London Univer-
sity, and the Ernest Cassel Educational Trust, whose generosity has made pos-
sible the research from which this article is derived.
2. Altai ar-Rahman Qidwa'i, Anwar i razzaqiyya (Lucknow, n.d.), p. 61.
THE CULAMA' OP FARANGI MAHALL AND THEIR ADAB 153
and why. Then briefly we shall glimpse the family at work in
Tndo-Muslim society, and strive to grasp the impact of their val-
ues on the world in which they moved.
The Farangi Mahall family have good claim to have been the
leading learned family of Muslim India for much of the past
three hundred years. They trace their ancestry through the great
scholar and mystic, Khwaja cAbd Allah Ansari of Herat, to
Ayyub Ansari, the Prophet's host at Medina. It is not known
when the family migrated to India but, according to the family
biographers, one cAla' ad-Din settled in Sihali of the Oudh prov-
ince of north India in the fourteenth century. His descendant
Mulla Hafiz was acknowledged as a distinguished calim by the
emperor Akbar, who made a generous madad i ma'ash grant in
his favor in 1559.3 In 1692 the great-great-grandson of Mulla
fiafiz, Mulla Qutb ad-Din, who was also hailed as a leading
calim of his time, was murdered in a squabble over land and his
library was burned. The emperor Aurangzeb recompensed his
four sons by assigning them a European indigo merchant's house
in Lucknow and by making grants to support their scholarly
work. Around 1695 the family moved from Sihali to the house,
which was known as Farangi Mahall.4
The descendants of Qutb ad-Din made Farangi Mahall into a
center of learning that attracted scholars not only from all parts
of India but also from places as far away as Arabia and China.
Teaching was the profession of most Farangi Mahallis, and the
man who first established their reputation was Mulla Nizam ad-
Din, the third son of Qutb ad-Din. In the early eighteenth cen-
tury he made Farangi Mahall into one of the largest centers of
learning in India. Students from outside Lucknow stayed with
the family or were boarded at the city's Tila Mosque, which had
room for seven hundred, and the expenses were met in part by
the Mughal emperors.5 Yet there was at that time no madrasa
in Farangi Mahall, no central organizing institution; members
of the family simply taught in their homes those who came to
them. Only in 1905 did one Farangi Mahalli, cAbd al-Bari, coor-
3. Muhammad Raza Ansari, "A Very Early Farman of Akbar" (cyclostyled
paper, Centre of Advanced Study, Aligarh, n.d.).
4. Farman Haweli Farangi Mahall, dated 1105/1693-94, Farangi Mahall Ar-
chives (FMA); Muhammad Rida Ansari, Bam i dais i ru'zami (Lucknow, 1973),
pp. 19-34,51-58,63-86.
5. Ansari, Banli dais inizami, pp. 88-90.
154 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
dinate the efforts of his relatives and bring them within the
framework of a madrasa. This Madrasa i cAliya Nizamiyya con-
tinued its work until the 1960s.6 : aimed to direct the student only to the most difficult or most
Although Farangi Mahall always remained their base, many of
the descendants of Qutb ad-Din traveled widely as teachers.
Some, such as cAbd al-Bari and cAbd al-Baqi, taught in Medina;
others taught and set up madiasas in India. Notable amongst
these were the great logician, Mulla Hasan (d. 1209/1794-95),
who left a reputation in Rampur capable of winning respect and
support for the teaching efforts of the Farangi Mahall family
nearly two hundred years later/ the extremely successful Malik
al-'ulama' Mulla Haidar (d. 1256/1840-41), who established the
Hyderabad branch of the family and brought Farangi Mahall a
continuing association with India's most powerful Muslim state/
but most important of all, "Abd al-cAli Bahr al-cUlum, who in the
sixty years before his death in 1225/1810-11 taught in Luck-
now, Shahjahanpur, Rampur, Buhar, and finally in Madras where,
through his teaching and through the madrasa funded for him
by Nawwab Walajah, he inspired a revival of learning in south
India.9
In Lucknow, and wherever they traveled, the Farangi Mahall
family pioneered a new curriculum, the dais i nizamiyya. Until
recently this curriculum formed the basis of most madrasa
6. Ibid., pp. 209-15. For a short time in the late nineteenth century there was a
formal madrasa run by Maulana cAbd al-Hayy. It stopped at his death.
7. Maulana Maulawi Muhammad 'Inaya Allah, Risala i hadra al-afaq ba wafat
majmu 'a al-akhlaq (Lucknow, 1348/1929-30), p. 47. Muhammad Rida Ansari
recalls that a few days after the death of cAbd al-Bari the Nawwab of Rampur
came to Farangi Mahall to offer his condolences. He also visited the Madrasa i
cAliya Nizamiyya and while doing so, said to one of his companions, "This is
our teachers' madrasa . . . I wish to be of some service to it." The Nawwab of
Rampur had not attended the madrasa nor had his teachers; what he meant
was that his teachers belonged to a chain of learning that stretched back to the
time when Farangi Mahallis had come to Rampur in the eighteenth century
and established a madrasa. See also Francis Robinson, "The Veneration of
Teachers in Islam by Their Pupils: Its Modem Significance," History Today 30
(March 1980): 22-25.
8. Maulana Maulawi Muhammadclnaya Allah, Tadhkiia i culama' i faiangi
mahall (Lucknow, 1928), pp. 49-52.
9. Ibid., pp. 137-42. Wall Allah Farangi Mahalli, al-Aghsan al-aiba 'a (Nadwa
Ms., Lucknow, n.d.); pp. 50-53; speech of cAbd al-Hamid Khan, Chairman of
the Reception Committee of the Madras Muslim League Session 1941, Foun-
dations of Pakistan: All-India Muslim Documents 1906-1947, ed. S. S.
Pirzada (Karachi, 1970), 2:351.
THE 'ULAMA' OF F A R A N G I M A H A L L AND T H E I R ADAB 155
courses in India, including that of the Dar al-cUlum at Deoband.
The dais i nizamiyya was created by Mulla Nizam. ad-Din, who
comprehensive books on each subject, so that he was both forced
to think and had a chance of finishing his education by the age of
sixteen or seventeen.
Members of the Farangi Mahall family also wrote a great deal,
and amongst the most prolific were Mulla Mubin (d. 1225/1810-
11) and £Abd al-Bari (d. 1344/1925-26) who wrote 111 books. Of
course, much of their writing took the form of glosses and super-
glosses on the texts they taught, but there were also many works
on mysticism and collections of poetry; there were biographies,
such as Sibgha Allah Shahid's Sadi al-mudaiiism-, and there was
a variety of work from versatile scholars such as Wall Allah (d.
1270/1853-54) who ranged from a commentary on the Qur'an
in seven volumes to a treatise on government, Adab as-salatin.
Works that should be especially noted are Mulla Hasan's text
on logic, which has been popular for nearly two hundred years
amongst those teaching the dais i nizamiyya; Bahr al-cUlum's
study of Maulana Rumi's Mathnawi; and Mulla Nizam ad-Din's
work on the life and deeds of his friend and pli, Sayyid cAbd ar-
Razzaq of Bansa (d. 1136/1723-24), Manaqib i lazzaqiyya. The
works of one scholar in particular, who wrote almost entirely in
Arabic, are outstanding: cAbd al-Hayy's (d. 1304/1886-87) As-
siyya ftkashfma fishaih al-wikaya, his at-Tacliq al-mumajjad,
and his Zafar al-amam establish him as one of the great scholars
of recent times. These books, together with his collection of
fatawa, which are still used by Muslims both inside and outside
South Asia, have caused Lucknow to be known by some as the
"city of cAbd al-Hayy."10
The Farangi Mahallis, however, were not just scholars, they
were also mystics, and mystics who made much of visiting saints'
tombs and celebrating cms. Even a man of the stamp of cAbd al-
Hayy, whose grave is of bare earth open to the skies, stressed the
benefits of visiting the shrine at Bansa.11 The saints receiving the
most attention were their ancestors, whose tombs were in two
groups: those surrounding the shrine of Mulla Nizam ad-Din
10. clnaya Allah, Tadhkiia, pp. 131-37; S. Abul Hasan cAli Nadwi, Muslims in
India (2d ed., Lucknow, 1976), pp. 28-29.
11. cAbd al-Bari, <Uzs i hadrat i bansa (Lucknow, n.d.), p. 10.
156 ADAS AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
in Lucknow, which is renowned for the benefit it brings the
mentally disturbed and scholars in difficulty, and those grouped
around the shrine of Maulana Anwar al-Haqq nearby, where
qawwah play a prominent part in the celebrations of the various
cuzs.12 Also of importance was Sayyid cAbd ar-Razzaq, an illiter-
ate holy man of the Qadiri order. All Farangi Mahallis owed alle-
giance to him, regarding this association as crucial to their spir-
itual well-being, and the sajjadas of his shrine at Bansa, some
thirty miles from Lucknow, have always been careful to pay the
scholars of Farangi Mahall especial respect.13
By the twentieth century, members of the Farangi Mahall fam-
ily were prominent among Indian mystics. They had connec-
tions with many of the major shrines in north India. They taught
the sons of many sajjadas at the Madrasa i cAliya Nizamiyya,14
and the respect accorded them was consequently enhanced. The
last important pli in the family was cAbd al-Bari, whose influ-
ence ramified widely throughout north Indian society, where his
disciples ranged from the cadets of great landed families to pol-
iticians such as Muhammad and Shaukat cAli to relatives of the
sajjadas of the shrine of Mucin ad-Din Chishti at Ajmere. His
influence, and that of Farangi Mahall, was demonstrated when at
the curs of Mucin ad-Din Chishti in 1916 he played the leading
role in founding the Bazm i Sufiya i Hind, which aimed to revive
and to reform Indian mysticism.15
Most Farangi Mahallis lived the lives of learned and holy men.
12. The saints of both groups of tombs were joined to the Qadiri-Razzaqi
silsila stemming from Bansa. Those buried in Bagh i Maulana Anwar were also
associated with the Chishti-Nizami-$abri silsila, the Chishti-Sabri element of
which went back through Shah Muhibb Allah of Allahabad to Shah cAbd al-
Haqq of Rudauli. The two groups of tombs are separated by a wall. Why this
wall was constructed seems shrouded in mystery, though it is clear that the
crowds, largely of women in various states of possession, who flock to Bagh i
Mulla Nizam ad-Din on Thursday evenings, would not be welcome within the
precincts of Bagh i Maulana Anwar, just as the songs of the qawwals who sing
at the curs of the saints in this Bagh would be unwelcome in Bagh i Mulla
Nizam ad-Din.
13. Many of the ceremonies at the 'urs emphasize the respect of Bansa for
Farangi Mahall. The Farangi Mahallis stay apart from the rest of the pilgrims;
they proceed immediately behind the sajjada to the shrine; they sit on either
side of the sajjada in the khanaqah; they are the first to recite the Qur'an.
14. Among them were boys from Bansa, Rudauli, Kachocha, Phulwari, Kakori,
Kalyar, Ajmere, and the Da'ira Shah Hujja Allah at Allahabad.
15. For a description of this event and the aims of the association, see Nur al-
Hasan Ajmeri, Khadimana gudhaiish (Lucknow, 1923).
TH E 'ULAMA' OF P A R A N G I M A H A L L AND T H E I R ADAB 157
However, there were some who, out of preference or more usu-
ally out of necessity, turned to other callings. The majority of
these became government servants in Oudh, in Bhopal, and no-
tably in Hyderabad, whose service seemed to be able to absorb
vast numbers of the indigent ashraf of north India. A few served
the British, though such service met with disapproval in some
quarters of the family. Others were hakims, newspaper editors,
small landholders, and two were even soldiers. These men who
failed to live the lives of the learned and holy, however success-
ful they may have been, however many elephants they may have
gathered into their stables, were felt to have slipped below the
high standards of the family. Wall Allah, for instance, for all his
scholarship and for all his devotion to his pn, Anwar al-Haqq,
seems esteemed the less for the wealth he acquired in the service
of the Oudh court. Nevertheless, although some turned to other
callings, most Farangi Mahallis survived as teachers. We have
some evidence about the occupations of over 150 of the 246 male
descendants of Mulla Qutb ad-Din before 1900, and of these at
least three-fifths spent part or all of their lives in transmitting
the word of God and the skills required to understand it.16
From the 1870s onwards, the lives of many Farangi Mahallis
acquired a new dimension: they entered public life to defend Is-
lam. In 1878 they founded the Majlis Mu'yad al-Islam, the im-
mediate aim of which was to raise money to help Turkey in her
war with Russia. In 1913 they helped to found the Anjuman i
Khuddam i Kacba to protect the holy places of Islam, and they
were prominently involved in the campaign of protest over the
destruction of part of the Cawnpore mosque. After the First
World War they played a leading part in launching the Indian
Khilafat movement, being in December 1918 the first 'ulama' to
attend the All-Indian Muslim League sessions; developing an al-
liance with Mahatma Gandhi; and helping to organize the Cen-
tral Khilafat Committee in 1919. Throughout they drove the agi-
tation to be more extreme until in 1920 the Khilafat movement
adopted a policy of noncooperation with the British government
and, under its influence, so did the Indian National Congress.
16. Calculated from 'Inaya Allah, Tadhkiia. It should be noted that the figure
of 246 Farangi Mahallis born before 1900 may not be entirely accurate. Dates of
birth are not always given in the biographical entries, hence other less precise
evidence has been used to fix dates of birth.
158 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
During these years of pan-Islamic fervor, Farangl Mahallis were
i '-
continually in the public eye, editing newspapers, sitting on
Khilafat committees, speaking at meetings, giving fatawa, guid-
ing the movement on points of religion, and going to prison.
Then, as the movement began to wane, they founded yet another
pan-Islamic organization, the Anjuman i Khuddam i Haramain,
to help protect the holy places of Mecca and Medina from the
depredations of Ibn Sacud and his Wahhabi followers. The leader
of the Farangi Mahallis in all these twentieth-century battles for
the faith was Maulana cAbd al-Bari. But his contribution did not
end there. In 1919 he also helped to found (and was the first
president of) the Jamc-iyya i cUlama' i Hind. His son, Jamal
Miyan, with his Farangi Mahall contemporaries, was very active
in the All-India Muslim League's struggle for Pakistan, being the
joint secretary of the League from 1937 to 1947. No other family
of culama' played such a prominent role in Indo-Muslim politics
before 1947.17
Among the factors that enabled the family to have such a con-
siderable impact on twentieth-century politics was the wide net-
work of connections it had built up throughout Indo-Muslim so-
ciety by teaching, by writing, by giving fatawa, and by providing
spiritual leadership. At the heart of this network, which stretched
from the U.P. to Madras and from Karachi to Chittagong, there
was the expansion of the family itself from Lucknow. But wide-
spread though it was, it remained well-knit. However far Farangi
Mahallis strayed in search of a livelihood, they would try to at-
tend the curs of the family saints and that of Sayyid cAbd ar-
Razzaq. Moreover, most strove to go to Lucknow to learn, to
marry, to find solace in time of difficulty, and to die. In marriage
the custom was to take the nearest permissible relation of suit-
able age. Marriage outside the baradariwas strongly disapproved
of, and the children of such a union were not considered part of
the family. They were not included, for instance, in Maulana
clnaya Allah's biographical dictionary of 1928, which aimed to
provide information on all the male descendants of Qutb ad-Din
to that date. Such biographical collections, of which there were
several, heightened family consciousness and unity.
The extent of the contact and informal organization within
17. For the impact of the Farangi Mahall family on Indian politics up to 1923,
see F. Robinson, Separatism among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United
Provinces'Muslims, 1860-1923 (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 276-341.
$ THE <ULAMA' or TARANGI MAHALL AND THEIR ADAB 159
the family over many generations makes it reasonable to think
in terms of a family adab. But though many sought excellence
after the family ideal, only few achieved it. Our composite vision
is based primarily on what we know of those who were eminent
as teachers and mystics. In this, one line was particularly promi-
nent, that stemming from Qutb ad-Din's second son, Mulla
Sa'id, which was blessed by five saints in as many generations:
Mulla Sa'id's grandson, Anwar al-Haqq (d. 1236/1820—21), his
sister's son, cAbd al-Wali (d. 1279/1862-63), his sister's son,
<Abd ar-Razzaq (d. 1307/1889-90), his son, cAbd al-Wahhab (d.
1321/1903-04), and his second son, cAbd al-Bari (d. 1344/1925-
26). Other lives will also help fill in our picture, but the lives of
these descendants of Anwar al-Haqq will dominate the fore-
ground. Such men were the most respected of the Farangi Ma-
hallis: in their lives they concentrated the essence of learning, of
spiritual achievement, and of right conduct. Other Farangi Ma-
hallis, whether they followed the family traditions of learning
and mysticism or not, whether they lived in Lucknow or out-
side, would have known that the lives of these men represented
models that they should follow. For this reason, we too should
fix our vision on them.
The prime source from which we derive our knowledge of the
family adab are biographies written by members of the family or
their close associates.18 They fall into roughly three types. There
is the biographical dictionary, a literary form common from the
early days of Islam, which by collecting together the lives of
learned or holy men, or men of other professions, demonstrated
their role, their reliability, and their effectiveness in transmit-
ting the essentials of the Muslim life. Maulana clnaya Allah's
Tadhkiia i cvlama' i farangi mahall is a classic example of this
genre. Secondly, there are malfuzat collections, which offer a
brief life of a holy man with a series of anecdotes illustrating his
18. The biographies are the following: Wall Allah, al-Aghsan al-aiba'a-, Mau-
lana Maulawi Muhammad Qiyam ad-Din cAbd al-Bari, Malfuz i xazzaqi
(Cawnpur, 1926); Qidwa'i, Anwar i lazzaqiyya (this work was written in close
collaboration with cAbd al-Bari; Qidwa'i was his special muiid and, though not
a member of the family, was given the great privilege of living in Farangi
Mahall); clnaya Allah, Tadhkiia; 'Inaya Allah, Risala, Sibgha Allah Shahid
Ansari, $adi al-mudarrisin (Lucknow, 1941); Ansari, Bam i dais i nizami,
Maulana Muhammad Shafi Hujja Allah Ansari, an untitled memoir of his for-
mer teacher, Maulana cAbd al-Bari, and the Madrasa i cAliya i Nizamiyya, which
covers sixty-two closely written pages and is dated 15 August 1977, FMA.
160 ADAB AS I S L A M I C I D E A L
sayings and his spiritual power. Typical of this form is Wali Al-
lah's al-Aghsan al-aibaca, which concentrates on Anwar al-
Haqq. So also is cAbd al-Ban's Malfuz i razzaqi, devoted to Sayyid
cAbd ar-Razzaq of Bansa, which is included, though the saint was
not a relation, because his life had been such a profound source
of spiritual inspiration to the whole family: he is a spiritual
ancestor. Thirdly there is the biography of broader conception
and less stylized form, which offers a more matter-of-fact de-
scription of a man's life and character. There is, for instance,
clnaya Allah's memoir of cAbd al-Bari, Risala i hadia al-afaq ba
wafat majmu'a al-akhlaq, or Sibgha Allah Shahid's vignette of
clnaya Allah, Sadr al-mudamsm, though it be somewhat over-
enthusiastic.
We should be clear, however, that Farangi Mahallis did not,
until recently at least, use these biographies as we shall. They
live with their ancestors. They talk of them continually, indeed
they seem to talk of the murder of Qutb ad-Din or the deeds of
Bahr al-cUlum as though they happened not centuries ago but
yesterday. Remembering their learned and holy ancestors helps
bring them closer to God; knowing their example brings both
strength and direction to their lives. Through their vision of a
familial past they view and act in the present. It is a metaphor
often used, a source of authority often sought. It takes the form
of a multitude of traditions stored up in those capacious memo-
ries bred by madrasa learning, and one is not among them long
before the process of narration begins. We do not, unfortunately,
have the privilege of receiving these guidelines by word of mouth,
as they have been transmitted down the generations. So the biog-
raphies, these collations of what is essentially an oral tradition,
remain our introduction to the Farangi Mahall vision of a perfect
and well-formed life.
"i
The Family Adab
Scholarly learning and mysticism mingled in the lives of the
Farangi Mahallis, and so these elements did in forming their
adab. According to one biographer, Altaf ar-Rahman Qidwa'i,
there were three kinds of Farangi Mahall culama': those who
spent their time teaching manqulat (Qur'an, hadlth, fiqh, etc.),
and in writing books, commentaries, and footnotes; those who,
not caring for manqulat, took to mysticism and spent their time
THE 'ULAMA' OF P A R A N G I MAHALL AND T H E I R ADAB 161
instructing their followers; and remarkable men, such as Mulla
A
Ni?am ad-Din or Bahr al-cUlurn, who managed to combine both
functions. Qidwa'i makes it clear that culama' such as these
are the most to be admired; they are the best examples to fol-
low.19 But men trained in understanding the word of God and His
Prophet did not always find it easy to embrace the knowledge of
how to know God. Maulana cAbd ar-Razzaq as a young man was
a strict, orthodox calim with a very poor opinion of mystics. One
day he was confronted with the alternative either of missing Fri-
day prayer or of praying behind his uncle cAbd al-Wali, the lead-
ing mystic of the day. He prayed behind his uncle and was so ex-
alted by the experience that he did so from that day forward.
There was still, however, the obstacle of cAbd al-Wali's belief in
wahda al-wujud, the essential "unity of being," according to
which God and His creation can be understood as two aspects of
one Reality. One night his grandfather, cAla' ad-Din, came to
him in a dream, his neck swathed in bandages. cAbd ar-Razzaq
asked why he was wounded. cAla' ad-Din declared it was his sus-
picions over "wahda al-wujud" that had injured him. Soon after-
wards cAbd ar-Razzaq took bai'a at the hands of cAbd al-Wali'.20
In the best of the Farangi Mahallis the mystic strain in their tem-
perament usually seems to have emerged eventually to infuse
and enrich their lives as culama'.
All the biographical material emphasizes that learning and
teaching, that striving "to create spiritual and godly thinking/'
as Maulana Mohani declared in his address at the graduation cer-
emony of the Madrasa i cAliya Nizamiyya in 1931, was the best
of occupations.21 Few Farangi Mahallis will not have been sensi-
tive to the message conveyed in a well-known story of Bahr
al-cUlurn's youth. The graduation ceremony of those who came
to Farangi Mahall in the early eighteenth century was held at the
curs of Shah Pir Muhammad in the enclosure of Lucknow's great
Tila mosque. It was an occasion attended by many learned men,
and Mulla Nizam ad-Din presided. On his death his gifted son,
Bahr al-cUlum, would have been his natural successor. But Bahr
al-cUlum was not then fond of learning. Nevertheless, he went
19. Qidwa'i, Anwar i razzaqiyya, p. 20.
20. Ibid., pp. 6-8.
2L Hadrat Maulana Hafiz Maulawi Qutb ad-Din Muhammad cAbd al-Wali,
Halat: madiasa i 'aliya i nizamiyya i farangi mahall lakhnau kl char sola
ripmt. . . 1349 (Lucknow, 1349/1930-31), p. 3.
162 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
to the czirs as usual, but only to gaze at the spectacle. Carrying a
quail cage in his hand, no doubt symbolizing for the narrator his
life of frivolity and lack of respect for the occasion, he struggled
through the crowd to get into the graduation ceremony. Some-
one gave him a shove and asked where he thought he was going.
"Don't you know me?" Bahr al-cUlurn said, "I am Mulla Nizarn
ad-Din's son." "By God," the man replied, "if you are the son of
Ustad al-Hind, you would be presiding over the assembly and
not be carrying around quail cages."22 Here was warning of the
shame that would be heaped upon the Farangi Mahalli who let
his family down.
On the other hand, look at the picture that Sibgha Allah Shahid
paints of Maulana clnaya Allah, the principal of the Madrasa i
cAliya Nizamiyya. He was insatiable in his search for knowl-
edge, possessing three thousand books, always visiting libraries
in order to consult others, and no hour of the night was too late
to start reading a new work. He devoted his life to teaching,
doing so until the day of his death even though he felt very un-
well. He sacrificed his very livelihood so that the work of teach-
ing could continue, leading the staff of the Madrasa i cAliya
Nizamiyya in foregoing their salaries to help the institution over
financial difficulties. The, aspects that Sibgha Allah envelops in
the rosiest glow tell us much about what he thought to be ideal.23
The message is reinforced by the content and emphasis of the
biographies in clnaya Allah's Tadhkira. The basic information
thought worth recording in the life of a Farangi Mahalli focused
on how well he did his job as an calim. So, in addition to the de-
tails of forebears, and of wives and children, which one would
expect to find in a family biographical dictionary, we are told
what knowledge the man had and from whom he acquired it,
which meant in fact stating what stage he reached in the dais i
nizamiyya and listing his teachers. Special mention was made if
he had studied outside Lucknow, as cAbd al-Bari had in Medina,
or if his learning had been particularly esteemed in the world at
large. Furthermore, we are told the emphasis in a man's learn-
ing, whether it was mathematics or law or logic, and remarkable
feats such as cAbd al-Hayy's great books or Wall Allah's Qur'an
commentary are noticed. Beyond this there is information that
22. clnaya Allah, Tadhkiia, pp. 137-38.
23. Shahid Ansari, $adz al-mudairisin, pp. 44-47, 59-60.
THE 'ULAMA' OF F A R A N G I MAHALL AND THEIR ADAB 163
reflects on a man's reliability as a transmitter of knowledge. We
J-
3
are told of his health, his intelligence, his powers of memory:
cAbd ar-Razzaq, for instance, was famed for knowing fifty thou-
sand traditions by heart. Important, too, was evidence that might
bear on a man's closeness to God. We are told his reputation as a
mystic, and if he was handsome, which deserved mention, as
beauty was surely a sign of God's favor. Finally we are given as
complete a picture as possible of what a man has contributed to
the transmission of knowledge. All his books are listed, so we
are reminded that <Abd al-Hayy has 109 books to his credit and
cAbd al-Bari, 111. All his pupils are listed too, and by the twen-
tieth century these lists run into hundreds. The content and
tone of clnaya Allah's Tadhkira leaves no doubt as to what the
proper occupation for a Farangi Mahalli ought to be.24
With the family tradition of teaching went another tradition,
that of devoting all their resources to the task. They did not
merely sustain that fine tradition of the learned men of Islam of
teaching for nothing; because theirs was God's work, they knew
that they should devote every mental and material resource they
had, all that God had bestowed on them, to promoting it. Bahr
al-cUlum, for example, who came from Bengal to Madras with
six hundred scholars in his train, used in their support all but Rs.
40 of the Rs. 1000 monthly stipend granted by Nawwab Walajah.
His wife and family suffered and complained25 as did those of his
grandson, Jarnal ad-Din, who suffered in a similar way.26 This
practice, moreover, was maintained after the foundation of the
Madrasa i cAliya Nizamiyya in 1905. The madrasa, which in its
24. clnaya Allah's Tadhkira is in the classic tradition of Islamic biography,
whose motivations, principles of selection, and structure have been so usefully
analyzed by Gibb: Sir Hamilton Gibb, "Islamic Biographical Literature," in
B. Lewis and P. M. Holt, eds., Historians of the Middle East (London, 1962),
pp. 54-58. Gibb quotes the eminent fifteenth-century biographer al-Sakhawi's
definition of history: "History as a technical term means the communication
of time, whereby the circumstances are accurately registered of the birth of
transmitters and imams, and of their death, health, intelligence, bodily state,
journeys, pilgrimages, powers of memory, accuracy and reputation for trust-
worthiness or otherwise . . . Subsidiary to this is the record of contingent
events and important occurrences relating to the rise of religious communities,
the origination (and sequence) of religious obligations, caliphs, viziers, raids,
battles, and so on." Ibid., p. 55. One feels that five hundred years later clnaya
Allah would have said just the same.
25. Wall Allah, al-Aghsan al-arba'a, p. 52.
26. 'Inaya Allah, Tadhkiia, p. 95.
 164 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
heyday had several hundred pupils and over two hundred board-
ers, charged no fees/and did its best to pay for the living expenses
of its poorer pupils;27 cAbd al-Bari, for instance, bore from his
own pocket the expenses of eighteen sons of learned and holy
men.28 Nor did the Farangi Mahallis make any attempt to raise
funds for the madrasa in a systematic fashion, as did the Dar
al-cUlum at Deoband; they just used what the community of-
fered of its own free will.29
The concern of the Farangi Mahallis to maintain the life and
values of the mystic was no less distinctive. One important in-
fluence on their mysticism, as one would expect, was Maulana
Rumi; they wrote commentaries on the Mathnawi, they taught
it, and verses from it adorned their writings. Another was Imarn
Ghazzali's clhya' culum ad-din, which drew cAbd al-Bari—who
read it one day when ill—away from the rational sciences to-
wards mysticism.30 But most important seems to have been Ibn
"Arabi's Fusus al-Hikam and al-Futuhat al-Makkiya, the ideas
of which were the subject of Bahr al-cUlum's lifelong study.31 It
was to be expected that Ibn 'Arabi's ideas would be influential.
The Chishti-Sabri silsila to which the Farangi Mahallis belonged
went back through Mulla Qutb ad-Din to his pir, Qadi Ghasi of
Allahabad, who was a leading khalifa of Shah Muhib Allah of
Allahabad. Shah Muhib Allah was largely responsible for reha-
bilitating the ideas of Ibn cArabi, especially concerning wahda
al-wujud, in seventeenth-century Indian mystical circles.32
Veneration of the Prophet plays a central role in Islamic mysti-
cism and, not surprisingly in a line of mystics influenced in par-
27. Qutb ad-Din Muhammad <Abd al-Wali, Halat, pp. 22-23. i,
28. Shafi, "Memoir," p. 10. . ^
29. Qutb ad-Din Muhammad EAbd al-Wali, Halat, p. 22. ', \»v
30. Ajmeri, Khadimana gudhaiish, pp. 53-54.
31. clnaya Allah, Tadhkira, pp. 139-40. Bahr al-'Ulum had complete faith
in the expositions in Ibn 'Arabi's two great works. His Shaih i matknawi i
maulawi i rum, 3 vols. (Lucknow, 1873), aims to explain the "secrets" con-
tained in the Mathnawi in the light of Ibn 'Arabi's thought. Muhammad Shafi,
'Bahr al-'Ulum', El2, 936-37.
32. cAbd al-Bari, Malfuz i mzzaqi, pp. 13-14. Yusuf Husain Khan, "Shah
Muhibbullah of Allahabad and His Mystical Thought," Islamic Culture 38
(1964): 315-22; Hafiz Mohd. Tahir All, "Shaikh Muhibbullah of Allahabad-
Life and Times," ibid., 47 (1973): 241-56. It seems entirely appropriate that the
library of Maulana cAbd al-Hayy of Farangi Mahall, the greater part of which is
now in Aligarh Muslim University, contains manuscript copies of two of Shah
Muhibb Allah's works on the Fusus. Husain Khan, cited above, notes the exis-
tence of no other copies.
THE CULAMA' OF FARANGI MAHALL AND THEIR ADAB 165
ticular by Ibn cArabi, veneration of the Prophet was especially
important.33 "To follow the Prophet," declared cAbd al-Bari in in-
troducing his last book, his biography of the saint of Bansa, "is
the way to come near to God."34 Farangi Mahallis knew that
they must suffuse their lives with love of the Prophet and should
strive always to come as close to him as possible. cAbd al-Bari
continued:
To follow the Prophet truly is this: to follow his habits, his behavior,
his manners, his instructions so that the life of the Muslim becomes
like the life of the Holy Prophet. . . . This is called the true Khilafat, to
lose one's identity in the being of the Prophet.35
Thus biographers are often concerned to show how closely
their subject followed the Prophet's example. cAbd ar-Razzaq, for
instance, is portrayed as following the Prophet in almost every
possible respect. When he drank water, he did so in three gulps.
When he ate he did so sparingly. He washed three times both be-
fore and after eating. He took his food sitting on the ground and
put it into his mouth with three fingers. And before he began he
always said "Bi'sm allah," The same endeavor is portrayed in
<Abd ar-Razzaq's manner of dress: "He always tried to wear dress
according to the traditions of the Prophet and his own ancestors,
which were in accordance with the traditions of the Prophet."36
The biographer then supports his assertion with the most mi-
nute description of cAbd ar-Razzaq's sartorial habits, and a simi-
lar pattern is followed in describing his praying, his sitting and
standing, and so on. When he comes to describe cAbd ar-Razzaq's
physical appearance, the holy man even seems to look like what
must have been the popularly accepted image of the Prophet:
He was a wheatish color, and of medium size but veering towards tall-
ness. His head was round and large. The forehead was broad and the
eyelashes long. He had big eyes and in the white parts there were red
lines. . . . The mouth was large and the teeth set apart. . . . His arms
and legs were stocky like those of an athlete. His hands and feet below
the joints were soft.37
33. For the veneration of the Prophet in Islamic mysticism and the Prophet's
significance in Ibn Arabi's system of thought, see A. Schimmel, Mystical Di-
mensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, 1975), pp. 213-37, 272-73.
34. cAbd al-Bari, Malfuz i lazzaqi, p. 2.
35. Ibid., p. 4.
36. Qidwa'i, Anwar i razzaqiyya, pp. 37-39.
37. Ibid., pp. 35-36.
 166 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
Men were struck by his face, used to gaze upon it for pleasure
:l
and at times saw a halo of light about it.38 Much of this descrip-
tion could have been taken straight from chapter XLIV, section
2, of the collection of traditions favored by the Farangi Mahallis,
Mishkat al-masabih.39 And regardless of its truth, though there
is no reason why it might not be true in part, there can be no
doubt as to what ideal manners and habits were.
Biographers also wished to demonstrate the extent of their
subject's love for the Prophet. This, we are told, was Maulana
clnaya Allah's greatest distinction.40 So, recalling that the Prophet
had said that "those who are close to orphans will be on the day
of judgment as close to me as two fingers in a hand are close to
each other," he cared especially for orphans, making clothes for
them.41 He revered the Prophet's family, excusing a sayyid hun-
dreds of rupees rent he owed for the sake of his ancestor.42 For
the same reason he forebore using harsh words in speaking of
Sharif Husain of Mecca, whose action in rebelling against the
Ottoman Caliph he detested,43 and he even went so far as to al-
ways use the respectful "ap" rather than the usual "turn" when
he spoke to the sayyids amongst his pupils.44 Understandably,
his love extended to the place where the Prophet was buried.
Whenever people were going to Medina, he used to go out of his
way to see them off, saying "take my salam to the threshold of
the king," and when they returned he used to kiss their hands
and ask them to pray for him.45
Not surprisingly, the Farangi Mahallis place great emphasis on
the celebration of the Prophet's birthday. The 12th Rabic al-
Awwal was the day set aside before all others for donning their
best clothes, and the month itself was the time for making
things new and bright.46 If they were in Lucknow, some would
38. Ibid., pp. 36-37.
39. Al-Haj Maulana Fazlul Karim, Al-Hadis: An English Translation and Com-
mentary of Mishkat-ul-Masabih (Lahore, n.d.), bk. 4, chap. 44, pp. 331-41.
40. Shahid Ansari, Sadr al-mudarrism, p. 16.
41. Ibid., p. 41.
42. Ibid., p. 26; Anwar al-Haqq's deference to sayyids is similarly stressed in
Wali Allah, al-Aghsan al-arbaca, p. 22.
43. Shahid Ansari, Sadr al-mudarrisin, p. 25. . -,
44. Ibid., p. 24.
45. Ibid., pp. 19-20.
46. Ibid., pp. 16-19; Qidwa'I, Anwar i razzaqiyya, pp. 17,39; Shafi, "Memoir,"
pp. 30-31.
THE 'ULAMA' OP P A R A N G I M A t f A L L AND T H E I R ADAB 167
start the auspicious day by going to the Mucala Khan ki Sara to
see the hair of the Prophet, which was kept there,47 But the high
point of the festival was the recitation of verses in praise of the
prophet. cAbd ar-Razzaq introduced the practice to Farangi Ma-
hall in the mid-nineteenth century thereby encouraging it in
Lucknow more generally; he had already made a name for him-
self in Madras by defending it against those who declared it
heresy.48 At the beginning of the twentieth century, large num-
kers members of the family, their associates and murids—
gathered in the Farangi Mahall to hear the recitations.49 The
Prophet's central place in the spiritual life of the family was
amply demonstrated in the rites they observed.
To come closer to Muhammad, Farangi Mahallis sought a spir-
itual leader, a pii. "Reality," declared cAbd al-Bari,
is to follow the Holy Prophet. For this purpose the discipline of ma-
sha'ikh and pirs is needed. The shaikh is the spiritual physician who
heals the diseases of soul and body. The pii is the gateway to absorption
in the Holy Prophet. Through him we reach the congregation of the
Prophet, and to reach this congregation is to become close to God. . . .
Before the arrival of the Prophet, these spiritual physicians were Proph-
ets themselves, and since the arrival of the Prophet they succeed him,
wearing his cloak.50
"Once a murid has found his pii," cAbd al-Bari told the Bazm i
Sufiya i Hind, "then the laws of God and his Prophet, and the
sayings of the pir, are his religion. Then he is neither Hanafi,
Shafi'i, Malikl, Hanbali, etc. . . ., he is Muhammad!."51 Obedi-
ence to the pii was necessary after obedience to God, the Holy
Qur'an, and the Prophet. It was emphasized, however, that the
genuine disciple was not overhasty in obeying his pu. He de-
cided to obey him only after he was sure his master had achieved
excellence.52 Undiscriminating obedience was hardly to be ex-
47. Qidwa'I, Anwar i razzaqiyya, p. 31; Shan", "Memoir/' p. 58.
48. Qidwa'I, Anwar i razzaqiyya, p. 17; the actual term used to describe cAbd
ar-Razzaq's action was bid'a, meaning innovation. For a useful comment on
the terminology relating to heresy in Islam, see "The Significance of Heresy in
Islam," in B. Lewis, Islam in History: Ideas, Men and Events in the Middle
East (New York, 1973), pp. 217-36.
49. Shafi, "Memoir," pp. 30-31.
50. cAbd al-Bari, Malfuz i razzaqi, p. 15; cAbd al-Bari's description of the mys-
tic path is a normal and straightforward one; see Schimmel, Mystical Dimen-
sions, pp. 98-186, 236-39.
51. Ajmeri, Khadimana gudharish, p. 49.
52. Ibid., p. 48.
w
168 ADAS AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
pected from learned men, and for this reason, if not also as a re-
sult of mere proximity, most Farangi Mahallis found their pxrs
within the family.
Once they were launched on the mystical path, visits to the
tombs of saints played a large role in their lives. Of greatest at-
traction to Farangi Mahallis were the tombs of their ancestors in
Bagh Maulana Anwar and Bagh Mulla Nizam ad-Din, Lucknow.
The celebrations of the curs of their holy forebears were of course
extremely important events, but the tombs were part of the fab-
ric of daily life as well as the magnetic centers of great annual
rites. Farangi Mahallis resorted to them whenever they needed
God's help. It was to his father's tomb that Bahr al-cUlum fled
after being shamed for carrying quail cages and ignoring learn-
ing, and it was from this moment that his great career of scholar-
ship is said to have begun.53 From his youth, Maulana Anwar al-
Haqq used to go to the tomb of his father, Ahmad cAbd al-Haqq,
to meditate. "Whatever you need," he used to say "you can get at
the tomb of your forefather. God willing, your desires will be
met."54 And the Farangi Mahallis to this day have a special rever-
ence for the family graveyard.
The practice of Maulana cAbd al-Bari offers further insight
into the emphasis placed by the family on visiting saints' tombs.
Every Thursday and Friday he would visit Bagh Maulana Anwar
to say Fatiha,55 On leaving Lucknow, he would first say Fatiha at
the shrine of Shah Mina, then at Bagh Maulana Anwar, and from
there go to the railway station; on his return the ritual would be
performed in the reverse order. In common with all members of
his family, he regarded the shrine at Bansa as a special source of
spiritual sustenance,56 and attended the curs of Sayyid cAbd ar-
Razzaq every year, during the ceremonies of which the Farangi
Mahall family were accorded particular honor.57 Every year, too,
he attended the curs of Shah cAbd al-Haqq at Rudauli, of Shah
Kazim Qalandar at Kakori, and of the fountainhead of Indian
mysticism, Mucin ad-Din Chishti, at Ajmere. He took part in
other celebrations of curs at Pakpattan and Kalyar Sharif less fre-
quently.58 This great holy man's weeks, months, and years were
53. 'Inaya Allah, Tadhkira, p. 138.
54. Wall Allah, al-Aghsan al-aiba'a, pp. 43-44.
55. Shafi, "Memoir," p. 16.
56. cAbd al-Bari, 'Urs i hadrat i bansa (Lucknow, n.d.), p. 10.
57. See note 13 above.
58. clnaya Allah, Risala, p. 36.
THE <ULAMA' OF FARANGI MAIJALL AND THEIR ADAB 169
ordered around visits to saints' tombs: these were the places
where he could corne closer to God and hope that his prayers
would be accepted.
On the other hand, Farangi Mahallis were aware of the dangers
involved in such practices. They emphasized by their actions
that visiting the tomb of a saint to come closer to God in no way
implied worship of the saint himself. When he accompanied
•Abd al-Bari to Ajmere, the young Maulana Shafi was left in no
doubt as'to what was correct behavior. He was told that Farangi
Mahallis did not enter the mausoleum, though when he insisted
he was not prevented from doing so.59 Then, when he got down
and kissed the threshold of the shrine, having touched it with
his hands, he was pulled up sharply and asked what he thought
he was doing. Shafi replied that he thought it was one of the
adab of the shrines. cAbd al-Bari made it clear that it was not,
and said, "we should be content with the salam i masnun (the
legitimate salutation) and the Fatiha."60
As learning and mysticism mingled in the lives of most Farangi
Mahallis, so it mingled in their teaching. After all, when Altaf
ar-Rahman Qidwa'i came to categorize the Farangi Mahallis, the
best culama' were those who lived lives closest to God, and this
was symbolized for many in the very close relationship that had
existed between Mulla Nizam ad-Din, the founder of the teach-
ing tradition in Farangi Mahall, and SayyidcAbd ar-Razzaq, whose
memory and spiritual blessings they held so dear. The associa-
tion was maintained through the ages so that, when the Madrasa
i cAliya Nizamiyya was opened in Mulla Nizam ad-Din's old
house in 1905, the ceremony was performed by the current pn of
Bansa, and the school held its graduation ceremonies during the
cizrs of Sayyid cAbd ar-Razzaq. No boy who attended the madmsa
f could ignore the mystic concerns of his teachers. In addition to
i the usual course in the dais i nizamiyya, there were courses in
the Mathnawi and on occasion in the esoteric aspects of mysti-
cism. Holidays were given on the days when the curs of saints
important to the Farangi Mahallis were celebrated, as well as
other days important to mystics in general, such as the Prophet's
birthday, the day of his ascension, and Shab i Barat.61 Conse-
, '" quently many pupils became murids of their teachers and the
'
*?.
*';' } 59. Shafi, "Memoir," p. 24.
' '*" 60. Ibid., p. 25.
61. Qutb ad-Din Muhammad 'Abd al-Wali, Halat, p. 14.
170 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
powerful pupil-teacher bond was reinforced. So, as the FarangI
Mahallis transmitted and developed the intellectual framework
of Muslim society in India, they also strove to imbue it with the
spiritual essence of Islam.
Many of the elements in the Farangi Mahall vision of right
conduct that we have described so far would have been shared by
learned and holy men throughout India, although not all aspects
would have been approved. Some of the followers of Shah Wali
Allah of Delhi, some of the Deobandis, and all of the Ahl i
Hadith, for instance, found hard to accept and in some cases ab-
horrent the manner in which the Farangi Mahallis associated
their mystic quest so intimately with scholarship and teaching.62
Many, too, must have felt that so much attention to their holy
ancestors, as well as the constant visits to their tombs and those
of others, ran dangerously close to polytheism. The differences
between the Farangi Mahallis and their critics were emphasized
when they came to defend the practice of placing stones upon
and erecting domes over graves after Ibn Sacud's alleged disman-
tling of the Prophet's tomb in Medina in 1925.63 A crude imma-
nentism was suspected even though the Farangi Mahallis in-
sisted that this had no place in their beliefs. Nevertheless, the
Farangi Mahall vision represented a popular and powerful strand
in Indian Islamic practice, and this was illustrated by the many
who were prepared to follow their lead in forming organizations
such as the Bazm i Sufiya i Hind, or in just fighting for the
Khilafat. However, what was part of a code of conduct widely
shared also became, as it passed down the generations of the
family by word of mouth and by example, a code that was partic-
ularly their own. Farangi Mahallis saw it as their customs and
traditions, hallowed by the practices of their ancestors, as well as
legitimized by the word of God and the example of the Prophet.
Amongst the customs and traditions of the family were at
least four on which they laid special emphasis. There was, for
62. Shah £Abd al-cAziz of Delhi, for instance, criticized the Farangi Mahallis for
knowing little about the Qur'an and the hadith and spending their time in con-
sidering the ideas of Ibn 'Arabi and ar-Razi. Inaya Allah, Tadhkira, p. 141. In
the mid-nineteenth century, the leading Ahl i Hadith, Nawwab Sadiq Hasan of
Bhopal, joined battle with cAbd al-Hayy on the legality of visiting the Prophet's
tomb. Saeedullah, Life and Works of Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan of Bhopal,
1248-1307/1832-1890 (Lahore: 1973), pp. 98-101.
63. M. Naeem Qureshi, "The Khilafat Movement in India, 1919-1924" (Ph.D.
thesis, London, 1973), pp. 291-94.
THE CULAMA' OF FARANGI MAHALL AND THEIR ADAB 171
instance, a consciousness that the Farangi Mahall path was a
moderate one: theirs was the middle way. Such was their mysti-
cal tradition. When the tradition was formed, according to cAbd
al-Bari, mystics were divided between those who denied wahda
al-waj'ud altogether and a party supporting it that ignored the
holy law of Islam and pursued song, dance, and physical love.
God however, appointed Shah Muhibb Allah of Allahabad to re-
veal the real meaning of wahda al-wujud, and granted Shah cAbd
ar-Razzaq of Bansa a sense of balanced judgment.64 "The culama'
who were brought up in the company of Shah cAbd ar-Razzaq"
he declares, "adopted a way which was between the two ex-
tremes."65 And a striving for balance and moderation seems to
have pervaded all that the Farangi Mahallis did. They insisted
that those who followed the mystic path did so only with knowl-
edge of the shari'a.66 In their curriculum, knowledge of mac-
qulat (the rational sciences, arithmetic, geometry, logic) was bal-
anced by knowledge of manqulat (the traditional sciences, the
Qur'an, the traditions, the Law). Bigotry was not evident. Shi'as
and Hindus were taught in Farangi Mahall, as well as Sunnis,
and the worst that clnaya Allah would say of Ibn Sacud, of whose
actions in Medina he so strongly disapproved, was to accuse him
of "independent views."67 Even when a Farangi Mahalli did seem
to go too far, as when eAbd al-Bari spoke so violently on Khilafat
issues that his colleagues begged him not to speak in public, it
was noticeable that his fiery tone was belied by the judicious-
ness of his actions.68
A second tradition, powerfully present in the line stemming
from Mulla Sacid that produced so many saints, is reliance on
64. cAbd al-Bari, Malfuz i lazzaqi, p. 13.
65. Ibid., p. 16.
66. It was, for instance, to enable mystics to understand the principles of the
shari'a as well as those of mysticism (it was felt that they had been slipping in
the former respect) that it was decided to form the Bazm i Suflya in 1916;
Ajmeri, Khadiraana gudhaiish, p. 28. The words with which cAbd al-Wali gave
bai'a to £Abd ar-Razzaq similarly emphasize how shari'a and taiiqa were to go
hand in hand: "cAbd ar-Razzaq, God has given you knowledge and you are an
honest young man and you know right and wrong. Our suluk is Qur'an, hadith
and fiqh. You follow that. I want you to eat less, and to associate less with peo-
ple, and whatever are the orders of God and His Prophet, obey them." Qidwa'i,
Anwar i lazzaqiyya, p. 9.
67. Shahid Ansari, Sadr al-mudarrisin, p. 13..
68. Shafi, "Memoir," p. 33.
172 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
God. The words of the Qur'an, "Pray to Me, I will answer you, />69
and of Maulana Rumi, "Beg of God and demand what you need
of Him, for your petition will not be in vain/'70 were exhorta-
tions that rang continually in their ears. The story is told of how
the wife of cAbd ar-Razzaq, after going several days without food,
began to complain. She was told that she should not worry, for
God grants help according to one's patience. She made to go out
and as soon as she reached the door she was handed five rupees
and the family were able to eat again.71 Moreover, as God would
provide, it was unnecessary for Farangi Mahallis to ask men for
support for their work. They did not petition the community;
they certainly did not petition princes. After their grants from
the Mughals came to an end in the mid-eighteenth century, they
depended almost entirely on what the community gave them of
their own free will as gifts or votive offerings. "Farangi Mahall
people do not seek help like other madrasas by sending out dep-
utations," the report of the Madrasa i cAliya Nizamiyya declared
proudly in 1931, "but if anyone voluntarily extends help, it is not
refused."72 Of course, the logic of their position took them far-
ther; if Farangi Mahallis relied on God alone, they had to be sat-
isfied with what God provided. cAbd ar-Razzaq used to insist
that it did not matter what he ate; after he said "Bi'smillah" it
would be delicious.73 One day he found his son, cAbd al-Wahhab,
setting out to have his sherwanl retailored because some of the
cloth with which it was trimmed was not fashionable for a man
of his age. He delivered the following homily:
Our Godliness is not of this kind. Our Godliness is that what God gives
us for eating, eat it, what he gives us for wearing, wear it. Every gar-
ment should be considered as his gift whether it is good or bad. God is
neither fond of certain cloth nor does he dislike certain cloth; whatever
you wear, you wear as God's gift.74
A third tradition flowed naturally from the second: it was that
Farangi Mahallis should avoid all dependence on or even associa-
tion with government. It is a tradition that is constantly empha-
69. Maulana Muhammad All, The Holy Qm'an, 6th ed. (Lahore, 1973), 40, 60.
70. A. J. Arberry, Discourses of Rumi (London, 1961), 45th Discourse, p. 181.
71. Qidwa'i, Anwar i razzaqiyya, p. 40.
72. Qutb ad-Din Muhammad cAbd al-Wali, Halat, p. 22. - .
73. Qidwa'i, Anwar i razzaqiyya, pp. 10-11.
74. Ibid., pp. 11-12; <Abd al-Bari makes the same point in his letter to the
mystics of India, Ajmeri, Khadimana gudharish, pp. 66—67,
THE L ' OF FARANGI MAHALL AND THEIR ADAB 173
sized in the biographical literature, and it is one whose memory
is tenaciously guarded. "The worst of scholars is he who visits
princes," the Prophet is reported to have said, "and the best of
princes is he who visits scholars." "The worst of scholars," went
Maulana Rumi's gloss, "is he who accepts help from princes,
and whose welfare and salvation is dependent upon and stems
from fear of princes."75 The principle that the worst of scholars
is he whose learning serves the world and not God seems to have
loomed large in the vision of those Farangi Mahallis who lived
closest to the family ideal, and it was one that they shared with
many other learned and holy men. But Farangi Mahallis had not
always felt thus. After all, they owed the foundation of the fam-
ily and the early development of its educational activities in
large part to Mughal patronage, and moreover, in the eighteenth
century, the greatest scholars and mystics in the family seem to
have experienced few qualms in receiving stipends from princes
such as Hafiz Rahma Khan of Shahjahanpur and the Nawwab of
Rampur and Arcot. Chishti revivalism spreading from the Delhi
region in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century may
have brought about a change of heart; said the great Chishti
saint, Nizam ad-Din Auliya', "My room has two doors. If the
Sultan conies through one door, I will leave by the other."76 But
there is little evidence of revivalist influence, bar one man who
was a murid of the great revivalist Hajji Imdad Allah. It seems
that the Farangi Mahallis came to emphasize the importance of
keeping a distance from government when they lived under the
Shica nawwabs of Oudh and later the British, and by the twen-
tieth century this principle was being applied by the purists to
all those with power, including Sunni landlords and the Sunni
Nizam of Hyderabad.77
Those Farangi Mahallis who, preferring a scholarly poverty,
rejected offers of government posts, were a source of pride. Con-
sequently, when Shibli Nu'mani visited Farangi Mahall in 1896
and noticed the run-down condition of the buildings and the
poverty of the occupants, cAbd al-Wahhab explained that it had
always be,en the family tradition to place the riches of knowl-
75. Arberry, Discourses, 1st Discourse, p. 13.
76. Statement of Shaikh Nizam ad-Din Auliya' quoted in R. M. Eaton, Sufis of
Bijapur 1300-1700; Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India (Princeton, 1978),
p. 46.
77. Ansari, Bam i dais i nizami, p. 214.
 174 ADAS AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
edge before riches in material things, and to exemplify this point
went on to tell of how Mulla Nizam ad-Din had refused the gov-
ernment posts that had been offered to him.78 The biographers
seem almost to glory in their subjects' rejection of worldly posi-
tion. clnaya Allah emphasizes that cAbd al-Iiayy refused to fill
his father's place in the Nizam's government, and returned to
Lucknow and to scholarship.79 Qidwa'i lists at some length the
positions in Hyderabad, Madras, Rampur, Oudh, and Kashmir
turned down by <Abd ar-Razzaq.80
A salutary tale is told of what happened to a learned Farangi
Mahalli who was tempted by a government position. After the
Mutiny, the Judicial and Financial Commissioner of Oudh dis-
covered that Mufti Muhammad Yusuf had no income. No doubt
aiming to win a member of this most influential Lucknow fam-
ily to the British side, he found him the job of sanishtadai,
which paid Rs. 600 per month and involved countersigning gov-
ernment documents to guarantee their authenticity. On reading
the first document, the mufti discovered that it related to inter-
est. He was furious, threw the samshtadar's register away, and
told the munshi who had brought the document to get out:
The munshi was amazed and went to the English officer to tell the
story. The officer refused to believe him and said that he must have
done something to annoy him. The next day he came with the munshi
to the mufti, and as soon as the mufti saw the English officer he said,
"What else can one expect from a kafir, it was my fault to have ac-
cepted your suggestion," and then the mufti started weeping. Then the
Englishman inquired what was wrong. The mufti said, "Up to now I
have been signing fatawa relating to God and his Prophet and now I am
expected to sign fatawa relating to interest."81
This principle was extended, as one would expect, to receiving
honors from government. "What have I done that such a calam-
ity should befall me," moaned cAbd ar-Razzaq when he learned
that he had been awarded the Shams al-cUlama', and he shut
himself away in his house and instructed his son to return the
title forthwith.82 Similarly there was extreme scrupulousness
78. Then a young man of eighteen, EAbd al-Bari described Shibli's visit for his
own amusement. £Abd al-Bari's notebook, FMA.
79. 'Inaya Allah, Tadhkiia, p. 134. -• .*
80. Qidwa'i, Anwaiiiazzaqiyya, p. 21. •, ;>.
81. clnaya Allah, Tadhkiia, p. 208-09. .Xp
82. Qidwa'i, Anwar i lazzaqiyya, p. 22. ' f
THE CULAMA' OF FARANG! MAHALL AND THEIR ADAB 175
ver the origins of financial support. cAbd ar-Razzaq took no
steps to claim his father's pension from the Nawwab of Arcot,
which the British, after resuming the Nawwab's lands, were pre-
pared to continue to pay.83 cAbd al-Bari would not accept any
money with the slightest taint of contact with the British, so he
would have refused money from the Raja of Jahangirabad, whose
ta'alluqdan estate had been bestowed upon his forefather by the
British, but he did accept funds from the Rani, Zinab an-Nisa',
who held zamindari property in her own right and promised
that what she offered was derived from this source. And clnaya
Allah, even though the Madrasa i cAliya Nizamiyya was in dire
financial straits, would not for one moment consider accepting
an offer of a grant from government.84
Understandably this principle extended to the matter of sim-
ple association with government officials and men with worldly
power. Men of God should not compromise their calling by bow-
ing and scraping in the courts of earthly kings. When instructed
to report at the police station, clnaya Allah sent word that the
police sahib should come and see him, and then forced the
police sahib to wait while he finished lunch.85 Qidwa'i rejoices
that cAbd ar-Razzaq never waited on the great but many of the
great came to his door, including Salar Jang of Hyderabad.86 As
for British officials, cAbd ar-Razzaq was not prepared to see them
under any circumstances. He refused the Chief Commissioner
of Oudh's invitation and said that "if the Chief Commissioner
came to him he would break his head with an axe!"87
It would be wrong, however, to give the impression that this
strong desire to avoid association with government was an ideal
shared by all learned and holy Farangi Mahallis. There was a
small group made up of descendants of Bahr al-cUlum's son,
cAbd ar-Rabb, which parted company just before the First World
War with the mainstream led by cAbd al-Bari over the latter's in-
creasingly hostile attitude to government. Known as the Bahr
al-cUlum section, most had ties of one kind or another with gov-
83. Ibid., p. 21.
84. Shahid Ansari, Sadi al-mudanisw, p. 68.
85. Ibid., pp. 36-37.
86. Qidwa'i, Anwar i lazzaqiyya, pp. 22-23.
87. clnaya Allah, Tadhkiia, p. 98. If this is thought to have been an idle threat,
it is worth remembering that cAbd ar-Razzaq usually rested his arm on an axe
as he sat.
176 ADAS AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
ernment, and during the war and the Khilafat movement that
followed they remained conspicuously loyal. In 1918, govern-
ment helped to finance the establishment of their own madrasa
the Madrasa i Qadima, which was designed to counteract the in-
fluence of the Madrasa i cAliya Nizamiyya. During the Khilafat
period members of this section could be relied upon to produce
fatawa which challenged those of £Abd al-Bari. For their pains
they were well rewarded; in 1922 their leader, cAbd al-Majid, for
instance, was loaded with official honors—a Sharns al-cUlama', a
cloak of honor and a sword of honor. As yet we do not know how
the Bahr al-cUlum section rationalized their position, but there
is no doubt that their actions were strongly disapproved of by the
vast majority of the family. Those actions were be adab.88
The fourth tradition concerns conduct in public life. The best
Farangi Mahallis, according to Qidwa'i, do not involve them-
selves in any public issue unless they know it to be a religious
one.89 A godly man must be wholly absorbed in godly works.
cAbd ar-Razzaq's ventures in public life, therefore, were two: his
OF FARANGI MAHALL AND THEIR ADAB 177
individual in his service of God; all expenses must come from
his own pocket. When cAbd al-Bari learned that Maulana Shafi
had had to borrow to pay the Rs. 600 demanded by the Calcutta
Khilafat Committee from each member, he immediately insisted
on repaying the loan from his own pocket.91 When he discovered
that Maulana Shafi, while traveling from Delhi to Calcutta on
Khilafat business, and therefore supported by Khilafat funds, had
broken his journey to Lucknow to visit his family, he asked for
full details of Shafi's expenses, gave him the money, told him to
go back to Calcutta by the first train, return it, and send him the
receipt. He did not wish that he or his associates should have
anything to do with Khilafat funds. When Shafi protested that he
had been to Nagpur to attend the Congress, which had also de-
frayed the travel expenses, cAbd al-Bari said:
I am only associated with the Congress politically; I am not responsible
for its actions. On the other hand, I have religious associations with the
Anjuman i Khuddam i Kacba, the Khilafat Committee, the Jamciyya i
cUlama' i Hind and the Jam'iyya as-Sufiya and therefore I do not wish

participation in the jihad of the Sunni culama' of Oudh against
those Hindus who destroyed the remains of the Hanumangarhi
mosque in 1855, and his founding of the Majlis Mu'yad al-Islam
with cAbd al-Hayy in 1878 in order to assist the Khalifa of Islam
in his war against Russia. His grandson, cAbd al-Bari, was never
out of the public eye from the foundation of the Anjuman i
Khuddam i Kacba in 1913 until his death in 1926. Not once, how-
ever, was he involved in an issue in which he was not defending
or promoting his faith. Even when he and his relations made
their dramatic visit to the All-India Muslim League sessions at
Delhi in 1918 (and the League was very dangerous ground for a
self-respecting calim to tresspass on), it was but to swing the or-
ganization behind the agitation for the Khilafat. Indeed, it was
the need to defend Islam that transformed cAbd al-Bari from the
man Harcourt Butler described as "well-disposed" to the man he
nicknamed "dlwana mulla" or "mad mulla."90
Once fighting for the faith on the maidan, there was an eti- £
quette to be observed. No material benefit should accrue to the
88. Robinson, Separatism, pp. 270-72, 293, 328. ,' ', ^
89. Qidwa'i, Anwar i razzaqiyya, p. 22.
90. Shafi, "Memoir," p. 43.
that either I or my associates derive any financial benefit from them.92
Finally, when in the world, the learned and holy Farangi Ma-
halli had always to remember that he was an imam, a model of
correct behavior for others to follow, and therefore he always had
to be alert to those who flouted the Islamic standards for which
he stood. Others had to strive for the ideal, too. cAbd al-Bari's
efforts toward this end never seemed to slacken. On at least two
occasions, when it was suggested that Muslim gatherings should
stand, as a mark of respect for British officials, he made a fuss
and refused to comply.93 When he found several prominent Mus-
lims smoking cigars at a crucial Khilafat Committee meeting
in early June 1920, which was also Ramadan, he lost his temper,
chastised them for their kafii-like habits and stormed out of the
meeting.94 But his most stirring statement of principle, symbolic
though it was, came at the opening ceremony of the Nadwa
al-cUlama' in 1908. He found that the student reading the Qur'an
was doing so at the feet of the lieutenant-governor. He created a
( \E
91. Ibid., pp. 20-22.
92. Ibid., p. 22.
\ 93. Ibid., p. 33; 'Inaya Allah, Risala, p. 35.
j! ,,, H 94. Shafi, "Memoir," p. 32.
178 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
dreadful scene, insisted that a chair be brought and placed on a
table, and the student be seated on the chair, so that the word of
God could float down to the representative of alien rule.95
•..«!«'
Conclusion "•**"
The Farangi Mahalli, who was a model of right conduct, was a
scholar, learned in both ma'qulat and manqulat, intelligent,
precise, reliable, who devoted his whole being to passing on his
knowledge by teaching and by writing, and did so for God's sake
and not for his own material gain. He was also a mystic in the
tradition of Ibn "Arabi, seeking to approach God by venerating
the Prophet and by striving in every possible way to follow his
actions. He sought to approach the Prophet through his pii, to
whom he owed absolute obedience tempered by his own knowl-
edge of the holy law. He continually sought to be close to God
and did so in the company of those who had been close to God,
and of these, he favored most his own holy ancestors and Sayyid
cAbd ar-Razzaq of Bansa. He was a man of "balanced judgment"
who tried in learning and mysticism, as well as in his dealings
with his fellow men, to take the middle way between extremes.
He relied on the faithful to support him in God's work and asked
help from no man. Similarly, he bowed to no man, avoiding all
dependence on or association with government; he was ever
alert to the need to defend Islam and to prevent any backsliding
from the Muslim way of life.
Mastery of this code of right conduct seems to have brought
Farangi Mahallis authority. Of course, they received the special
respect that Muslims lavish on their learned men; they received
the reverence that Muslims offered to holy men; they must even
have benefited from the admiration that many Indian Muslims
had for the polished products of Lucknow culture. They were,
furthermore, honored for the great achievements of the family in
the past. But influence was also derived from their particular
code of adab, hard though such influence is to assess. We shall
try, nevertheless, to provide a crude impression, and that is all it
can be, by glancing briefly at Maulana cAbd al-Bari, the man who
wrote one of our biographies, had a hand in a second, and was
95. 'Inaya Allah, Risala, p. 35. '• •'*•
~ THE fULAMA' OF FARANGI M A H A L L AND THEIR ADAB 179
himself the leading model of right conduct for Farangi Mahallis
m in the twentieth century.
Within the family, cAbd al-Bari's authority was absolute. Ad-
mittedly, he started with the advantage of being the son and the
grandson of family saints, but the greater part of the authority he
wielded was granted to him because his relations came to regard
him as the quintessence in their time of those scholarly and spir-
itual values they most cherished. He was granted authority, more-
over, despite being examined in that most remorseless of schools
the family going about the common business of daily life.
<Abd al-Bari seems to have achieved this status by his early thir-
ties, when he emerged as the family leader, looked up to by his
peers and not opposed by his seniors except those of the Bahr
al-cUlum faction. For at least the last fifteen years before his
early death at the age of forty-eight, most of the family who were
culama' followed him in his many endeavors to protect and pro-
mote Islamic causes, attending conferences and committees and
running the organizations he founded. His authority seems to
have been unquestioned. When he was asked to supply an calim to
teach at Jaunpur's Madrasa i Hanafiyya he told Maulana clnaya
Allah to go, and he went. When he told Maulana Shafi to return
to Calcutta by the next train, we have no doubt that Shafi did so.
Indeed, Shafi's testimony offers plentiful evidence of how as a
young man he treated the maulana as a model in everything
from correct conduct at saints' tombs to the correct order of
seating in a motor car.96
In Indian society at large, cAbd al-Bari had good claim to being
the most influential calim of his generation. The organizations
that he founded, or played a large part in founding, from the
Madrasa i cAliya Nizamiyya through the Bazm i Sufiya and the
Khilafat Committee to the Anjuman i Khuddam i Haramain,
and the fact that in 1921 he was a leading candidate for Shaikh
al-Hind, speak for his influence and achievement. So, too, does
his relationship with Mahatma Gandhi, which played an impor-
tant part in winning over the Hindu holy man, and through him
96. For instance, one day in the company of cAbd al-Bari the young Maulana
Shafi got into the back seat of the motor car he was sharing with his former
teacher. cAbd al-Bari quickly reminded him that the back seat should be oc-
cupied either by the owner of the vehicle or by the most senior person present
Shafi, "Memoir," p. 20.
180 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
the Indian National Congress, to support the Khilafat protest.97
So also do those many members from the distinguished service
and political families of northern India who became his spiritual
followers; there were murids from the Mohanis of Mohan, the
Khwajas and Sherwanis of Aligarh, the Qidwa'is of Gadia and
Baragaon, and the Rajas of Jahangirabad. Most important of all
were the brothers Shaukat and Muhammad cAli, typical prod-
ucts of the westernizing tradition of Aligarh College and men of
fierce independence, as was evidenced in the quarrel over Ibn
Sacud that eventually separated Muhammad cAli from his pii.
Through his ascendancy over men of this type, whose capacities
as popular political leaders had no equal, cAbd al-Bari was able to
deepen the Islamic impress on the politics of his time. This was
a singular tribute to his authority. Further tribute is offered by
the way he was able to maintain the Madrasa i "Aliya Nizamiyya.
In cAbd al-Bari's lifetime, the madrasa had as many as four hun-
dred pupils at one time, of whom nearly half were boarders; they
were supported almost entirely by gifts made out of respect for
the maulana. It was with a sense of real loss that Muslim
schools and markets closed in Lucknow on the day of his fu-
neral. The managers of the madiasa discovered how great that
loss was as they struggled to make ends meet in the years that
followed.
Much of cAbd al-Bari's influence came because he was gifted
and energetic and the leading member of a prominent family of
Islamic learning in his generation, but some also flowed from
the particular emphasis on Farangi Mahalli adab. He and his re-
lations were well placed to lead north Indian Muslims as they
faced the realities of modernization under British rule. He moved
instinctively to defend Islam wherever he saw it in danger. His
reputation was unsullied by association with government: he
bore no government title, he held no daibar seat, he received no
government pay. Indeed, he neither sought nor owed anything to
anyone except God. Those aspects of correct conduct on which
Farangi Mahallis seemed to place special emphasis brought cAbd
al-Bari, and his relations, special authority as they strove to lead
Muslims, as culama' have done throughout Islamic history, in
97. For cAbd al-Bari's relations with Gandhi and the winning of the Congress '
for the Khilafat cause, see Robinson, Separatism, pp. 298-325.
TH E CULAMA' OF PARANGI MAHALL AND THEIR ADAB 181
resisting a government that appeared to be undermining the fun-
damentals of an Islamic society.
One or two points worthy of consideration emerge from this
analysis of Farangi Mahalli adab. The biographies, for instance,
from which we have constructed our composite picture of their
behavioral ideal are more than mere manuals of etiquette. They
proclaim what a man should be doing as well as how he should
be doing it: the sum of their content proclaims this, as well
as elnaya Allah's sorrowful tone when he admits that circum-
stances, usually poverty, had forced a man to give up teaching. It
was not good enough to be learned and a mystic if one then frit-
tered away one's life in a government office, serving the world
rather than God; one had to be learned and a mystic, one had to
devote all one's resources to transmitting knowledge of God and
His word, and one had to do so by relying on God alone to sup-
port one in His work. No Farangi Mahalli, as he heard these tra-
ditions from his elders or dipped into one of the biographies,
could fail to realize what was the best of occupations. This value,
moreover, has continued to be asserted as Farangi Mahallis have
acquired western education and their concept of knowledge has
expanded. They still regard the transmission of knowledge, even
of modern knowledge, as the foremost of professions and take
pride in the numbers of the family who teach.
We should also note that the Farangi Mahalli vision of adab is
close to the "classical" vision of sunm-sufi Islam set out by Ira
Lapidus, which is rather what one would expect from men who
devoted so much time to the Qur'an and the hadith and for
whom Imam Ghazzali's masterpiece was the subject of much
study and comment. The descriptions of the transmission of
Farangi Mahalli adab suggest that they believed that it was "pos-
sible to purify and correct the human soul by discipline which
involved the acquisition of knowledge, the perfection of charac-
ter, and the conduct of everyday life in accordance with Islamic
teachings."98 Moreover, implicit in their adab, which covered all
aspects of their activities, was the knowledge that it was "the in-
tegration of all levels of experience, knowledge, character, feel-
98. Ira M. Lapidus, "Knowledge, Virtue, and Action: The Classical Muslim
Conception of Adab and the Nature of Religious Fulfillment in Islam" (chapter
2 of this book).
182 ADAS AS ISLAMIC IDEAL THE CULAMA' OF FARANGI MAHALL AND THEIR ADAB 183
ing and action into a harmonious life which leads to well-being integrity as culama'. Such preoccupations were to be expected as
in this world and salvation in the next."99 So the greater part of Farangi Mahallis came to grasp the full meaning of moderniza-
cAbd ar-Razzaq's biography describes not his life but the most tion under the rule of an alien civilization.
minute aspects of the way he lived. So cAbd al-Bari instructs the As the social context changes, we glimpse changes of empha-
young Shafi in everything from the proper use of public funds to sis in adab; we also sense a growing concern for the preservation
how to sit in a motor car. There is a correct way of doing every- of adab itself. There was no longer any Muslim state to defend
thing that "eliminates the undirected, idiosyncratic, irrational the faith; indeed, the colonial state threatened to destroy the Is-
private expressions of feeling."100 When his eldest son died and lamic order altogether. Only men like the Farangi Mahallis re-
the women wailed, cAbd ar-Razzaq talked of other things; when mained to exemplify the Islamic life and to teach men how to
his daughter died on the eve of the Prophet's birthday, he would achieve it. No wonder they came increasingly to record their tra-
not hear of mourning.101 The learned and holy men of Farangi ditions, writing the lives of their learned and holy forefathers; no
Mahall participated in worldly affairs, but their actions, as re- wonder cAbd al-Bari was hypersensitive to smoking in Ramadan
ported to us, were infused with a sense of life's higher purpose. or to the height from which the Qur'an was read before an un-
For all the "classical" substance of Farangi Mahalli adab, it believer. The assault of new values, legitimized by the power
did have a powerful twentieth-century imprint. Although our and the success of the European ruler, brought the battle for Is-
composite picture is built up from clnaya Allah's biographical lam as never before into the daily lives of the community; in-
dictionary of Farangi Mahallis since the end of the seven- deed, it was taken to the very gates of Farangi Mahall itself. cAbd
teenth century, and more particularly from the biography of the al-Bari had to stand forward to defend what he knew to be cor-
eighteenth-century Sayyid cAbd ar-Razzaq of Bansa and that of rect. Men followed him when he did, because it was evident to
the nineteenth-century Maulana cAbd ar-Razzaq, in addition to many who were Muslim, as well as to some who were not, that
the biographies of twentieth-century men, all these works were he lived a life that was close to God.
written between the early 1920s and 1977. They represent col-
lections of family traditions narrated day by day in order to legit-
imize a particular course of action or to emphasize a particular
value, and they show the concerns of their twentieth-century
authors. A glance at Wall Allah's Cal-Aghsaii al-aibaca, .which
was written between 1821 and 1853, makes the point. His biog-
raphies, notably that of Anwar al-Haqq, are full of the problems
of dealing with an apparently capricious shi'i government, which
is supposedly a warning to those who wish to be associated with
it, but there is none of the pressing anxiety to avoid all contact
with government that troubles those who wrote under British
rule in the twentieth century. Only once, moreover, in the many
pages that Wall Allah devotes to Anwar al-Haqq, is the holy man
made to criticizie "un-Islamic" practice.102 Maulanas cAbd ar-
Razzaq and cAbd al-Bari, on the other hand, are especially sensi-
tive on this point, as well as in regard to the preservation of their
99. Idem. -' -„
100. Idem.
101. Qidwa% Anwar i lazzaqiyya, pp. 34-35.
102. Wall Allah, al-Aghsan al-aibaca, p. 34.

7 No British were involved in the movement nor did its partici-
Islamic Reform and IslamicWomen:
Maulana Thanawi's
Jewelry of Paradise
BARBARA DALY METCALF
In the second half of the nineteenth century a group of religious
scholars launched an influential movement of intellectual re-
formulation, social reform, and education that came to be
known as the Deobandi movement after the town, Deoband,
some ninety miles northeast of Delhi, which was the site of
their theological seminary. The stimulus to their efforts was the
end of Muslim rule and all the dislocations, social, economic,
and political, that that change entailed. The form their efforts
took was shaped by the imposition of British rule, for the impe-
rial presence prevented any movement with military or mes-
sianic claims. At the same time it provided Muslims with in-
stitutional models and technological means for education and
propaganda that gave them an inconspicuous but effective pro-
gram for change. Those who participated in this movement
found in it a source of community and self-esteem, for it insisted
on the utter worth of pristine Islam while recognizing the failure
of its contemporary exponents. Their reformed Islam would,
they believed, make Muslims great once again in a material and
worldly sense.1
1. For an extended treatment of the late-nineteenth-century 'ulama' in north
India, see my Islamic Revival in British India (Princeton, 1982).
I S L A M I C R E F O R M AND I S L A M I C W O M E N 185
pants use English in their work. Yet many aspects of their teach-
ings strike one as having an affinity to modern patterns of social
and economic integration and to the personal requirements of
bureaucratic organizations and even, possibly, a capitalist econ-
omy- The movement eschewed extravagant customary practices,
including lavish weddings and dowries; it downplayed local
saintly cults in favor of scripturalist norms shared by Muslims
over a wide area; it sought to develop personal responsibility for
fulfilling the religious law; and it eschewed saintly mediation.
Its participants were to be guided by a high degree of internal dis-
cipline and a willingness to forego immediate material plea-
sures. It denied the importance of carefully graded social ranking
in favor of a broad definition of respectability, based in part on
religious style, as a basis for marriage and other social relations.
In their teaching, however, the reformers saw themselves in
no way as accommodating to any pattern of modernity, let alone
to the values of their rulers. They were, in fact, committed to a
return to pristine Islam. They looked back, not West, and be-
lieved themselves to be in the company of great Muslims of the
past for whom precisely the end of false custom and the creation
of religiously responsible individuals were central. They were
engaged in renewal, tajdid, of the teachings of the Prophet and
the Qur'an. An appreciation of this overriding meaning given to
the movement is crucial if one is not to be misled into seeing
"modernity" where the participants would see Islam. They did
not see their attitudes and orientation as leading them away
from a "traditional" past: their view of history was not of a road
toward modernity, but rather of a cyclical unfolding of occasions
(as they hoped this was) when humans emulated the great his-
toric peak which is the period of revelation itself. In this later
period, to be sure, reformation took a distinct shape because of
newly available means of communication and organization, be-
cause of the experience of Western domination and the resultant
economic change, and because of mass participation in political
activities. In fact, in both their social life and their ideology, they
represented—as they believed they did—change within a com-
plex and multileveled tradition.
A central dimension of their reform was the cultivation of the
style of personality defined by Islamic adab. This concern is evi-
dent throughout Deobandi writings but is particularly well de-
 186 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
lineated in a book written at the turn of this century in order to
carry the reformist teachings to women: Bihishtl zewar (Jewelry
of Paradise), by Ashraf cAli Thanawi.2 An encyclopedic work of
over one thousand pages, the book includes extensive detailed
discussions of the religious law, including not only ritual law but
also family, commercial, and financial law; a section on house-
hold management; a section on the principles of Islamic medi-
cine; a section of biographies of good women; and a section on
personal formation. The book itself has been enormously suc-
cessful. It is widely available even today, and has been translated
into many other Indian languages beyond the Urdu in which it
was originally written. Its initial appeal was to the respectable
classes first touched by Deobandi reform: landed and mercantile
families who often had some members in government jobs. Like
the movement itself, the book was espoused by the upwardly
mobile for whom scriptural religion was a mark of respectability.
An examination of the kind of person the reformers sought to
create yields information on the Deobandi view of the qualities
of the ideal person, the constituents of that person, and the meth-
ods of training in self-realization. This book having been meant
for women, it raises the question of whether there were under-
stood to be fundamental differences in the potential for personal
and religious realization between women and men. More gener-
ally, it raises the question for whom in society Deobandi teach-
ings were intended, in comparison with those included in such
teachings in movements that took place in earlier times.
To leap ahead to a conclusion, the inclusion of women in
teachings of behavioral propriety or adab, which were typically
limited to male elites, marks one significant dimension of the
popular spread of scripturalist Islamic norms—a process that
2.1 am indebted to the National Endowment for the Humanities, with whose
support I am currently preparing a translation of the Bihishtl zewai. I use the
edition catalogued by the British Library under Thanawi and dated 1906 (al-
though in fact it contains the earliest editions of the sections published in vari-
ous years about that time). References that follow (simply "Book" and page) are
to this edition. Later editions are available in PL 480 collections in this country,
not only in Urdu but in translations to such languages as Pashtu and Bengali.
There are two English ^editions, both partial and unclear: Rahm cAli al-
Hashimi, trans., Bihishtl zewai (Requisites of Islam), (Delhi, 1973), and Mu-
hammad Masroor Khan, trans., Bihishtl Zewai (Heavenly ornaments), (La-
hore, 1979).
SLAMIC R E F O R M AND I S L A M I C W O M E N 187
has been a central theme in the modern history of Muslim peo-
ies 3 This concern with personal transformation has been an
lenient in a wide variety of phenomena which we in our catego-
eies arbitrarily separate—millenarian and other military move-
ments as well as movements like the one here of scholarly re-
flection and reform through education. The Arabic terms jihad
*
subsumes them all, for it defined "the greater jihad," the trans-
formation of the self, as well as "the lesser jihad," outright war-
*
fare or militance against enemies of Islam. The "lesser" ideally
entails the "greater": an aspect of Islamic movements often ne-
glected by foreign observers. Thus a wide variety of phenomena
have been associated with the dissemination of norms of proper
conduct, among them ones like the Deobandi movement and
the book examined here.
Discussion of the kind of person envisaged by the reformers
exemplifies the extent to which all domains of human life, in-
cluding the bodily and psychological, were analyzed within a re-
ligious idiom. There simply were no alternate models or autono-
mous laws for discussing various aspects of life—the separation
of domains that Weber and others have regarded as the essence
of modernity. The theories of the person are not part of some
separate discipline but are simply Islamic. Similarly, in analysis
of fields that we would distinguish as political, sociological, psy-
chological, or medical, exactly the same language and the same
assumptions would be made. This above all distinguishes this
movement from what is misleadingly called modern, misleading
in that it values one definition of what is normal and sees all else
as left over or aberrant. "Modern" ought simply to be understood
as what has existed in recent times.
What we might call the Deobandi theory of the person under-
stands the body to exist in company with a soul, a unique com-
bination in all creation that creates tensions and potentialities
that are specifically human. The human person has, as do all
animals, a lower self, often understood as the Qur'anic an-nafs
al-amana, the self that incites to evil, often called nafs. It is
identified with base appetites or, more comprehensively, with all
self-indulgence, with lack of proportion and lack of discrirnina-
, 3. The term "scripturalist" is from Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed (Chicago,
1972 ed.l.
 188 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
tion of what one ought to do. It is opposed to the capacity, typi-
cally known as caql or reasoned discrimination, which, when
cultivated, curbs the nafs and directs it to true self-fulfillment
which is fulfillment of the teachings of Islam. The "title poem"
of the Bihishtl zewar plays exactly on the dilemma between ap-
parent self-interest and real self-interest, for it takes the multiple
jewels cherished by women and suggests that each be replaced
by real jewels—the capacities and virtues that define an ad-
herent of Islam. Of these the preeminent one is in fact caql,
which is to be the head fringe to crown the head, followed by
nasiha, the good counsel that one recognizes and adheres to in
place of earrings; and on and on.4
How is one to achieve the goal of measured, ceaseless discrim-
ination and control held up as the ideal? First, to aid in what Dr.
Ajmal has called the "process of limitation of the dispersal into
multiplicity/'5 one ought to make the commitment of allegiance
to a teacher, a sufi guide, himself an exemplar and embodiment
of Islamic teachings and a guide to those teachings. The advan-
tage of a master, Thanawl argues, rests in the personal relation-
ship with him, for although correct teachings can be set out in a
book, an example charged with love and fear is far more compel-
ling.6 If one binds oneself to a well-chosen teacher, one must be-
lieve him to be the best teacher of the age, consult him in every-
thing, and remain wholly trusting of him even if he should make
some evident error in a small matter. The uniqueness of the
bond to him is to be fostered by one's confiding to him alone
one's spiritual experiences. The teachings of this book are those
that will be made alive by a master. They are recorded here to
serve for those who, perhaps because of seclusion, cannot ac-
quire a master. Moreover, they help one find a good master be-
cause they specify what he ought to believe.
Of these teachings, the basic foundation, the frame for all else,
is complete adherence to the law of ritual and of daily conduct.
The teachings of the separate sections on these matters are briefly
recapitulated in virtually every chapter. One must know the
Law and comply with it, for there is no belief apart from action.
The word for the legal corpus [fiqh] suggests this unity for its
4. Book 1, pp. 6-7.
5. In this volume, chapter 10.
6. Book 7, p. 35.
ISLAMIC R E F O R M AND I S L A M I C W O M E N 189
not is in fact the verb "to understand." One starts from under-
standing, but ritual then deepens understanding. Rituals are
thus good in themselves and the cause of further good, for outer
acts create substantial inward change, making a transformative
and permanent effect on the self. The chief moral concern is, sig-
nificantly, not conflict of values, of how one knows what is good,
but rather conformity to accepted values and practices. Through
conformity the self is changed and right action begins to flow
without conscious effort or deliberation. The link of outer act
and inner self is of far greater unity than the terms body and soul
would suggest, for it is the body above all, the means of the phys-
ical act, that makes it possible for the soul to be as it ought.
The nafs, who in this scheme obstructs the fulfillment of the
self, must be trained both by rational instruction and, above all,
by the physical repetition that creates a habitual pattern. The
nafs is the enemy within and is presented as a separate being
with whom one must reason and deliberate, whom one must op-
press, and even, on occasion, punish. Indeed, the model conver-
sations with the nafs in Bihishtl zewai are much like the con-
versations suggested elsewhere in the book for the discipline of
children, also notoriously short of caql, who must be instructed
in adab or qa'ida, the good behavior congruent with the law.7
The nafs is a clever child, however, given to specious arguments
for self-indulgence, and one must learn to answer it back.8 One
must, moreover, train oneself to silence, weighing the legal im-
plications of every single word before ever speaking. One ought
as much as possible to withdraw from company in order to avoid
compromise. Far from self-assertion, one ought to withdraw in
any situation of conflict and react to what is perceived as a wrong
only after serious deliberation on the incident and on one's own
guilt before God. The result of this is certain to be a change not
only in one's pattern of external behavior but in the very emo-
tions that trigger behavior. Not only does one not react to anger,
but one does not even feel anger.9
A further technique demonstrates even more clearly that the
fundamental theory of self-transformation rests in assumptions
of the causative power of external behavior on inner substance.
7. Book 10, p. 24.
8. Book 7, pp. 90-93.
9. Book 7, pp. 19-20.
190 ADAS AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
By this, one is to act as if the ultimate goal had already been
achieved, that is/ as if one's heart were already trained. If you
envy someone, for example, you should praise her, thank God
that He has so blessed her, and treat her deferentially. This in-
junction is recognized as something that will not come easily
but, in the end, nafs will be subdued; envy itself will end. Simili-
tude brings verity.
The resultant person may appear passive, but as so often hap-
pens, it is the meek who conquer. In the book on conjugal and
familial relations, the young woman is enjoined never to answer
back in anger, for then she will soon find that others repent of
their sharpness and that she in fact has power over them.10 The
personal ideal that is a consistent thread throughout the book
seems quintessentially feminine: soft (narm in one of the basic
cultural dyads of narm and sakht), deferential, given to silence,
meek in the face of dispute. In a short biography the ideal is
described: a person warm, generous, troublesome to no one,
humble, never talkative, eyes lowered in modesty, grateful for
even the smallest blessing, accustomed to work with one's own
hands—milking goats, washing clothes. But this is a portrait of
none other than the Prophet of Islam himself, for the religious
ideal, reinforced in the woman's case by the requirements of her
role, turns out to be the feminine ideal intended for all.11 This
feminization of the worshipper is a familiar pattern, for exam-
ple, in both the Puritan and bhakti traditions. When Maulana
Thanawi was besieged by men for a book like the Bihishtl zewar
for themselves, he answered that the book served them equally
well, and he merely added an appendix with some ritual and day-
to-day matters exclusive to men.
A woman, then, is taken to have the same potential for ra-
tional discrimination as do men. Indeed, if anything, she may
seem to have the edge, for her relation to society in general and
to her husband in particular is precisely the analogue for the
believer's relation to God. This element of the feminine ideal
is explicit in what one could call extreme or intense expressions
•<-'£
of cultural values. It is evident in the images associated with the
death of great saints, known in India as elsewhere as the curs,
the ultimate marriage or union with God in which the saint is
10. Book 6, p. 41 (Saharanpur, A.H. 1388 edition).
11. Book 8, pp. 1-4.
ISLAMIC R E F O R M AND I S L A M I C W O M E N 191
the bride of God. It is evident in the style of the sufis who live
outside the Law, the qalandar and malang described for the
fourteenth century by Simon Digby and the twentieth century
by Katherine Ewing, who call themselves brides of God, wear
the iron bangle as a symbol of marriage, and in some cases dress
as women, the "happy wives" or sada suhagan. It is evident in
the contemporary ethnographic accounts of popular conceptions
of Paradise elicited by Richard Kurin in urban and rural Pakistan,
in which persons in paradise—preeminently reflecting goals on
earth—undergo a process of what he calls feminization.
On the other hand, important streams in the culture suggest
that women are at the least the cause of disproportion in men
and at most lack caql within themselves. Thus the great Persian
mystic poet Rumi (although in some contexts he finds man
1 more animal-like than woman) equates the nafs with a disobe-
I dient woman and the world with a painted crone.12 Thanawi,
• himself, toward the end of the book sets down the chief short-
comings of women and these too are all ones that suggest lack of
<aql. All his objections have to do with anger, disproportion, ex-
cess. Women do not discourse in reasoned (ma'qvl) fashion.
They have excess emotion, especially anger. They jump to con-
demnation without investigation. They do not measure any-
thing—not money, not time, not quantity. They talk too loudly.
They do not protect their valuables or their honor.13 Yet these
strictures aside, Thanawi does not despair of women's constitu-
tional disproportion, and his reflections are more than counter-
balanced by his consistent teachings on women's capacity for
moral behavior. He includes, for example, a section of one hun-
dred accounts of extraordinary women throughout history who
were models of propriety and control. He may admittedly mar-
vel at them: about Umm Ruman (the mother of cA'isha), who
never responded to unfounded criticisms of her daughter,
"among women such restraint (tahammul) and control (dhabh)
is a surprising thing."14
What is expected of this guarded and controlled woman? What
explicit behavior is asked of her and what kind of world is she
expected to live in? The single characteristic that pervades the
12. Annemarie Schimmel, The Triumphal Sun: A Study in the Works of Jal-
aloddin Rumi (London, 1978), pp. 102, 193, 257.
13. Book 10, pp. 8-14.
14. Book 8, p. 65.
r T
192 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
religious world and the social world is one of hierarchy. In reli-
gious terms, the emphasis of the reformers is on discrimination
of what is owed God alone. The efforts of the reformers to dis-
courage pilgrimages to saints' tombs, the celebration of the cms,
belief in saintly intercession, and so forth is wholly couched in
terms of not elevating the status of the saints to that of God. The
same grounds are used for objections to undue belief in the pow-
ers of the Prophet or to celebration of such occasions as his birth
anniversary, the milad an-nabi, when he was believed to be ac-
tually present.15
The same discrimination of rank is at the heart of a woman's
life in society. A woman's first obligation is to know her own
position. Early in the book the author uses a sample letter from a
father to a daughter to answer objections to the reformist insis-
tence on the importance of literacy for women. The opponents
argue, he says, that it would "turn them into maulawls (re-
ligious scholars) like men": that it would potentially breach se-
clusion through clandestine correspondence; and that it would
divert girls from their proper occupations.16 Thanawi, on the
contrary, insisted on the necessity of women's knowing the reli-
gious law themselves for the sake of their own well-being and for
the interests of the family as a whole. Indeed, literacy and educa-
tion, in his view, enhanced a woman's capacity to fulfill her so-
cial role. In particular—and this is seen as in no sense distinct
from religion—she should secure the family's status, a contribu-
tion often seen as a central component of women's concerns.
Thus a literate woman has the hallmarks of respectability: she
speaks standard Urdu and practices scripturalist religion, man-
ages the household efficiently and profitably and raises well-
behaved children, and fulfills her obligations to all those with
whom there are reciprocal ties. Rather than compromise seclu-
sion she can preserve it, for she can communicate with her dis-
tant relatives without going to any outsider. The daughter in her
answer confirmed that the women of her clan who are educated
are in fact respected. They advise others on matters of the Law
and are invariably listened to and praised. The daughter there-
upon committed herself to attaining the education her father
desired.17
15. These are central themes of Book 6.
16. Book 1, pp. 24-25. ' 18. Book 1, pp. 28-30.
17. Book 1, pp. 25-28.
ISLAMIC R E F O R M A N D I S L A M I C W O M E N 193
The two central parameters for measuring hierarchy in most
of a woman's social relations are those of age and gender. A girl,
indeed any child, is enjoined to observe a wide variety of defer-
ential patterns in her relations with her elders, in forms of ad-
dress, in obedience, in willingness to accept the opinion or ad-
vice of an elder without question, in silence, in conversation,
and in the hierarchy of seating in the same room.18 Unique to a
girl, however, is the instruction accorded her concerning her re-
lations with her husband, for she must learn above all to relate
to him as she relates to God, with obedience and gratitude. She
must seek his permission, follow his whims, respond to his
mood. Should he err and treat her as his equal or attempt to
serve her in any way she, in fact, must check him.19
At the same time a man must know what is due his wife. In
choosing a husband, parents are warned that they must not look
at birth but rather at religious fidelity. Making explicit the hu-
man and divine analogy of mutual rights, Thanawi asks rhe-
torically whether a person who does not render his obligations
to God could possibly render his obligations to his wife. Central
to the reformist teachings, in fact, was concern with restoration
of women's rights, which were inherent in the classical Law but
had been, they argued, eroded in the course of time. Observers of
Islamic reform have tended to emphasize teachings concerned
with seclusion but have neglected the characteristic efforts of re-
form movements to enhance women's position in a wide variety
of ways. Of these, as argued above, assertion of her moral capaci-
ties was most basic. Other issues included the right of widows to
remarry; of daughters to inherit their legitimate claim to prop-
erty,- of wives to control and manage their own property, to be
supported and have support for children, and to receive sev-
erance support and receipt of the marriage portion upon divorce.
Moreover, Thanawi, in raising a whole range of legal objections
to many ceremonial practices, sees in them simple inhumanity
toward women. He breaks the typically even tone of his book in
fatherly anger toward the way young brides are treated before
marriage, dressed in rags, shut off in a distant room, seated on a
stool, and barely fed. For what crime, he asks, is a child who had
the run of the house now forced to sit like this? If you contend
>••
19. Book 4, pp. 35, 42 (Saharanpur, 1388).
194 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
that it is to accustom her to what she will expect from her in-
laws, he argues on legal grounds, that is condemned as conni-
vance in yet something else that is bad.20
The reformers dignified women by according them an equal
place in the possibility of religious fulfillment, and by insisting
on the rights owed them in Islamic Law. They were expected to
acquire basic skills in religious knowledge and literacy, skills
that would clearly enhance their authority in the community in
general and within the family in particular. Thanawi notes that
from reading this book alone a woman would be the equal of a
"middling calim,"21 and he proposed a program of home study
that would make her an calim indeed. This was fraught with the
potential problem of raising her status too far above that of her
husband, and women were warned not only to educate other
girls, but the men of their families as well if that were needed.
The "traditional place" of women is clearly no single thing.
There is much in the reformist teaching that is suggestive of
what we consider a modern personal style: the de-emphasis on
religious intermediaries in favor of individual responsibility, the
end of extravagant ritual, the concern with delayed gratification:
jewels in heaven and not now. Indeed, much of the idiom is a
commercial one, as the girl speaks to her nafs:
O nafs, understand that your life in the world is as a trader: your stock
in trade is your life and your profit is always to seek its welfare, namely
salvation in the afterlife. If not, you have failed in your trade, and lost
your capital as well. . . . What lack of caql to consider equivalent a few
days comfort on earth and eternity of comfort in heaven.22
However suggestive this metaphor may be, Deobandi teachings
were in fact geared to moral and not capital accumulation.
The context for the personal style fostered by the Deobandis
was not one of a developing economy but rather one of a colonial
society whose symbols of legitimacy were alien and whose pres-
ence entailed an increased scale of social and economic life. The
concern with self-conscious religious reform as a basis for social
identity was a response not only to these general developments
but also to the emphasis of the British, both implicit and ex-
plicit, on organizing their rule on the assumption that education,
20. Book 6, p. 30.
21. Book 1, p. 4.
22. Book 7, p. 91.
REFORM A N D I S L A M I C W O M E N 195
• stice, and all else should be defined by religious community.
parallel developments among the Arya Samajis and other Hin-
dus make clear a common response to a common milieu.
The basic characteristics of social and intellectual life had not
changed. Socially, hierarchy was the central element of defining
relationships for families as a whole and for relations within
families. Some women, like the heroine of the contemporaneous
Mir' at al-carus, discussed by Professor Nairn, did live in a home
where the men of the family moved decisively outside the do-
mestic domain for their livelihood. But that "modern" charac-
teristic of family life was still uncommon, and much else in the
complexity of family life, both social and economic, remained.
Intellectually, as the book makes clear, there was little separa-
tion or isolation of a religious domain on one side and of other
morally neutral systems like politics or economics on the other.
It was in this context that the basis for a well-lived life was
sought in the teachings of self-control and moral responsibility.
The colonial context, both its jarring presence and its tech-
niques, stimulated the dissemination of these norms to ever-
greater numbers, women among them, who in themselves would
be the embodiment of the culture, whatever political vicissi-
tudes might ensue.23
23. That women were provided the same teachings as men is the more striking
given the nineteenth-century American theories of a unique personal constitu-
tion and psychology of women. See Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English,
For Her Own Good: One Hundred Fifty Years of the Experts' Advice to
Women (New York, 1978).

8 cur when persons pass from this world into the next, and upon
Morality, Personhood, and the
Exemplary Life: Popular Conceptions
of Muslims in Paradise
RICHARD KURIN
n as Chakpur). The Karachi group was composed of Urdu speakers,
The Qur'an, the biography of the Prophet, the malfuzat of pxrs,
and specific manuals concerning adab all provide models of the
well-formed life that Muslims can hope to realize. In this paper,
I suggest that conceptions of paradise or heavenly existence also
provide a model of and for exemplary human life by defining the
ultimate goal orientations of humanity and its most highly val-
ued codes of conduct. An understanding of what makes heav-
enly life perfect or ideal can inform our understanding of the
qualities or codes of conduct that make this-worldly persons
worthy of respect.
Based upon field research in Karachi and rural Punjab in 1976-
78, ' this chapter will examine the views of some thirty in-
formants in terms of their descriptive and analytic statements
regarding the character of human existence in paradise. The ex-
egesis will concentrate upon types of transformations said to oc-
1. Funded by research grants from the Social Science Research Council, the
American Council of Learned Societies, the DHEW Fulbright-Hays Program,
and the Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago. The facts, conclu-
sions, and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and are not
necessarily shared by these organizations. Paul Rabinow, McKim Marriott,
Ralph Nicholas, and C. M. Nairn are thanked for their comments on earlier
drafts of this paper.
MORALITY, P E R S O N H O O D , AND THE E X E M P L A R Y LIPE 197
the differences in the definitions of personhood, morality, and
solidarity that such transformations would imply.
The popular views elicited in Pakistan are generally consis-
tent with the accounts provided by textual sources, as found, for
example, in the Qur'an, cAbd al-Halim Sharar's Firdaus i barin,
and al-Hujwiri's Kashf al-mahjub. There are, however, differ-
ences between the verbal statements of informants and the tex-
tual accounts. As the subject of this chapter is solely an analysis
of the former, and not a comparison with the latter, such dif-
ferences, where significant, are merely observed in the notes.
The informants chosen for this study were of diverse back-
grounds. The sample was mainly drawn from urban lower- and
middle-class households in Karachi and from agriculturalist
households in a village in Okara District (henceforth referred to
all claiming to be either Sayyid, Shaikh, Pathan, or Mughal, and
hence members of the ashiaif groups claiming origins exogenous
to South Asia. The farmers were all Panjabi speakers and for the
most part of the Nunari brotherhood. The Nunaris, claiming
Rajput descent, are reputed to have been indigenous Hindus con-
verted to Islam by the ashiaf during the Tughlaq period. Also in-
cluded were several maulawis, pirs, and malangs. Males and
females were about equally represented. The vast majority of in-
formants were sunms. I have attempted to remain fairly close to
the statements of informants, freely quoting them throughout
the work. I have generally stressed the commonness of infor-
mant's views in an effort to arrive at a cohesive conceptual
framework. This approach is justified to the extent that the ideas
expressed by informants on the subject did not seem to exhibit
much variation. However, those points at which significant dif-
ferences did emerge are noted in the text.
In both Karachi and Chakpur, informants make a distinction
between eternal (haqiqi) and transitory (majazi) existence,
strongly affirming that "after-life" in paradise (janna, firdaus,
bihisht) differs radically from life in this world. Differences in
the two orders highlight dramatically how the components of
personhood, kinship, and sex roles are structured, and how they
may be transformed or altered to yield redefinitions of social
units. Below, I examine three sets of transformations that are
said to occur when human beings pass from the transitory world
198 ADAB AS ISLAMIC I D E A L
of the living to the eternal order of heavenly existence. The first
transformation concerns the constituents of personhood and the
redefinition of human nature. The second considers the ascen-
dancy given to milk ties vis-a-vis blood ties and the general re-
placement of, or substitution for, bodily links by spiritual ones.
The third transformation, here termed "ferninization," deals
with the elaboration of authority and dominance relations be-
tween humans and Allah.
The Transformation of Personhood
Informants commonly speak of the person (shakhs) in terms of
how spirit (iuh] is related to the body and its corresponding psy-
chobiological energy and powers (jism/nafs). In this model, both
the macrocosmic process of the creation of the human species
and the microcosrnic process of the birth of the individual are
made possible by the infusion of spirit into the body. The contact
point, as it were, is the heart, and the union of the two allows for
the development and the functioning of the intellectual and
moral faculty (caql, damn}. Persons are denned in terms of the
components—rah, nafs/jism, and caql—as it is their presence
that differentiates humans (insan) from nonhuman species such
as angels (no nafs), animals (no caql), and inanimate objects (no
iuh}.2 Death begins a transformation whereby these components,
2. The terms iuh, caql, and nafs/jism are used in various ways, sometimes in
marked, sometimes in unmarked, and sometimes in residual senses. For exam-
ple, "nafs" (Urdu/Panjabi s.m. from the Arabic s.f., "desire greatly") in its un-
marked and most general sense translates well as "psychobiological energy." In
its marked sense it refers to "desire or passion or sexual organ," and in a resid-
ual sense may include caql (i.e., psychobiological energy minus desire), as, for
example, when spoken of as nafs i natiqa, or the rational energy. Similarly,
"iuh" (Urdu/Panjabi s.f. from the Arabic s.f., "cooled by the wind") may also be
used in manifold senses. In its marked form, "iuh" refers to noncorporeal, tran-
scendent, and purely moral intellect. In another sense "iuh" may be conceived
of as a spiritous substance, a fine ethereal vapor (bukhaiat latifa), light (nui), or
breath (nafas, nafs). That each of these terms can be used in various ways
makes it difficult to unravel informant views that may appear quite complex
and even contradictory. I am indebted to an aged Karachi grandmother whose
account, in the main, I have adopted here because it fits well with the accounts
of other informants. It should be noted that persons themselves may be dif-
ferentiated in terms of the quality of each component of personhood. For exam-
ple, the quality of 'aql defines legal personality in terms of rational capacity or
incapacity.
Informant accounts concerning the components of personhood tend to mir-
V
MORALITY, P E R S O N H O O D , A N D T H E E X E M P L A R Y L I F E 199
before life life after life
Figure 1. Components of Personhood in the Life Process
once separated before life and then united by it, become sepa-
rated once again. In a sense, death reverses the process of birth,
and as a Karachi informant stated, marked a "return" (wapsi) to
a preworldly set of conditions. This theme of death as a reversal
receives popular expression in both Urdu and Panjabi poetry. It is
illustrated, as informants report, by the widespread custom of
reading the Ya Sin Sharif, the thirty-sixth chapter of the Qur'an,
in the presence of persons on the verge of death.
If we grant long life to any,
We cause him to be reversed in nature . . .
So glory to Him in whose hands is
The domination of all things,
And to Him will ye be all brought back.3
As a villager explained, the repetition of the Ya Sin Sharif,
with its soothing melody, allows the untraumatic separation of
the spirit from the body and replicates the means by which the
spirit and body were originally united.
ror scholarly arguments on the subject; cf. al-Hujwiri, cAli ibn cUthman, The
Kashf al-mahjub, trans. Reynold Nicholson (Lahore, 1976: reprint of 1911
edition), pp. 196-209; and Imam Razi, cllm al-akhlaq, trans, and comm., M.
Saghir riasan Ma'sumi (Islamabad, n.d.), pt. 1. See also Imam Ghazzali, Haqiqi
iuh i insani, trans. Mufti Shah Din (Lahore, n.d.), Maulana S. A. Maududi, Pui-
dah and the Status of Women in Islam, trans. al-Shacari (Lahore [?], 1972), chs.
8-9.
There is also a good deal of disagreement about how these components are
related in certain species. The majority of informants claimed that animals did
not have iuh, whereas others opposed this position.
The possible parallels between this model and the Freudian model of person-
ality (with iuh = superego, caql = ego, and nafs = id) deserve further consid-
eration. Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id, trans. James Strachey (New
York, 1961).
3. Sura 36.68, 83 suggested by Nunari informant (male, age 40, farmer); from
The Holy Qui'an, trans. A. Yusuf Ali (Lahore, 1975).

200 ADAS AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
When Allah created Baba Adam from mud he illuminated the body
with his light (nur). However, the spirit (rub), i.e., the estranged light
did not like the body of man as it was dark, heavy, and burdensome. It
wanted to desert the body. But Allah commanded the spirit to stay, and
in order to make the spirit happy in its new abode, created beautiful
and pure sounds for the spirit to enjoy. Thus the spirit entered the body
very peacefully. Likewise, the sound of the Ya Sin Sharif comforts the
spirit in this manner, assuring its tranquil departure from the body by
soothing it at the time of death.4
With the onset of death, life (jan) is supposed to recede from '*
bodily extremities, gather in the heart, and then expire. The ter-
mination of life as a bodily force (jismani quwwa) is evidenced
informants say, by the fact that the blood ceases to flow and the
body becomes cold. This is taken to mean that innate heat or life
energy has cooled to the point at which motion, and hence the
exercise of bodily functions, becomes impossible. In short, when
the circulation of blood stops, the process of breathing stops, life
stops, and nafs becomes inactive. The intellectual facility (caql]
also appears to be affected by this process, as it normally requires
the presence of nafs to function in its distinctly human way (i.e.,
with free will/choice, ikhtiyai). What is left of the person, then,
is a spirit and its interconnected but deactivated body or corpse
(JflsA-UrduAm&z't-Panjabi).
The person is thought to be in a very "cool" state at this time,
as funeral rites seem to confirm. The dead body is rendered pure
(pak) through the performance of ablutions (ghusl). None of the
internal "hotter" bodily substances (blood and derivatives) are al-
lowed to remain on the corpse. Antimony (surma) and scents,
thought to be cooling substances, may also be added to the eyes
and body respectively. The corpse is then wrapped in white cloth,
usually latha. Again, both the cloth and the color are thought to
exert cooling influences. The body is bound within the cloth,
and there is some variation in the number of cloths used for such
purposes. Women are said to require more cloths than men. In
Chakpur the norm was two for men, three for women; in Ka-
rachi, three for men and five for women. One cloth typically
covers the corpse from the shoulders to the knees, or thereabout,
and another serves as an "envelope" to wrap the body com-
pletely. The extra pieces of cloth for women are used for binding
the midsection and breast regions. For both sexes it is essential
4. As told by Nunari informant, ibid. "*
MORALITY, P E R S O N H O O D , AND THE E X E M P L A R Y LIPE 201
that the portions of the body that define nakedness are covered.
Additionally, the feet or big toes are tied together, according to
some to guard against the exposure of the genitalia. The corpse
is then placed in a litter and carried by close male relatives or
friends to the cemetery for burial. Friends, neighbors, and the
curious may join the funeral procession (janaza, barat) as it
makes its way to the burial grounds. Usually only men are al-
lowed on the grounds for participation in the funeral service, for
women may render the site impure (napak) should they enter
while menstruating. The corpse, shrouded only in the white gar-
ments, is laid to rest in the grave on a north-south axis with the
head (at the north) turned to the side toward Mecca (i.e., to the
west) and the Holy Ka'ba. After the grave is filled, Nunari
mourners recite a verse from the Qur'an, popularly the Mulk
Sura, also called the khatra sharif or noble ending.
Blessed be He in Whose hands is dominion and
He over all things hath power.
He who created death and life
That He may try which of you is best in deed,
And He is the exalted in might, oft forgiving.5
There are several minor variations in the accounts of what oc-
curs in the grave after death. Basically, after death and burial, the
angel of death (Izracil) or some other angel charged with drawing
the spirit out of the body visits the corpse.6 The angel(s) either
knows beforehand or questions the spirit about the worldly deeds
and faith of the deceased person.7 This questioning seems to
foreshadow the day of judgment (qiyama ka din/hukm ka din)
when the spirit is brought before Allah, tried, and assigned either
to heaven or one of the purgatorial levels of hell. This first ques-
tioning or meeting is thought to determine first how easily the
5. Sura 67.1,2 recited by Nunari villagers at various funerals; from The Holy
Qur'an, trans. All.
6. Only a few informants identified the other angels as Munkar and Nakir by
name. One of the angels is thought benevolent, the other malevolent. Ac-
counts indicate that the one is associated with day, the other, the malevolent
one, with the night; the former with the right side and the latter with the left;
the former with the color white and the latter with the color black.
7. According to several informants, only Muslims will be able to understand
accurately and reply to these questions. Infidels will be confused by them. This
perhaps indicates that the ru£ of a Muslim is no longer hampered by his
jism/nafs.
202 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
spirit will leave the body, and second how comfortably the spirit
and corpse will spend the time between death and the day of
judgment. The spirit of a good person, i.e., a true and faithful
Muslim, is said to leave the body like "perfume" issuing from
the head. The infidel or sinful person's spirit is believed to have
a much harder time of it, achieving separation only after much
pain and distress. Similarly, the corpse and spirit of an evil man
are expected to undergo a period of intense discomfort and tor-
ment in the grave, whereas the good man is thought to rest in
tranquility. The association of bodily discomfort with immoral
persons indicates that the estrangement of the spirit from the
body is less pronounced in those persons than in good ones. In
other words, nafs adheres to the spirit of bad people, but is easily
shed from the spirit of good people.
While nafs has become deactivated, and the body, without its
vital power, begins to disintegrate, the spirit is said to lurk close
by, usually near the head of the corpse. Although the body is
dead, the spirit lives, and much explicit behavior seems to con-
firm this. Nunari farmers in passing the village cemetery greet
the dead by saying "salam calaikum" when they approach the
site. Given the pure state of the person in the grave, some farm-
ers point out that one should properly be in a pure state (i.e., un-
broken wudv.) himself in order to offer such greeting. Followers
(murid) of cAbd Allah Shah Ghazi in Karachi similarly contend
that their preceptor (pii) is not dead. The saint, they argue, is in
his grave, but "continues to live in spiritual [luham] form behind
a curtain (parda) through which vision in most circumstances
can not penetrate."
In both sites, informants were quick to point out that persons
such as saints were endowed with certain spiritual powers of
sight (nazai, nigah) that allowed them to see the living spirit of
the dead (as well as that of the living). For others, less well en-
dowed, such sightings are extraordinary events that are taken as
evidence of man's immortality and are remembered and dis-
cussed for years. In Karachi, informants told of several such
cases where the spirit of a deceased person had made contact
with them. The following case is noteworthy, as it illustrates the
differences between the spirit manifestations of good and bad
persons.
We lived in an old mansion in Calcutta with several other families.
There were three spirits that also lived there. One was the spirit of a
MORALITY, P E R S O N H O O D , AND THE E X E M P L A R Y L I F E 203
Chinese man. He had 'lived in one of the flats in the mansion before
falling from the staircase to his death. In the middle of the night he
used to come to people (but only if they were alone) and ask for ciga-
rettes (bid!)- He was a bad spirit. You could make out his face and form
although'it was very misty. . . . . . .
The second spirit was that of a person who had committed suicide in
one of the two rooms that we had subsequently rented. He could also
be seen and had a vaporous quality about him with light emanating
from bis form. Once when I was a child I was sleeping in the doorway
between our room and the terrace. I awoke in the middle of the night
only to see this light in front of me. It was kind of like a tube light (i.e.,
fluorescent), only instead of being straight it was like a zigzag. I recog-
nized the face as being that of the man who committed suicide. I was so
frightened I couldn't move or speak. Even though my mother, uncle,
aunt and grandparents were sleeping next to me I couldn't wake them.
I completely lost the powers of speech and movement. In my heart I
repeated the kalima. Once, twice, three times, four times, and on the
fifth time the spirit disappeared. After that the power of speech re-
turned to me and I screamed, waking up my family. That night I devel-
oped a strong fever and it turned out that I had typhoid. I had to get
several vaccinations and was very ill. I became emaciated. My family
read the Qur'an and prayed. They would read chapters over glasses of
water and then I would drink the water. Eventually I recovered. My
grandmother said the whole thing happened because I was sleeping in
the doorway and blocking the spirit's passage to the terrace.
The third spirit was that of a respected elder (buzuig}. It was a good
spirit and always brought a good smell when it entered a room. It had
no form at all. It was neither misty or shiny as the others had been.
While you couldn't see it, you could sense its presence. For example,
my mother would be saying her prayers and she could feel that the
spirit was behind her listening. We thought this was good and it was a
sign for us of Allah's blessing. And because of this, we became very
successful and accumulated much wealth. We never told outsiders
about the spirit because a maulawi told us that if we did others might
come and the spirit would go away. The spirit used to come especially
on Thursday nights, and we would make the house pleasant by burning
incense, buying many flowers and sprinkling rose water throughout
the flat. Although the house was old, and we only had two rooms and
could have afforded better, we never thought of leaving, for in spite of
the two bad spirits we had been blessed by the presence of the buzuig.8
The bad spirits in this case had both died violent deaths, in
most circumstances indicative of sinful lives. For example, those
who expire from "natural causes" are said to die from "happi-
ness" (khushi se mama). The Chinese man was an infidel, and
8. Karachi informant (female, age 24, housewife).
204 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
the other a suicide and thus a great sinner. In both cases their
manifestations are quite physical, indicating the adherence of
nafs to their spirits. This continued union of nafs with the spirit
is borne out by the fact that they are both attributed "hot" de-
sires. The Chinese man desires cigarettes, "hot" substances. The
other spirit strongly desires to eliminate a physical obstruction.
Both these bad spirits evoke unpleasant feelings, the latter espe-
cially in causing terror and an extremely hot fever. Both come in
the middle of the night while the family sleeps, an inauspici-
ous time.
In contrast, the good spirit is that of a noble person, a re-
spected elder. It has no overt physical manifestation, indicating
that the spirit has tranquilly shed the body and the influence of
nafs. It evokes only pleasant feelings and brings with it a pleas-
ant scent. It comes at times of purity or on auspicious occasions
(at times of prayer, on Thursday night (jum'arat), the night of the
saints). It is not consumed with desire and has benevolent rather
than malevolent consequences. "Cooling" substances, such as
flowers, incense, and rose water are associated with its presence.
In Chakpur the pattern is similar. One of my neighbors expe-
rienced regular visitations, again on Thursday nights, by a good
spirit. This spirit, which had been "visiting the household" for
"several generations," was that "of a Sayyid." Sometimes it would
manifest itself as a "small patch of light" and at other times, as
was the case for the Karachi housewife, the spirit would only be
"sensed" and "not seen." The effect upon the household was to-
tally benevolent, as the family looked forward to "preserving
their relationship" with the spirit in the coming generations.
Most contacts with spirits are not as dramatic as these exam-
ples. By far the most popular contact with the spirits of the de-
ceased consists of reciting the fatiha, or opening chapter of the
Qur'an, in the name of the deceased person.
In the name of Allah
Most gracious, most merciful:
Praise be to Allah the cherisher and sustainer of the worlds.
Most gracious, most merciful, '>«*
Master of the day of judgment.
Thee do we worship and thine aid we seek.
Show us the straight way,
The way of those on whom
MORALITY, P E R S O N H O O D , AND THE E X E M P L A R Y L I F E 205
Thou hast bestowed Thy grace,
Those whose portion is not wrath
And who go not astray.9
This is typically done after the burial and may be performed
near the grave site or at the home of the deceased. Mourners may
gather at the home for several days after the funeral, reciting the
fatiha and performing other actions designed to serve the de-
parted and aid the spirit in its postlife experience. Readings of
the whole Qur'an may be sponsored by family and friends, with
the benefit of such meritorious acts accruing to the spirit of the
deceased. Yearly anniversary ceremonies on the same general or-
der may also be organized for this purpose and may again occur
either at the grave site or at the home of the deceased. In addi-
tion, prayers (duca) may be offered to Allah asking that the spirit
be dealt with compassionately and mercifully on judgment day.
The day of judgment is heralded by the appearance of & mahdi
on earth. The mahdi will be a sayyid, a descendant of Muham-
mad, who, after some resistance, will institute a messianic or-
der that will bring peace to the world and offer the living a last
chance to accept the faith of Islam. One seemingly curious tradi-
tion about the mahdi purports that he will have milk instead of
blood in his veins. This tradition, though voiced by several infor-
mants in both Karachi and Chakpur, is not highly elaborated and
does not appear to be part of Qur'anic or hadith lore. Yet its exis-
tence has been taken somewhat seriously by some South Asian
Muslims in the not-too-distant past.10 The significance of this
tradition will be discussed in detail below.
On the day of judgment the transitory world will come to an
end. Bodily life will cease. All spirits will come before Allah for
judgment and will be assigned their place either in heaven or
hell. As a village poet recited,
9. Sura 1,1-7.
10. M. Rivett-Carnac, in Punjab Notes and Queries (Calcutta, 1884), p. 136,
used a variation of this idea to "explain" the resistance of the populace to gov-
ernment vaccination programs.
One of the reasons the natives have against their children being vaccinated is that a
child, with milk in its veins instead of blood, is to be born, which is to raise the country
against the English and dispossess them. Government is naturally on the lookout for this
child and anxious to destroy it, so it carefully punctures the arms of all the babies that it
can get ahold of by its emissaries and examines their blood.

206 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
The stars will burst and the earth will quake ;;,; ^
Muhammad will sit upon the throne and Allah / 4
on the judge's bench. ..^
If I am to be condemned, then so be it, hardship will reign.
If I am to be vindicated, then so be it, God will be close by.11 "
Hell (dozakh) is conceived of as a purgatory of a sort, with infor-
mants differing as to the length of time a spirit must spend there *
It seems clear, however, that the purpose of hell and its prover-
bial fierce fires is to cleanse the spirit by burning off, so to speak
any nafs that lingers in attachment to it. It is through these fires
and the heat they generate that evil is separated from the good
and the bodily residues from the spirit.
The road to heaven is commonly said to be "traversed by a
bridge." The bridge is "made of a long sword with an extremely
fine blade over which all who wish to enter heaven must pass."
Although at this point the body has been shed, the verbal imag-
ery of both male and female informants leaves little doubt that
the blade must be straddled, and that if it is to cut, it would do
so most efficiently in the genital region. The symbolism seems
clear enough. You cannot get to heaven with genitalia, because
they are the manifestation par excellence of nafs and possessing
them would indicate the presence of bodily substances, lusts,
passions, and functions that would despoil the purity of heaven.
Genitalia, as a defining feature of gender, are not found in heaven *'
to differentiate paradisaical humans.12
Those spirits that get to heaven are by definition pure. Al-
though both the person as spirit and paradise as a spiritual state
would be expected to be beyond description in physical terms,
this is not the case. The Qur'an, hadith, local literature, and
informant accounts are full of "metaphoric" descriptions of
spiritual life in paradise. These descriptions can be quite rich,
detailing the characteristics of heavenly flora, environment and
resources, dwellings, and inhabitants and their qualities and ac-
tivities. The physical imagery in these accounts is useful for ana-
lyzing the goals and consequences of the transformations that
occur when nafs is shed and the spirit is freed from its influence. *
11. Nunari informant (male, age 35, farmer).
\. Gender, however, seems istill
and others in paradise. It would perhaps not be defined on the basis of genitals,
but upon what it would be based is not entirely clear.
ORALITY, P E R S O N H O O D , A N D T H E E X E M P L A R Y L I F E 207
Interviews in Karachi and Chakpur yielded a composite view of
paradise that is a fairly consistent picture of the "good life." Para-
dise itself is reputed to be a "well-forested garden" offering "re-
splendent, cool, and refreshing shade." In this garden are "fruit
g __ commonly apple, pear, and others." "Nuts" are also plen-
tiful. "Rivers and streams of milk, honey," and according to some,
"wine" flow through the garden. The inhabitants of paradise live
in either "ornate tents" or "palaces made of silver." Besides hu-
man spirits, "angels and Mris" (a species of "female" spirits) re-
side in the garden. The huris are "all virgins" and are bound to
"serve man." "Eternal youthfulness" pervades paradise, as all its
inhabitants are depicted as being of "beautiful and fresh counte-
nance." "Peacefulness," "tranquility," "serenity," and "kindness"
best characterize the dominant emotions and actions of heav-
enly beings. Humans in paradise can "get whatever they want,
whatever they may desire."13
This last characteristic — the unlimited fulfillment of any de-
sire_ is perhaps the most commonly mentioned attribute of
eternal existence and one that is often thought of as encompass-
ing all the other attributes. This state of affairs would be puz-
zling if it were not for the transformation effected by the per-
son in order to get to heaven. That heavenly persons can desire
"everything" or "anything" can only be understood in terms of
the fact that nafs, the source of wanton, hot or passionate desire,
has been eliminated.14 The transformation creates a person who,
once relieved of nafs, does not have the power to do evil. That is,
in spirit form, self-control (nafs kushi, nafs ko qabu), literally
"killed or controlled nafs," is a natural condition that by defini-
tion prevents man from debasing himself. Heavenly man has
no alternative to spirituality, but he has also lost his ability to
choose. His intellect (caql], without nafs, is incapable of choos-
ing to disobey God or of ignoring the imperatives of its spiritual
nature. There is simply no choice. Man is good and moral by vir-
tue of his divine nature alone. There is no test, no weighing of
good and evil, right and wrong. Man cannot go astray. Further-
13. Informant accounts and descriptions follow fairly well, in letter and spirit,
the image of the paradise on earth evoked in Abd al-Hakim Sharar, Paradise on
Earth (Fiidaus
barm], trans.
to be the Masud ul-Hasanfeature
distinguishing (Lahore, 1978).
of humans,
14. In Sharar's tale, Husain was startled to find this out in making advances to
his beloved, Zummard. The problem, as Zummard pointed out, was that she
was only a spirit being whereas Husain had retained his body and desires.
208 ADAB AS ISLAMIC I D E A L
more/ in the world of paradise/ everyone is to a large degree the
same, for spirit is not an individuating substance. Hence there is
little cause for conflict or dispute over resources. There is no
need to fight over such things as women, land, or wealth.
This new order is most clearly characterized by the institu-
tion of a "cool" regimen. As spirits composed of light, persons
are by their very nature of a "cool" disposition. The flora found
in the garden are cooling. The green color is soothing and exerts
a cool effect upon the "eyes." The "foods"—fruits, milk, honey,
and wine—are all on the cool side compared with the hotter
foods of worldly life, most notably meat.
The absence of meat, consisting of flesh—i.e., congealed blood
—that is obtained through the slaughter of animals and must be
prepared over fire, is noteworthy.15 Informants deny that meat
can be a source of sustenance in paradise, for two reasons. First,
most claim, all animals will be annihilated on judgment day be-
cause they lack spirit, which is required for membership in para-
dise. Animals will not be present in the garden. Second, some
argue, even if animals were to exist in paradise, their slaughter
could not be condoned, because it would necessitate the perfor-
mance of noncompassionate action. Even in this world, the argu-
ment goes, when animals are slaughtered, only "bi ism all ah"
(in the name of Allah) is pronounced upon the butchering. The
second part of what is in many contexts considered one phrase,
"ai-rahman ar-rahim" (most gracious, most merciful), is pur-
posely excluded, because butchering is not a means by which
mercy or compassion are suitably expressed. Informants find it
difficult to envision how such an action could be performed in
heaven, which is purported to be a repository of compassion.
Besides meat, grains—normally procured through agricultural
or horticultural activity—are also missing from the heavenly
diet. Although most grains and vegetables tend to be cooler than
meats, they require human activity for their planting, weeding,
tending, harvesting, and processing. Man's blood, as perspira-
tion, must be expended in order to produce them. But labor, a -
hot activity, is not part of the heavenly life.
To sum up, then, the foods of heaven are those things that be-
come food through their own ripening processes. They do not re-
15. Sura 56.21 clearly mentions the eating of fowl. Sharar has birds in his para- J
dise. There is, however, no indication of larger animals.
MORALITY, P E R S O N H O O D , A N D T H E E X E M P L A R Y LIFE 209
quire the expenditure of human energy. Borrowing from Levi-
Strauss, one might conclude that if the world is a "cooked"
place, heaven is a "ripe" one.16 In the former, the transitory
world, man must act upon nature because it is his own nature to
actively (heatedly) do so. In the latter, the eternal world, that of
paradise, man need only be acted upon by nature because his
own nature is cool or passive. The redefinition of the person,
then, implies a redefinition of the environment and the inter-
relationship between the two.
Similarly, in heaven, the emotions of heat and activity—an-
ger, greed, lust, jealousy, pride, and so on—are all absent. The
emotions, based upon the desire to possess, maintain posses-
sions, and guard against depossession, have no place in a para-
dise wherein possession itself is meaningless. The spirit, with-
out the body and nafs, does not have to "possess" anything.
In heaven, it is the cooler and more passive emotions that pre-
vail, i.e., contentment, tranquility, peacefulness, happiness, and
kindness.
Likewise, the intellectual faculty with its independent and in-
dividuating will is replaced by the power only to perform to the
dictates of its spiritual nature. It too becomes passive, losing the
active ability to make choices and decisions.
The often-alluded-to relationships with the huris would also
seem to fall into this pattern and be differentiated from worldly
sexual encounters. With both hurnans and hurls composed only
of spirit, it is difficult to countenance the hotter passions and sub-
stances associated with bodily existence as entering into their re-
lationships. Although several informants do believe that sexual
intercourse will be possible in heaven, these few join with the
vast majority in denying that offspring could ever be born there.
If intercourse does occur in paradise, it will be of a nonbodily
cooler form. The hotter substances—sperm and uterine fluids—
and the hotter passions—blood-boiling excitement, sexual in-
toxication (josh, mast)—will not be associated with the rela-
• tionship. Most informants, including city and village maulawis,
16. Extending this terminology, hell is perhaps a supercooked or overcooked
place. It is characterized by hellfire, boiling water, and black smoke. The diet is
boiling water and the fruit of a particularly noxious tree. Life is hard and the
regime calls for extreme activity. Voracious eating (according to Ali), labor, and
sexual activity (according to the informants) combine to make hell a hot and
untranquil abode.
210 ADAS AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
did not accept the idea that huns would provide sexual plea- .
sures. Instead, huris would provide spiritual pleasures while re- *
taining their eternal virginity.
In short, the person in passing from life to death, and then be- /
yond to afterlife, is transformed radically. His animal nature, in-
dicated by nafs and the body, is separated from his divine nature,
indicated by rah or spirit. His emotional and intellectual/moral
powers, rooted in the body, are shed, leaving only those powers
that emanate from his spiritual nature. The living, when they
die, embark upon a process that is intended to cool them and al-
low them to spend eternity in a cool paradise that in many ways
is opposed to the order of life experienced in the transitory
world. Death and afterlife enable man to destroy the animal
within him and realize that he is, after all, an angel.
The Transformation of Kin Identity
The aforementioned tradition that the mahdl will have milk in
his veins instead of blood, though of questionable popularity, is
nevertheless indicative of the belief that the heavenly social
order will be reconstituted in terms radically different from those
of the worldly order. For Karachites, the custom of dudh bak-
shana, or asking the forgiveness of one's mother for her feeding
of milk, before death, in order to facilitate the transformation
brought on by death (i.e., "a less painful," "more tranquil" pass-
ing) also points to the importance of milk and the identification
of a person with his mother in the next world.
The social order in this world is said to depend heavily upon
the constitution and maintenance of blood ties. Blood relation-
ships par excellence arise as a result of the transmission of a seed
(tukhm) by males to their offspring. This identity, expressed
through commonality of blood, and skewed toward males, is the
basis for such social units as the lineage (nasl), clan (kumba),
and family (khandan). Such units, when manifested as groups,
are thought to be maintained as a result of honorable action
(cizza). Such action, as regards the maintenance of group identity
and integrity, typically revolves around two issues—sex and vio-
lence. With regard to the former, the honor of the group depends
upon the regulation of the sexual impulses of its members, espe-
cially its women. The chastity of the women must be upheld if
the name or reputation of the group (nam) is not to be despoiled.
MORALITY, P E R S O N H O O D , AND THE E X E M P L A R Y LIPE 211
The exercise of sexual impulses (nafs}, though necessary for the
perpetuation of the group, may also prove to be detrimental. The
strategy of most groups studied is to channel these impulses
within the group by making endogamous marriages. Violence
and other means of force, usually in the form of concerted action
by males, are seen as means through which the group may up-
hold the chastity of its women, as well as compete with other
groups. The strength of a group, then, is accordingly gauged by
the number of males or "hands/arms" or "penises" (i.e., dande,
sticks) it can muster in a fight.
In this world, social groups not only are constituted on the
basis of what are thought of as "hotter" substances (blood, se-
men), but also rely on so-called "hotter" actions (intercourse,
violence) and their channelization for group survival and main-
tenance. It is also noteworthy that in this order it is the role of
males that is accentuated. Men provide both the dominant en-
ergy to perpetuate group existence and the dominant energy to
sustain and control that existence.
The social order in the paradisiacal world, though somewhat
attenuated (given informant accounts), opposes this order in two
distinct ways. First, it posits milk ties as a substitute for blood
ties, pointing to the "cooler" substance (milk) as a symbol of the
"cooler" relationships that obtain in paradise. Secondly, the heav-
enly order places greater emphasis upon spiritual ties (ruham)
vis-a-vis bodily ties (jismam), again illustrating the eternal "cool-
er" nature of the former and the transitory "hotter" nature of the
latter. Consonant with this reorientation, it is the role of females
and female functions that are highlighted.
A Nunari informant put the matter quite simply: "In this
world a man is his father's? in the next world, he is his moth-
er's."17 Both in Chakpur and Karachi two quotes were given over
and over again by informants when speaking about the next
world: "On the day of judgment people will arise to the name of
the mother, not that of the father," and "Heaven lies at the feet
of the mother." It is clear that the units of the family, the lineage,
and so on, based upon notions of blood and the preeminence of
the father, will come to an end on judgment day. Other-worldly
persons will not be "recognized" through their fathers, and iden-
tity will cease to be constituted in terms of commonality of blood.
17. Nunari informant (male, age 40, farmer).
212 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
But, significantly, the link between mother and child will con-
tinue. Whether or not chains of mother-child relationships will
be recognized—i.e., the constitution of female or mother-centric
families, clans, and lineages—is problematic, and most infor-
mants were extremely unclear or unsure on the issue.
In terms of the transformation of the person, the reorientation
toward milk ties is quite logical. In heaven there is neither inter-
course nor birth, neither marriage nor descent, hence it is diffi-
cult to imagine how the worldly social order could persist on
the same basis in paradise. However, in paradise there is nurture,
as evidenced by the paradisiacal environment. The streams of
milk present a powerful image of what mothering is supposedly
all about. Similarly, heavenly persons, as spirits, are by nature
"cool." They need only cool things to sustain them, and as
detailed above, it is only "cooler" substances and actions that
occur in heaven. Milk, as opposed to blood, is a cooler substance,
and the act of maternal nurture likewise exerts a cooling influ-
ence upon both mother and child. Substances associated with
fathers (i.e., blood) or spouses (i.e., sperm and reproductive fluids)
are very hot. And corresponding actions, such as birth and con-
ception/intercourse are likewise hot. Mothering and milk feed-
ing as symbols of nurture and coolness in this world are there-
fore appropriately applied to existence in the next world.
In addition, there is the notion that this world depends upon
the actions of men if families and kin units are to survive. It is
the man who must do hard work, outside the home, in order to
procure the requisite sustenance for his family. The family sur-
vives by the "sweat of his brow." But in the afterlife, survival
requires no such effort. Spirits do not have to plant crops or
work, as sustenance is readily available in abundance. If life in
this world is sustained by hard work, life in heaven is sustained
by soft or light work, or work that is, in a sense, not really work
at all. Again, the model of the mother in this world is suitably
applied to the idea of what it takes to survive in the next world.
The mother, as woman, ideally performs domestic chores, light
work requiring little or no sweat. In paradise, it is motherly ac-
tions, not fatherly ones, that sustain afterlife.
Finally, in this world, maternal relations based upon milk de-
fine identity for only a short time in comparison with blood ties.
The bonds of milk, or maternal blood, dissolve upon the death of
the mother and the termination of her nurturative actions (al-
MORALITY, P E R S O N H O O D , AND THE E X E M P L A R Y LI FE 213
though exchange with maternal kin may persist for some time).
Blood ties, however, are not broken as a result of death. They en-
dure beyond the life span of any individual link (until the day of
judgment) as a result of being associated with the transmission
of a seed through the reproductive process. In this world, blood
ties are strong and milk ties are weak, in part, because there are
such events as intercourse, birth, and death. In paradise, such
events do not occur, and the emphasis upon blood ties is with-
drawn and shifted instead to milk ties, that are suggestive of the
nurturative milieu.
In short, the heavenly order posits relationships based upon ties
of milk and cooler nurturing functions associated with mother-
hood that are thought to be appropriate to sustain a cool, soft,
and light form of life. This is opposed to the worldly order,
which emphasizes blood relationship and hotter functions asso-
ciated with fatherhood that are believed to be necessary in order
to cope with a hot, hard, and heavy form of life.
In addition to the shift from blood to milk as the sign of inter-
personal relationships, several informants suggested that spe-
cific spiritual relationships, initiated in this world, would endure
in heaven. These informants were quite conversant with such
terms as haqiql bap (eternal/real father) and majdzi bap (tem-
poral/transitory father). The former, also termed mhdm bap
(spiritual father) refers to one's murshid or pir, i.e., spiritual pre-
ceptor, and the latter, also referred to as jismani bap (physical
father), to one's father by blood. A pii in Karachi described their
respective functions succinctly: "Your majazi bap helps your
spirit (ruh) to come down into the body, my job [as haqiql bap] is
to help it go back up."18 In Karachi, where most informants did
not have pus, the intercessional role of the pn was questioned
and in many cases denied. In Chakpur, where all male infor-
mants had mmshids, there was no question that on judgment
day, the spiritual preceptor would accompany the person to the
Prophet and intercede on his behalf so that the Prophet would in
turn be able to help when Allah made his decision about the per-
son's fate.
• For example, a devotional song (nact) to Shah Jilani is fre-
quently heard in Chakpur:
18. Karachi informant (male, age 60, PIT).
T
214 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
He is the head of the pus,
He has freed those with chains,
He can bring up the sunken boats,
He is the owner of paradise,
He can make the dead alive.19 i>
And one informant, describing the path to heaven, replied in
verse:
Muhammad will be smiling in the garden,
Beneficently sprinkling flowers as we arise and enter,
Oh that dear God may free me from the body!
The kalima will be on my tongue and thoughts of Muhammad
in my heart.20
Comments to the effect that "followers sit in the shade of
their preceptor" and "feel peace and tranquility in his sight" in-
dicate that the pir-mund relationship is indeed ultimately a
cooling one that seeks to free the spirit from the influence of
nafs.21 Spiritual relationships are not restricted to the pii and his
followers. Fellow disciples acknowledge each other as pir bha'i,
or spiritual brothers. This chain of relationship can extend in
ways that mirror physical relationships, i.e., blood, so that one
can have spiritual brothers, uncles, grandparents, sons, and so
on. Several informants suggested that these relationships, recog-
nized in this world, would be continued in paradise. As with
milk ties, it was difficult to ascertain the degree and extent to
which such relationships would persist, as informants them-
selves did not have a very clear or elaborate notion of interper-
sonal relations in the next world. Yet this formulation, as ex-
pressed more strongly in Chakpur, clearly indicates the general
transformation of social solidarity from hotter physical relation-
ships in this world to the cooler spiritual relationships of the next.
19. Usually sung weekly on Friday by those gathered at the village mosque.
Informant, singer (male, age 45, mavlavn—cloth-painter).
20. Chakpuri informant (male, age 35, wage laborer).
21. The strategies adopted for attaining this cooler state may vary considerably.
Jamali orders may stress self-control in an effort to "cool off" by suppressing
and channeling nafs. Jalall orders may choose to "cool off" by "burning out,"
i.e., exercising nafs to the fullest degree in order to exhaust its energy. The
cooling strategy of the former and the heating strategy of the latter basically
strive for the same state.
MORALITY, P E R S O N H O O D , AND THE E X E M P L A R Y L I F E 215
The Transformation of Gender
The death celebrations of pus and notable personages are termed
'vis in both Urdu and Panjabi. In Arabic, "curs" means wedding
or union, and the use of the term is revealing as to how such
anniversaries are perceived. Rather than having the negative
connotation—to wit, that a person has left the world of the liv-
ing the use of "cws" highlights the belief that the spirit has
embarked on its way to join with the spirit of God. This process
of joining was, significantly, not perceived by informants as
something opposed to or inimical to life in paradise. Rather, it
was seen, especially in Chakpur, as a culmination or further de-
velopment of afterlife. Hence, though not bearing directly on
paradise per se, a discussion of this process seems to be in order.
The use of "cuis" to describe the union of the human spirit
with God carries with it a connotation of gender. Informants
readily agree that the inh of human beings is soft, delicate, and
feminine, and that Allah is masculine.
The masculinity of Allah is clear. Allah speaks and is spoken
to (in prayer, in the Qur'an) using the masculine form. Allah is
referred to quite often as Allah Miyan, Allah the master. Miyan
is also an appropriate term used for husband, and indeed many
female informants indicated that one's husband should be re-
garded as a khuda i majazi, or a temporal, worldly god. Several
of these informants, mostly from Karachi, declared, "If it would
be allowable to bow before anyone except God, it would be be-
fore the husband."
The parallels between the husband-wife relationship and the
God-man relationship are manifold, and similar symbols are
used to express both. Perhaps the most elaborated of these sym-
bols is that of cishq, intense and compelling possessive love. In
the world of mortals, cishq is majazi or temporary and refers to
the erotic love between a man and a woman. clshq has a posses-
sive connotation—for a man the desire to possess, for a woman
the desire to be possessed. The strength of the feeling rests in the
fact that attraction (laga'o, kashish) is between apparent op-
posites (as male-female) drawn to complementary unity (as a
jora, a pair or couple). In the haqiqi or eternal form, cishq refers
to the intense and compelling love between man and God. In
this application, cishq connotes man's desire to be united and
216 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
possessed wholly and completely by God. The relationship is
popularized in poetry as a relationship between friends (dost)
figuratively lovers. In this relationship, it is man who becomes
the metaphoric female/wife and God the metaphoric male/hus-
band. Popularly, the poet addresses himself as a woman and ex-
horts his/her lover to come for him/her.
An indication of this type of transformation is perhaps appar-
ent in certain orders of faqirs and malangs who call themselves
sada suhagan, the true brides of Allah. They wear long hair, du-
pattds, bangles, and other women's jewelry.22 Such groups are
common in Sind (at Sehwan for example), Punjab, and even Ka-
rachi. I interviewed one such malang at the mazai of cAbd Allah
Shah Ghazi in Karachi. I asked him if he were a man or a woman.
He replied, "I am both, I am neither."23 In relation to this world,
he was a man, not a woman. In relation to God, he was a woman'
not a man.
The union of man as female and God as male brings together
opposites as does worldly marriage. The means of doing so, and
the results, are appreciably different. The feeling for possessing
and being possessed runs parallel in each case. The dominant or
superior possesses the dominated or the inferior. In the worldly
order, two bodies are united in sexual intercourse. In the spirit-
ual order, the human spirit is reunited with that of God through a
process of spiritual "absorption." Whereas in the worldly order
the union of male and female through intercourse is a temporary
bond, the spiritual union of God and human is a permanent
bond. Intercourse is purely physical, but absorption is totally
spiritual. Whereas intercourse is hot and weakening, spiritual
liberation is cool and refreshing. And finally, where intercourse
brings forth a new individual body that arises from the union of
man and woman, spiritual liberation, instead of making some-
thing new, reforms something old, as it results in total absorp-
tion and emergence in God, causing the annihilation of the indi-
vidual and the cessation of individual existence (fana).
In order to enter into this relationship with God, man must
become more feminized. He must become more delicate, softer,
22. These groups should not be confused with hijias, who are merely trans-
vestites.
23. Karachi informant (male, age 80, malang). •'• '<»•
MORALITY, PERSONHOOD, AND THE E X E M P L A R Y L I F E 217
lighter, and hence cooler. It is in this form, with only rah, and
not nafs, that he can be most easily possessed and dominated
by God.
This process of f eminization is structurally similar to the other
transformations discussed above. Afterlife heralds an order in
which the relationships between the components of this-worldly
life become reordered and, to a large degree, reversed. In this life,
persons are defined in terms of the union of nafs and rah (and
the product— c aql). This arrangement requires that certain needs
and desires must be satisfied, hence it conditions the type of
life that humans can expect to live. The world, with a limited
amount of resources, is seen as a tough place where hard work,
fighting, and protection of self-interest (family name, women's
chastity) are necessary in order to survive. The performance of
these sustaining functions is primarily in the hands of men, as
their hotter and harder natures make it more appropriate for
them to perform these roles. The social order is dominated by
ties of blood, for these are founded upon the male's ability to per-
petuate the group. Milk relations are an important aspect of
worldly relationships but do not have the same import as blood
relations. Milk can only nourish, and it does not endure the trav-
ail of death. As a cool bond, it does not cause men to undertake
those hotter actions necessary for survival in a hot, hard, and un-
relenting world. Similarly, spiritual relations can help in one's
progress to control nafs, but this is a difficult path and can be
achieved only by such exceptional people as prophets and pus—
and even they must fall prey to the performance of bodily func-
tions. Finally, it is men and not women who are responsible for
sustaining the world order and making it work. Because of their
superior life energy, they are expected to dominate and possess
women.
In the spiritual order of things these relationships are radically
transformed. Nafs is shed, personhood is redefined, and the hot-
ter order is replaced by a cooler one. Paradise is a pleasant place
to live and does not call for the competition for or possession of
resources. Men need not labor to sustain their lives; as spirit be-
ings, they can adopt a passive way of life. There is no need to
x
perpetuate the group through physical means. Spirits need only
be sustained through the nurture paradise provides. Milk, as a
symbol of relationship, replaces blood, as spirit replaces body. Fi-
218 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL MORALITY, P E R S O N H O O D , AND THE E X E M P L A R Y LIPE 219

nally, in what perhaps is a culmination of afterlife, human spirits replicate heavenly existence in this world, and particularly in
are feminized in relation to God in order to be dominated and Pakistan, is a fairly common theme, which often, for example,
possessed. achieves expression in political rhetoric. Such a model calls upon
persons to "cool off" and allow divine spirituality to assert itself
This-Worldly and Other- Worldly Transformations vis-a-vis physical animality. This model suggests the institution
of a regimen that would replicate such transformations as occur,
Domain Temporal existence Eternal existence or are said to occur, after death. For example, in terms of this
Dominant/subordi- Subordinate/dominant model, one's diet should include cooler foods and exclude hotter
nate components components between ones. One should pursue cooler occupations and activities and
within and between humans and God refrain from hotter ones. One should be dominated by such
humans cooler emotions as compassion and sympathy rather than such
Person body/spirit spirit/God as hotter passions as anger, lust, and jealousy. One should properly
divine spirit use his ratiocinative faculty to obey God's commands and con-
Kinship blood/milk milk/Godliness form to the dictates of spirit rather than use this faculty in a dis-
substance as light obedient fashion to further animal desires. One should regard
Relational physical/ spiritual/God as nurturative relationships as the most enduring and realize that
identity spiritual transcendental bonds based only upon sexual attraction or birth will not ulti-
Gender male/female female/God as male mately endure. Consonant with this, moral worth, in the end,
is to be judged on the basis of proper, or in this case cooling ac-
Conclusion tion, which itself is not divorced from the person, but rather
indicates the ascendancy in the person of his divine spiritual
The conceptions of paradise as expressed by informants identify identity over his animalistic physical identity. The model for
man's divine spirit as the source of human immortality and his morality that paradise provides is universalistic, as all men en-
animal body as the source of mortality. Significantly, human rea- dowed with a common source of morality, i.e., rah, are capable
son is not the source of mortality nor does it occupy a central of performing the same actions and achieving the same status as
role in the heavenly scheme of things. Human reason merely ashiafi makhluqat, the noblest of creation.
functions, so to speak, as a temporary vehicle of this dual nature, Controverting this, however, is a popular feeling that the ap-
sometimes serving the cause of divine spirit, sometimes that of plicability of the heavenly model for earthly existence is inap-
the animal body. That humans in paradise may be thought of as propriate. The heavenly order does not countenance the violent,
moral by virtue of their transformed cooler nature suggests that passionate, and emotional desires rooted in human animal na-
moral action is achieved when nafs, the personification of this ture. Efforts to institute such an order on earth, insofar as they
animal nature, is controlled or suppressed. As indicated above, obfuscate this component of human nature, may run counter to
such action is typically characterized by what in indigenous the temporal, yet felt desires, of worldly humans.
terms is referred to as a "cool" regimen. This regimen, both a It has been suggested that adab may be considered in terms of
cause and an effect of moral action, is an integrated one, as it codes of conduct that have as their goal the control of intractable
includes various levels of human behavior, so that matters of human nature. Those persons who have adab (ba adab} are
diet, sexual behavior, emotional temperament, and ratiocina- thought to be endowed with exemplary qualities that somehow
tion may all be thought of as an interrelated whole relevant to set them apart from others. Adab provides a guide, so to speak,
moral action. for the right relationships—both with others and with one's own
As a vision of the ideal or exemplary, afterlife in paradise self. In this paper, I have argued that paradise entails an order of
provides a model of moral action in this world. The desire to existence in which the goals of adab are achieved. If according
7
220 ADAS AS I S L A M I C IDEAL

to indigenous thought the social order involves a continuing

battle between the spiritual need to control and the psycho-
biology of intractability, in heaven the victory is assuredly and
convincingly won. Paradisaical humans achieve the ultimate Shrines, Succession, and
realization of their own inner nature and their relationships to Sources of Moral Authority
others through the transformation of their own humanity. For
Karachites and Chakpuris the source of this transformation
the spirit of man—is thought to be eternal, existing not only in DAVID GILMARTIN
paradise, but in persons and social relationships of this world.
Heaven is always close by, and as a popularly quoted phrase from
the Qur'an has it, "Allah is nearer to you than your own jugular
vein." It is this source of identity and being, that which joins the
corporeal man with a transcendent Allah, that serves as the in-
spiration compelling men to attempt to realize an unattainable
heaven on earth.

One of the most persistent problems within the Indian Islamic

tradition has been the definition of the proper relationship be-
tween religious and political authority. The tension between po-
litical and religious authority has reappeared again and again in
different guises, and yet has repeatedly eluded effective resolu-
tion. In its roots, the problem may be inherent in Islam itself, for
the Islamic tradition tells its followers that religion and politics,
that the inner life and the social life, should be united. Yet in
practical terms, the political world of Muslim society, particu-
larly in the countryside, has at best been defined only partially
by Qur'anic ideals. One answer to this dilemma has been the
evolution in India of institutions which, though not providing
fundamental solutions to the inherent contradictions in Islam,
have traditionally served as hinges at which the popular political
organization of the mass of Indian Muslims and the system of
the Qur'an have met. In this study, the focus is on the evolution
of the authority wielded in recent times through one such in-
stitution, the rural daigah, which has traditionally presented a
form of Islam accessible to the great mass of the rural Muslim
population.
The focus in the following pages will be specifically on the
effects of political changes in the modern period on popular
Tf"
222 ADAS AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
expectations concerning the type of religious leadership that
these daigahs should provide. Two shrines in particular will
furnish the material for this study, two of the most important
Chishti daigahs of the western Punjab—the shrine of Baba Farid
Ganj i Shakar at Pakpattan and the shrine of Khwaja Sulaiman at
Taunsa Sharif on the Indus. Evidence, derived primarily frorn a
few British court cases, suggests that a study of the changing
character of the moral authority of the religious leaders at these
shrines may help to resolve larger questions concerning the rela-
tionship between Islamic ideals for social organization and the
popular political organization of Muslim India.
The shrine of Baba Farid is a natural focus for a study of rural
shrines in the Punjab, for it stands at the head of the Punjab's
rural daigahs, as one of the oldest and the most venerable. As
Richard Eaton has shown, the development of the shrine pro-
vides an almost classic case study of the close relationship be-
tween ecology and political structure on one hand and the orga-
nization of religious authority on the other. Dependent largely
on the support of gradually settling nomads in the ban country
between the Sutlej and the Ravi rivers, the shrine at Pakpattan
served from an early date as a bridge between the religious sys-
tem of the localities and the wider world of Islam. Although the
system of popular devotionalisrn that developed at the shrine
had little relationship to the Qur'anic tradition, the continued
presence of the spirit of Baba Farid himself provided both an in-
termediary vehicle for access to divine favor and a link to the
broader Islamic community. The recognition of Baba Farid as a
great sufi saint within the sunni tradition was visibly confirmed
at the shrine by the official recognition given by the Delhi court
and by the magnificent tombs constructed by the sultans on the
site. Political recognition from an early date thus underlay the
shrine's popular recognition as an important spiritual center,
and subsequently the role of the shrine as an intermediary reli-
gious focus within Islam was inextricably tied to its place within
a larger political system. Just as the spirit of Baba Farid was at the
hinge between the belief systems of the marginally Islamized
tribes and the Qur'anic tradition, the shrine's ritual also symbol-
ized its intermediary position between the local political systems
of the tribes and the larger Muslim empire. As Eaton shows, this
was embodied in the very terminology used to describe the orga-
SHRINES, SUCCESSION, AND MORAL AUTHORITY 223
nization and functioning of the shrine, terminology that was
drawn from the functioning of the Muslim court.1
The central figure of religious authority at the shrine was the
sajjada nishin, whose hereditary succession to the gaddi had
been established frorn an early date. The precise character of the
sajjada nishin's authority is difficult to define, however, be-
cause his authority derived from his simultaneous participation
in more than one system of values. As a descendant of Baba
Farid, he was the inheritor of the saint's baiaka, which placed
him in a line of direct access to the moral authority derived frorn
the saint's proximity to God. Such access to higher spiritual au-
thority was critical to the sajjada nishin's influence, and its im-
portance was reflected in continued sufi teaching at the shrine.
The successful exercise of the popular authority of the sajjada
nishin, however, also depended on his ability to operate effec-
tively in local politics. In sharp contrast with the ideal of reli-
gious leadership exemplified by Baba Farid, whose moral au-
thority was acquired by moving outside the world of normal
political relations in order to gain closer access to God, the reli-
gious influence of the sajjada nishin derived from the very fact
that he was able to operate within such an everyday political
world.
The character of the influence of sajjada nishins in the cen-
turies after Baba Farid was defined by the nature of the local
religious system that had developed around the shrine. The re-
ligious authority of the shrine was not centralized under the
sajjada nishin's control, but was dispersed among the entire
Chishti baiadaii, the descendants of Baba Farid in the districts
surrounding the shrine. These descendants were sometimes the
sajjada nishins of other small shrines in the area, the tombs of
many of Baba Farid's more pious descendants,2 and they were
1. Richard M. Eaton, "The Shrine of Baba Farid in Pakpattan, Multan Suba"
(Paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies, Los Angeles, April 1979),
p. 17.
2. How many such subordinate shrines existed is impossible to say, but reli-
gious leaders associated with several testified at the Pakpattan succession case
in the 1930s. Lahore High Court (LHC), Regular First Appeal no. 93 of 1939;
Dewan Ghulam Rasul vs. Ghulam Qutabuddin. Evidence, 2:66-99, 122-24,
167-68. There were also shrines to khalifas of the sajjada nishins at Pakpat-
tan, who were not themselves part of the Chishti baiadaii; for example, Evi-
dence, 2:199-200.1 should like to thank Dick Eaton for letting me use his cop-
ies of these evidence volumes.

224 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
sometimes substantial landowners and village officials.3 All
shared, however, in the moral authority that derived from Baba
Farid's own sanctity and in the access to divine favor which this
gave them, and all were able as pus to offer this access to others.
"All the descendants of Baba Farid," said one twentieth-century
witness, with only slight exaggeration, "do the business of Piri
Muridi."4 By the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the saj-
jada nishins of the shrine presided over a system of authority
that paralleled the local systems of authority headed by the
tribal chiefs and landowners. As Pamela Price has shown for an-
other part of India, such systems were themselves normally
based on the control of the movement of resources in a frame-
work in which power itself was extremely diffused.5
Ironically, though the moral authority of the shrine derived
from a single source, the exercise of such authority thus de-
pended largely on the sajjada nishin's political management of a
system of which the shrine was at the center. The success of a
sajjada nishin depended on his ability to increase the resources
that came into the shrine, both from the state and from the de-
votees, and to distribute those resources at the shrine itself
among the baiadari so that the number of adherents would be
increased and the prestige of the dargah maintained.6
The precise religious expectations of the sajjada nishin him-
self in these circumstances seem to have been somewhat am-
biguous and to have been closely tied to the changing political
3. In the 1890s the Chishtis owned 9 percent of all the land in Pakpattan tehsil.
P. J. Pagan, Final Report of the Revision of Settlement of the Montgomery Dis-
trict, 1892-99 (Lahore: Civil and Military Gazette Press, 1899), p. 25. Large
landowners and village officials appeared among the Chishtis who gave evi-
dence at the 1930 trial.
4. Statement of Shaikh Muhammad Din, Zaildar of Daliana. LHC, Appeal no.
93 of 1939, Evidence, 2:28.
5. Pamela Price, "Raja-dharma in Ramnad: Land, Litigation and Largess" (Paper
presented at the SSRC Conference on Intermediate Political Linkages, Berke-
ley, March 1978).
6. Perhaps the most obvious outward parallel between the display of authority
by the sajjada nishin and by local chiefs was in the maintenance of a langar or
free kitchen. The constant hospitality symbolized by a langar was important in
preserving the authority of many Punjab chiefs. Similarly, the maintenance of
a langar was critical for the status of a sajjada nishin. As Miyan Mahmud of
Taunsa said, "a sajjada nashin may or may not keep a langar; as far as I have
seen a sajada who keeps a langar is considered greater than one who does not."
Deposition of the plaintiff. Privy Council, PC Appeal no. 118 of 1921; Khwaja
Muhammad Hamid vs. Mian Mahmud and others. Evidence 2:31-41.
SHRINES, S U C C E S S I O N , AND MORAL AUTHORITY 225
context. Although in the early days the piety and the spiritual
reputation of the sajjada nishin were certainly important in
maintaining the reputation of the shrine at court and thus en-
hancing its prestige, subsequent changes in the political roles of
the sajjada nishins appear to have also affected the exercise of
their local religious authority. The interrelationship of the politi-
cal context with the character of the religious leadership offered
by the sajjada nishin at Pakpattan was perhaps most clearly
demonstrated by the situation during the years of Mughal de-
cline, when the diwans of Pakpattan asserted their political in-
dependence of the Mughals and battled with neighboring rajas
and with the Sikhs to defend their own petty kingdom. Although
far more extensive research would be necessary to verify this,
important changes in the style of religious leadership of the saj-
jada nishins seem to date to this period.
From the time of the sixteenth diwan, the Pakpattan sajjada
nishins, as local tradition had it, "were inclined to make con-
quests, to maintain armies, and to build forts. They themselves
stopped giving spiritual education and employed Maulvis, Imams,
Khatibs and Mubalighs for the purpose."7 Although it can be
doubted whether this was a completely new element at that
time, we can speculate on the general political pressures that
may have led to this development. As the local political system
of the shrine became increasingly separated from the larger Mus-
lim empire, there seems to have been a concomitant tendency
toward functional specialization between the making of murids,
which the sajjada nishins continued to do, and the providing of
religious instruction and the leading of prayers—functions that
symbolized the inclusion of the sajjada nishin and his followers
in the larger Muslim community. With the sajjada nishin him-
self no longer playing an intermediate political role in a larger
Muslim empire, but instead concentrating his attention on his
local political leadership in mobilizing his murids for battle, the
religious functions linking the shrine to the Qur'anic tradition
were more appropriately assigned by the sajjada nishin to subor-
dinate religious specialists. This did not mean that the shrine
had ceased to be a crucial link between the local traditions and
the greater tradition of Islam, but indicated that the type of reli-
k 7. Evidence of Muhammad Husain, Qureshi, age 37, zamlndai of Pakpattan.
, LHC, Appeal no. 93 of 1939, Evidence, 2:278.
 226 ADAS AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
gious leadership provided by the sajjada nishin had changed
with the changing character of his political position.
The importance of the political context for the types of re-
ligious leadership provided at such rural shrines can be seen
even more clearly in the development during this same period of
the second shrine in our discussion, the one at Taunsa. Although
more recent, the shrine at Taunsa followed closely the pattern at
Pakpattan, for the shrine, which developed on the west bank
of the Indus in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
drew much of its support from an area in which largely nomadic
Baloch and Pathan tribes had come under increasing political
pressures and, particularly after the middle of the nineteenth
century, were gradually settling.8 The larger political milieu in
which the shrine developed, however, contrasted sharply with
the pre-Mughal situation in which the shrine at Pakpattan had
emerged. The religious impulse that inspired the establishment
of Khwaja Sulaiman's khanaqah at Taunsa had originated during
the eighteenth century at Delhi in a period of declining Muslim
political authority. In contrast with the strictly spiritual con-
cerns of Baba Farid, therefore, Khwaja Sulairnan drew his in-
spiration from a tradition that in its origins was preoccupied
with a concern for popular religious reform as a religious answer
to the decline of Muslim power. Religious reformers at Delhi, of
whom Shah Wall Allah was the most famous, had increasingly
emphasized during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the
importance of educating Muslims and of popular Muslim orga-
nization according to Qur'anic ideals as compensation for the
'collapse of Mughal authority. The immediate spiritual mentors
of Khwaja Sulairnan were not direct disciples of Shah Wall Allah,
but they were nevertheless strongly influenced by these same re-
formist concerns. Shah Fakhr ad-Din of Delhi and his most im-
portant khalifa, Khwaja Nur Muhammad Maharwi, had sought
in the eighteenth century to spread this reforming spirit through
a revitalization of the Chishti order, seeking to reach the still
8. The character of the following at the Taunsa shrine requires more research.
It appears, however, that the influence of the shrine, which is in the Indus river
plain, increased markedly at the same time that the influence of the shrine of
Sakhi Sarwar, situated at the base of the hills, was gradually declining in the late
nineteenth century. The shift may be explained by a decline in the nomadic
movement of the Baloch to the hills and increased agricultural settlement
in the river plain. At the moment, however, this is speculation. The work of
Emily Hodges may help to illuminate the matter.
S H R I N E S , S U C C E S S I O N , A N D MORAL A U T H O R I T Y 227
partly Islamized and politically semi-independent tribes. Khwaja
Nur Muhammad established a khanaqah north of Bahawalpur
near the frontier of settled society, and his khalifa, Khwaja Sulai-
rnan, established his own Taunsa khanaqah 150 miles farther
west.9 Set among the tribes of the western Punjab, this khana-
qah and the subsequent shrine displayed many of the same
institutional features that had characterized the shrine at Pak-
pattan, but—because of its intellectual antecedents in the re-
forming tradition at Delhi—these were overlaid by a strong em-
phasis on religious education and popular reform.
Ironically, the khanaqah of Khwaja Sulairnan thus emerged as
a center of reforming rural religious leadership only a short time
after the dlwans of Pakpattan had begun to withdraw from an
active, educating religious role. At the same time that the dlwans,
were abandoning their role as religious instructors, Khwaja
Sulairnan of Taunsa was emphasizing more strongly than ever
the instruction of his disciples in the shari'a, a task in which he
was accompanied at one time by as many as fifty of his khalifas
at the Taunsa khanaqah.10 This was not merely a return to the
"other-worldly" religious style of Baba Farid, for particularly un-
der Khwaja Sulaiman's successor, Khwaja Allah Bakhsh, the au-
thority of the sajjada nishin at Taunsa was to become as firmly
embedded in its own local political milieu as was that of the
dlwans of Pakpattan. Rather, the style of religious leadership at
Taunsa represented an alternative religious answer to a general
crisis in the nature of rural religious authority that had followed
the collapse of the Muslim state.
With the establishment of colonial rule, the religious rela-
tionship between the locality and the world of Islam could no
longer be effectively defined in the nineteenth century, whether
at Taunsa or Pakpattan, by the political relationship between the
local leaders and an imperial state. Changes in the character of
religious leadership at both shrines can best be seen, therefore,
as part of a wider search in a new political context for new bases
of authority—not, ultimately, for a new source of moral au-
thority, for that could not change, but for new standards of reli-
9. The careers of Shah Fakhr ad-Din of Delhi, Khwaja Nur Muhammad
Maharwi, and Khwaja Sulairnan of Taunsa are all traced in Khaliq Ahmad
Nizarni, Tarikh i Masha'ikh i Chisht (Karachi: Maktaba i 'Arifin, 1975),
pp. 460-560, 608-66.
10. Nizami, Tarikh i Masha'ikh i Chisht, pp. 620-22.
228 ADAS AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
gious leadership in the new political context. In the remainder of
this chapter, I shall look at one manifestation of the changing
character of religious leadership at that time — disputes over reli-
gious succession. Such disputes represented only one limited
aspect of the problem, but they highlight in a particularly acces-
sible way the changing principles, under an alien regime, on
which the moral authority of these sajjada nishins was based.
Succession and Moral Authority: The Case of Pakpattan
The nineteenth- and twentieth- century battles over the succes-
sion at Pakpattan were especially significant, for they indicated
the principles on which the authority of the sajjada nishins had
come to rest. As a dispute between the grandson and the uncle of
the late sajjada nishin demonstrated in the 1880s, succession at
the shrine was at that time subject to several traditional con-
straints that pointed to the origins of the moral authority which
the sajjada nishins claimed to exercise. First, though the suc-
cession had normally been hereditary, the validity of the ap-
pointment of a successor — even his eldest son — by the old saj-
jada nishin depended on his receipt of a revelation from "the
spirit of Baba Farid-ud-din."n In fact, the question of such a reve-
lation does not seem to have seriously impeded the old sajjada
nishin's free right of appointment, but the appeal to such a reve-
lation, no matter whom the successor, indicated clearly the con-
tinuing centrality of Baba Farid as the source of the sajjada
nishin's moral authority. It was Baba Farid himself who, in effect,
with his direct access to God, decided who would occupy his
worldly seat of authority.
This constraint on the succession was balanced, however, by a
strong appeal to the right of the general body of murids, and
more specifically of the Chishti bamdan, to approve the deci-
sion. The basis for this claim lay partly in the common interest
of all members of the bamdan in the shrine, as all shared in the
sanctity of which Baba Farid was the source, but it also pointed
to the strong political element in the authority exercised by the
sajjada nishin. Although his authority derived ultimately from
Baba Farid's own close association with God, the exercise of that
11. Report of PC Appeal, 1894; Sayad Muhammad vs. Fatteh Muhammad and
others. Indian Law Reports, Calcutta series, 22:328.
SHRINES, SUCCESSION, AND MORAL AUTHORITY 229
authority was by no means absolute, but depended also on the
consent of those who participated in the religious system at the
shrine. Without such consent, the very basis for his religious au-
thority would be compromised. The key to the authority of the
sajjada nishin thus lay in the traditional balance between these
contrasting elements—elements that reflected the simultaneous
links of the system to the Islamic moral order and to the political
systems of the countryside.
As the succession crisis of the 1880s demonstrated, the very
presence of the British courts tended to upset this balance. The
existence of a higher court of appeal for deciding the succession
was not in itself a challenge to the moral authority of the shrine,
for the grounding of the shrine within a larger political system
clearly implied its traditional subordination in such matters to a
higher political authority. Rather, such an appeal to the British
implied a disjunction between the religious and the political ele-
ments in the sajjada nishin's authority. As representative of the
sovereign political authority, the role of the British courts, de-
spite their adversary format, came very close to the traditional
mediatory role of the sovereign in the localities—a role reflected
in the courts' strong legal emphasis on the reaching of a settle-
ment based on the customs of the locality. The decision of the
courts was in fact well suited to the preservation of the legiti-
mate political authority of the sajjada nishin as an intermediary
between the locality and the empire, and to the preservation un-
der the British of the local customs that nurtured the shrine. But
the decision was nevertheless rendered in a context that isolated
it from the value system of Islam/ a situation emphasized by the
way the court weighed the contrasting customs affecting the
shrine's succession. Although the courts tried to assess, for ex-
ample, the customary political claims of the murids and of the
Chishti bamdan in determining the succession, they found it
far more difficult to assess the legal significance of the religious
claims of Baba Farid. As a prominent Muslim lawyer put it, "it is
not in the province of a civil Court to decide whether a particu-
lar Sajjada Nashin has received a revelation from the founder."12
12. The quote comes from a later case, but the court faced the same problem in
the 1890s. Report of LHC, Appeal no. 93 of 1939; Diwan Ghulam Rasul vs.
Ghulam Qutab-ud-Din. All India Report (AIR) (Lahore, 1942), p. 144. The law-
yer quoted is Sir Wazir Hasan.
230 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
The court could in fact weigh whether or not such a revelation
had been communicated by the old sajjada nishin to his fol-
lowers, but even at that, the emphasis fell not on the religious
significance of the revelation but on the immediate political
pressures involved in its communication.13 The result was that
in practice the moral authority deriving directly from Baba Farid
and thus indirectly from God, became largely irrelevant to the
official succession of the sajjada nishin. In official eyes, his right
to succeed was determined primarily by the customs associated
with the sajjada nishln's political leadership in the local context.
This of course did not mean that the sajjada nishin was de-
nied the authority that derived in the eyes of his muiids from his
descent from Baba Farid. Although in the 1880s and 1890s the
official sajjada nishin changed three times during the course of
litigation as the District Court, the Chief Court of Punjab, and
the Privy Council each in turn reversed the other and installed a
new sajjada nishin, there is no evidence that the popular follow-
ing of the shrine was significantly affected.14 For most of the
shrine's rural followers who sought out the sajjada nishin for
mediation, it does not seem to have mattered precisely what sort
of man the sajjada nishin was, or whether he had been named
in a confirmed revelation, so long as he was a descendant of
Baba Farid and carried out the shrine's rituals. As one witness
declared, "I am a follower of the Gaddi nashin (sic), whosoever
may be occupying it."15 But the increasing dissociation of the
13. The problem the courts had with the issue is indicated by their tendency to
judge the question of the legitimacy of the sajjada nishln's appointment ac-
cording to legal standards of "undue influence." If the old dlwan could be
shown, in other words, not to be in possession of sufficient faculties to decide
the issue rationally, and was therefore influenced to make an appointment
without recognizing the consequences, then the appointment could, the courts
argued, be thrown out. This was precisely the line taken by the Chief Court of
Punjab in rejecting the old diwan's appointment of Sayyid Muhammad, though
this decision was later reversed. Obviously this left little room for a legal con-
sideration of the receipt of a revelation from Baba Farid. If, for example, the
dlwan was shown not to be of legally sound mind, then could a revelation from
Baba Farid himself be thrown out as "undue influence"? Indian Law Reports,
Calcutta Series, 22:329.
14. The popular following of the shrine is of course hard to judge. But P. J.
Fagan, writing in 1898 just after the succession dispute, noticed no decline in
the shrine's popularity, and estimated the yearly attendance at the cuis to be
between fifty and seventy thousand. P. J. Fagan, Gazetteer of Montgomery Dis-
trict, 1898-99, pp. 237-39.
15. Evidence of Pir Khan, Wattu, age 62, LHC, First Appeal No. 93 of 1939, Evi-
dence 1:138.
SHRINES, S U C C E S S I O N , A N D M O R A L A U T H O R I T Y 231
sajjada nishin from the value system of Qur'anic Islam never-
theless deeply affected the shrine's traditional position as a hinge
between the culture of the locality and the larger Muslim
community.
Perhaps the most striking demonstration of this was the char-
acter of the new sajjada nishin himself. Dlwan Sayyid Muham-
mad, who had ultimately emerged successfully from the court
challenges of the late nineteenth century, was not himself a
learned religious man or a sufi teacher. As the salaried khatib of
the jamic masjid at the Pakpattan dargah declared, though the
dlwan continued to make murids, he was not a religious teacher;
he "used to get information about religion from me."16 What was
emerging as increasingly significant under the British was that
neither the sajjada nishln's personal teaching and example nor
the structural position of the shrine could provide the religious
system of the shrine with a firm place in the tradition of Islam.
In the wake of the shrine's encounter with the British courts, the
growing separation of the shrine's political place in the empire
from its religious place within the value system of Qur'anic Is-
lam was becoming increasingly clear.
This situation naturally produced criticism of the role of the
sajjada nishin from those outside the local rural context who
were concerned with the definition of general standards of reli-
gious leadership and authority for the Muslim community. The
most pointed religious criticism in the twentieth century came
from culama' in the reformist tradition, who had long been sen-
sitive to the lack of a central Muslim political authority and had,
as a result, offered a view of Islamic authority that was defined
not in political but in idealist terms. These 'ulama' were critical
not only of the lack of religious guidance offered by sajjada
nishins such as the dlwan of Pakpattan, but also of the very na-
ture of the mediation in such local systems, which aimed toward
the linking of the local Muslims to the values of Islam through
the interposition of the sajjada nishins and the shrines rather
than through the dissemination of Islamic standards of personal
behavior. For them such a mediatory solution had become mean-
ingless under the alien British regime.17
16. Evidence of Maulawi cAbd al-Haq, Qureshi Chiraghi, khatib, jamif masjid
and head qadl, Pakpattan. LHC, Appeal no. 93 of 1939, Evidence 2:213.
17, The rejection of the religious authority of these sajjada nishins, as a result
of their political associations under the British, was perhaps most eloquently
232 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
A more practical approach to reform, however, came from the
Chishti pus in the reformist line that had included the pu of
Taunsa, who recognized the continuing vitality, even under the
British, of the local Muslim political systems that had long nur-
tured the religious authority of the shrines. These pus, unlike
the reformist culama', did not underestimate the significance of
the political context in which the shrine's religious leadership
was exercised, but offered instead new standards of religious
commitment in the local context for the sajjada nishins them-
selves. Pir Mihr cAli Shah of Golra, for example, who was one of
the most reform-minded of the new Chishti pus, recognized
clearly the continuing importance of the political component in
the local religious authority of the diwans of Pakpattan, even
under the British. Demonstrating his own awareness of the sig-
nificance of a symbolic political model for the organization of
authority at the daigah, Mihr cAli Shah observed that he person-
ally reserved for the darbai of an important sahib i sajjada such
as the diwan of Pakpattan the respectful behavior (adab) that
others reserved solely for worldly (i.e., government) officers.18
Despite his own refusal, like that of many of the culama', to as-
sociate politically with the British, therefore, he recognized the
political responsibilities that the diwan's political position re-
quired him to fulfill. Although Mihr cAli Shah himself refused
an invitation to attend the Delhi daibai of 1911, for example, on
the grounds that for him to attend would be an insult to Islam,
he admitted that it was nevertheless proper for the diwan sahib
to attend, as the diwan—in addition to being a pu—also claimed
status as a jagiidar dating back to the days of Islamic govern-
ment.19 The main problem in defining new standards for the ex-
ercise of the religious authority of the sajjada nishin was there-
fore to reconcile reformist standards with the maintenance of
the sajjada nishin's political position—to restore, in effect, the
expressed by Muhammad Iqbal. In his poem, "To the Punjab Pirs," Iqbal con-
trasted his craving of "the saints' gift, other-worldliness" with what one could
actually expect to get from sajjada nishins in twentieth-century Punjab:
"God's people have no portion in that country / Where lordly tassel sprouts
from monkish cap; / That cap bred passionate faith, this tassel breeds / Passion
for playing pander to Government." V. G. Kiernan, trans., Poems from Iqbal
(London: John Murray, 1955), p. 58.
18. Maulana Paid Ahmad Paid, Mihr i Munlr (Golra: Sayyid Ghulam Muhi ad-
Din, 1973?), p. 291.
19. Ibid., p. 283.
S H R I N E S , S U C C E S S I O N , A N D MORAL A U T H O R I T Y 233
balance between the authority he could claim in a system of Is-
lamic values and that which derived from his role in the local
political context.
The pressures for reform and the political problems such re-
form entailed, however, were indicated most clearly in the wake
of another succession crisis at the Pakpattan shrine in the 1930s
—one that exposed once again the bases of the moral authority
of the sajjada nishin of the shrine of Baba Farid to public scru-
tiny. This crisis, which erupted on the death of Diwan Sayyid
Muhammad in 1934, was in many ways similar to the cases of
the 1880s and 1890s, for the issues revolved around the tradi-
tional clash of the old diwan's right of appointment with the
right of the baradan "to approve or reject any nomination made
by the last holder and in the last resort itself to select a suc-
cessor."20 But the case also brought to the forefront the problem
of defining the sajjada nishin's suitability for religious leader-
ship in reformist terms—terms independent of the rights of ei-
ther Baba Farid or the baiadan.
This issue was called into question particularly by the claims
put forward by one side in the case for the succession to the
gaddiby the old diwan's minor son, Ghulam Qutb ad-Din, who
was only eleven years old at the time of the diwan's death. To
bolster its own claim, the opposing side in the case argued that
the succession of a minor at Pakpattan was not compatible with
the important position of religious leadership the diwan would
have to fill, for it was "utterly inconsistent with Mahomedan
law."21 This argument by no means indicated an acceptance by
the baradari of Muslim law as the touchstone for the moral au-
thority of the sajjada nishin, for the lawyers in the case them-
selves admitted that the local customs of the shrine had always
outweighed Muslim law with regard to the establishment of suc-
cession. Nevertheless, the introduction of this consideration
into the case pointed toward the recognition of standards outside
the customary religious system of the shrine—standards that
tied the shrine to the ideals of the community as a whole. Al-
though such standards hardly preoccupied the competing par-
ties, the implications of an awareness of these standards for the
type of leadership that could be expected of the sajjada nishin
20. Diwan Ghulam Rasul vs. Ghulam Qutab-ud-Din, AIR, Lahore, 1942, p. 143.
21. Ibid., p. 144.
 234 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
were indicated clearly by at least one witness in the case, a vil-
lage lambardar and a muiid of the gaddi, who had been exposed
to religious influences outside the local system while studying
for a year in a madrasa at Kasur. The succession of a minor to
the gaddi would be inappropriate, he thought, because a minor
could not possibly perform the duties that a sajjada nishin would
be expected to perform. Not only would a minor as yet lack reli-
gious education, but, equally important, he could not meet the
standards of religious leadership that the Islamic tradition re-
quired; "a minor cannot," he noted, "lead in prayers."22
Although the succession of Ghulam Qutb ad-Din to the gaddi
was subsequently confirmed by the court, the concern with the
kind of leadership that could be expected of a minor sajjada
nishm by no means disappeared. On the contrary, the education
and training of the young diwan and the management of the
shrine during the diwan's minority subsequently became the
subject of intense public debate—a debate precipitated by a Brit-
ish move to take the estate of the shrine under the Court of
Wards and to educate the sajjada nishm themselves. Perhaps as
nothing else could have, this British move galvanized local con-
cern for the protection of the religious authority of the sajjada
nishin, for it dramatized, even within the local context, the dis-
sociation between the shrine's political and its religious posi-
tion. The underlying motive of the British was only to preserve
their traditional political relationship with the shrine by making
special arrangements for the management of the estate during
the dlwan's minority and by training the sajjada nishln in such
a way as to ensure that the exercise of his authority continued to
fit effectively into the British political system. The direct take-
over of the administration of the shrine, however, highlighted as
never before the strength of the shrine's political ties to the alien
British Government, and thus called into question, even for
many at the local level, the effective religious functioning of the
sajjada nishln. As a petition from the sajjada nishln of one of
the subordinate Chishti shrines near Pakpattan indicated, the
takeover of the shrine by the Court of Wards was seen as politi-
cal interference in the functioning of the shrine—a challenge
that represented a threat to the dlwan's authority to perform the
22. Evidence of Qamar Din, Bhatti Rajput, age 62, cultivator and lambaidai.
f LHC, Appeal no. 93 of 1939, Evidence, 2:38.
SHRINES/ SUCCESSION, AND MORAL AUTHORITY 235
shrine's religious rituals.23 The Anjuman Islamia, Montgomery,
put the issue even more bluntly: the British takeover would, it
declared, "seriously undermine the diwan's position and the sta-
tus of the gaddi." This would, it implied, undercut the authority
of the sajjada nishln even within the local network; "income
from religious sources," it warned, "will dwindle."24
The most open concern with defining new standards of moral
authority, however, was prompted by the British plan to send the
young sajjada nishm to the Aitchison Chiefs College in Lahore
for his education. For the reformist Chishti pus this marked the
crux of the issue, for though they had accepted the importance of
the sajjada nishin's political position within the British system,
his education at Aitchison College would signal his absorption
into the British value system as well. As a very result of his po-
litical position, they had come to see an increasing emphasis on
his religious education as absolutely essential to the continued
maintenance of his moral authority. Even before the old diwan's
death, therefore, these religious leaders had strongly criticized
an attempt by the old diwan himself to send his son to Aitchi-
son, an attack that had soon forced the diwan to withdraw the
youngster from the school.25 Now that Ghulam Qutb ad-Din had
succeeded to the gaddi it was even more critical that he be trained
in a proper way so as to maintain the links of the sajjada nishin
to the moral values of Qur'anic Islam. As the mother of the
young diwan sahib reported to the governor in 1936, the pro-
posal to send the boy to Aitchison was being "hotly opposed by
the Sajjada nashins of Ajmer, Delhi, Mangrol, Piran Kalyar, Golra
Sharif, Taunsa Sharif, Bassi Sharif, Hansi, Upana and Khwaja
Hasan Nizami of Dargah of Khwaja of Nizamuddin Aulia, Delhi,
etc." "They still persist," she emphasized, "in maintaining that
the sajjada nashin should be a Darwesh and he has no need of
receiving the education which is imparted to the sons of rich
families."26 As an answer to the dilemmas in the sources of the
23. Petition from a number of followers of Baba Farid, submitted through Pir
Muhammad Badar Din, sajjada nishin of Opana, Tehsil Muktsar, Ferozepore,
n.d. Punjab Board of Revenue, File 601/1/24/17.
24. Telegram, Anjuman Islamia, Montgomery, to Revenue Member, Punjab,
19 October 1936. Punjab Board of Revenue, File 601/1/24/17.
25. Details reported to be in Munadi (Delhi), May 1935. Punjab Board of Reve-
nue, File 601/1/24/17.
26. Petition, the mother of Diwan Qutb ad-Din to Government. 2 November
1936. Punjab Board of Revenue, File 601/1/24/17.
 236 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
authority of the sajjada nishin, these pus thus looked finally to
a new emphasis on religious education, as an essential element
in the definition of the moral authority wielded by the sajjada
nishin.
The Case of Taunsa: Rais and Darwesh
The balance between religious education for a sajjada nishin
and the ability to operate effectively within the rural political
milieu in British Punjab was of course not an easy one to main-
tain or to define. The practical dilemmas in the development of
such a model for the behavior of a sajjada nishin under the Brit-
ish were demonstrated in the twentieth century by a series of dis-
putes over the succession to the gaddi of the shrine of Taunsa.
Although the sajjada nishins who succeeded Khwaja Sulai-
man generally continued his emphasis on religious education
and built new schools at the shrine, they became increasingly
susceptible in the twentieth century to the same sorts of local
political pressures as those affecting the shrine at Pakpattan. By
the turn of the century, the shrine at Taunsa had developed nei-
ther a distinct Chishti baradarinor a complex set of succession
customs such as existed at Pakpattan, but the shrine, under the
leadership of Khwaja Sulaiman's grandson, Khwaja Allah Bakhsh,
111 had nevertheless developed strong ties with the local political
networks of southwest Punjab. It was, in fact, precisely Khwaja
Allah Bakhsh's ability to expand the social and political influ-
ence of the shrine that had earned him a reputation among many
as "an even greater saint" than Khwaja Sulaiman.27 Working
astutely to develop strategic political alliances, Khwaja Allah
Bakhsh was able to attract the contributions needed to build an
impressive group of buildings at the shrine. As at Pakpattan
centuries earlier, such outward display of political recognition
proved critical in creating and providing a validation for the
shrine's growing popular religious influence. As a court deposi-
tion related in describing this process, "Allah Bakhsh appears to
have been a very businesslike as well as a very saintly man," a
combination that accounted for his particular influence.
27. Report of Punjab Chief Court, First Civil Appeal no. 452 of 1913; Khwaja
Mahmud vs. Khwaja Muhammad Hamid and others. Indian Cases, 38 (1917):
387-88.
SHRINES, S U C C E S S I O N , A N D M O R A L A U T H O R I T Y 237
During his lifetime the mosque and the family tomb became places to
which pilgrims resorted in considerable numbers, particularly on the
occasion of the urs or fair held on the anniversary of Khwaja Suleman's
death. With the offerings made to him by these pilgrims, with the con-
tributions from the Nawab of Bahawalpur and other neighbours, and
with the money made in agriculture and in trade which he started, and
also with the estate of his sons hereinafter mentioned, he built all or
nearly all the buildings at Taunsa.28
Khwaja Allah Bakhsh himself appears to have been able dur-
ing his lifetime to balance effectively his roles as a religious
teacher and as an increasingly important local magnate. The ten-
sion between these roles, however, even at a shrine like Taunsa,
which had developed initially with a strong reformist impulse,
became evident in disputes over the succession after his death.
The basic cause of the succession disputes at Taunsa was the
marriage connections that had been established by Khwaja Allah
Bakhsh in order to bolster the social and political position of his
family. Khwaja Allah Bakhsh, who was himself by caste a Pathan,
took as his third wife the daughter of Ghulam Qadir Khan Khak-
wani of Multan District, who was one of the wealthiest and
largest Pathan landowners of southwest Punjab. This marriage,
which was no doubt calculated to improve his social status and
to bring land into his family, succeeded admirably, for Ghulam
Qadir Khan fixed three hundred squares of land in Multan Dis-
trict on the heirs of Khwaja Allah Bakhsh by his daughter. The
result was that Khwaja Allah Bakhsh's son by this marriage,
Miyan Mahmud, emerged as a wealthy landed proprietor, who
himself contracted several socially and politically strategic mar-
riages with leading Pathan families of Dera Ismail Khan.
It was Miyan Mahmud's growing political connections that
laid the groundwork for the eruption of a protracted conflict over
succession at the shrine. Despite his rising social position, Miyan
Mahmud was not the oldest son, and consequently, at the death
of Khwaja Allah Bakhsh, it was not the well-connected Miyan
Mahmud, but rather the more saintly but less wealthy Miyan
Muhammad Miisa, who succeeded to the gaddi. Miyan Mah-
rnud's social and political position, however, had placed him at
28. Summary of Respondent's Case, background on Khwaja Allah Bakhsh. PC
Appeal no. 118 of 1921; Khwaja Muhammad Hamid vs. Mian Mahmud and
others, 3 (pt. 2): 3.
238 ADAS AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
the center of a group of influential and wealthy religious fol-
lowers, which made his influence at the shrine undeniable even
in the face of Miyan Muhammad Musa's official succession. The
succession thus produced immediate tension, which was initially
mediated by a council of tumandars or Baloch tribal chiefs, and
later by a local maulawl.29 With the death of Miyan Muhammad
Musa in 1906, however, the dispute broke into the open when
opposing groups favoring the succession of Miyan Muhammad
Musa's son, Miyan Hamid, on the one hand, and Miyan Mah-
mud on the other held rival dastaibandi ceremonies. Although
the British Deputy Commissioner officially recognized Miyan
Hamid's claim, Miyan Mahmud secured the intervention of
Diwan Sayyid Muhammad of Pakpattan, who arrived in Taunsa
and ceremonially placed "the sacred relics" indicating succes-
sion to the gaddi on Miyan Mahmud's head.30 To gain full reli-
gious control of the shrine, it was ultimately Miyan Hamid who
had to sue, claiming that Miyan Mahrnud was infringing upon
his prerogatives and performing religious rituals at the shrine
that were by right the responsibility of the sajjada nishin.31
The case between Miyan Hamid and Miyan Mahmud drama-
tized, on the surface at least, the tension between opposing styles
of religious leadership. As John Maynard observed when he vis-
ited the shrine in 1911, the two pus represented markedly differ- A
ent styles. Miyan Hamid's style seemed to be closer to that of a "
daiwesh) he was a generally reclusive religious man who avoided
contact with British government officers. Miyan Mahmud, on
the other hand, was a frequent visitor at government offices who
cultivated his political contacts. "I recollect nothing," Maynard
stated, "[except] that this older gentleman's [Miyan Mahmud's]
manner and dress differed markedly from those of the younger •
gentleman [Miyan Hamid] whom I understood to be the sajjada
nishin. The older gentleman appeared to be a man of the world, a j
rais. I should say the younger had a very retiring and modest ap- :
pearance."32 The course of the conflict indicated, however, that v •
29. Khwaja Mahmud vs. Khwaja Muhammad Hamid and others. Indian Cases,'
38 (1917): 388.
30. Letter, H. A. Carson (DC Dera Ghazi Khan) to Miyan Mahmud, 22 Febru-
ary 1906. PC Appeal no. 118 of 1921; 3 (documents): 156.
31. Khwaja Mahmud vs. Khwaja Muhammad Hamid and others. Indian Cases,
38 (1917): 389-90.
32. Evidence of H. J. Maynard, PC Appeal no. 118 of 1921, 1.
1 SHRINES, S U C C E S S I O N , A N D M O R A L AUTHORITY 239
there was no easy answer to the reconciliation of these styles.
Although Miyan Hamid emerged successfully from the courts
with his rights confirmed, this served ultimately neither to vin-
dicate his style of religious leadership nor to win him the sup-
port of those local leaders with political ties to Miyan Mahmud.
As the largest landowner of the Baloch Kasrani tribe declared,
"by Government order [the] plaintiff [Miyan Harnid] is sajada
nashin, in eyes of Musalmans [the] defendant."33 Although the
nature of the political influence at Taunsa was somewhat differ-
ent from that at Pakpattan, these succession conflicts at Taunsa
nevertheless indicated, as much as those at Pakpattan, the criti-
cal importance of the political milieu in affecting popular expec-
tations for the sajjada nishm's authority. In the end, this proved
to be as true for Miyan Hamid as for Miyan Mahmud. The im-
portance of religious education and teaching remained for the
sajiada nishins at Taunsa an ideal—an ideal which they pushed
for the diwan of Pakpattan—but in reality such an ideal had
only a limited relationship to their own influence in the locality.
Conclusion
The tensions between the political and the religious elements
in the authority of the sajjada nishins were indicative of wider
cultural tensions in India under colonial rule. The attempt to
work toward a general model for the exercise of authority by saj-
jada nishins reflected a concern—a concern implicit, it would
seem, in the very concept of adab—to define standards for social
interaction that at the same time expressed the commitment of
Muslim society to a larger Islamic moral order and that provided
Muslims with an effective program for dealing with the social
and political world in which they lived. The intrinsic problems
in such an effort, however, had grown considerably in the con-
text of colonial rule. Since the fall of the Mughals, and particu-
larly under the British, the sajjada nishins of Punjab lived in a
world that was becoming more and more fragmented culturally
—a world that lacked the political framework to bind together
the diverse cultural systems of the localities and to express, at
least in symbolic terms, the commitment of all to the moral or-
^*
33. Evidence of Sultan Muhammad Khan, Kasrani, PC Appeal no. 118 of 1921;
Khwaja Muhammad Hamid vs. Mian Mahmud and others. Evidence, 2:74-75.
240 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
der of Islam. As a result, the practical meaning of commitment
to Muslim community had become increasingly unclear.
Despite the collapse of the Muslim state, however, Muslim re-
formers in India had worked hard in the period of British domi-
nation to develop standards for Muslim communal solidarity
based on the dissemination of ideal standards of behavior and
conduct rather than on the political framework provided by the
state. To restore the unity and wholeness of Muslim society
they had emphasized a commitment to religious education and
to the spread of Qur'anic standards of behavior among religious
leaders and the common people alike. The root answer to Mus-
lim problems thus lay, in reformist eyes, in the spread of knowl-
edge as a basis for direct individual commitment to an Islamic
moral order—a moral order that would itself provide the basis
for Muslim political solidarity. In the confusing colonial world of
British India, Islam would no longer need to be adapted by sym-
bol and ritual to the political order,- it would rather, as a moral
force, itself begin to shape the political order.
This view provided an idealist answer to the long-standing
tension between political and religious authority, a tension that
had helped to shape the peculiar forms of authority associated
with the sufi shrines. But the reformist emphasis on education
could not alone transform the nature of religious authority in
Punjab, especially so long as the structure of tribal and landed
authority in the rural localities remained basically unchanged.
The attempt to define individual standards of behavior on the
basis of Qur'anic Islam served, to a large degree, only to iso-
late reformers from the main political currents in rural soci-
ety, where, even in the twentieth century, the majority of illiter-
ate Muslims remained deeply rooted in the cultural systems of
the localities. Although the pressures of foreign rule brought
increasing tension to the exercise of moral authority at the
shrines, the very structure of Punjabi rural society—a structure
that the British themselves had helped to maintain—prevented
finding any easy answers to the dilemmas faced by rural Muslim
religious leaders.
10
A Note on Adab in the
Murshid-Mund Relationship
MOHAMMAD AJMAL
The functions of the spiritual master have been described in
various ways by different sufis. Frithof Schuon, in a contempo-
rary analysis of the role of the spiritual master, has suggested
that the spiritual master "represents and transmits first the real-
ity of 'being/ second, a reality of intelligence or 'truth/ and third
a reality of 'love/ union or happiness." The function of the spir-
itual master (murshid) is to give back to fallen man his primor-
dial being. The first condition, then, of spirituality is to be vir-
tually reborn and thus to realize the quasi-ontological basis of
two constituent elements of the way, namely, discernment or
doctrine on the one hand, and concentration or method on the
other. Thus the muzshid imparts Being to the disciple (murid) in
a particular religious context and lifts him from dissipation, first
by creating consciousness of the supreme doctrine and second
by instructing him in the mode of concentration that is intended
to lead to a state of beatitude.
The mmshid may through words or nonverbal symbols create
a gash in the murid's heart on the basis of intuitive knowledge of
his character and temperament. He may induce in him a state of
ecstasy and later stabilize him by his peace. Paraphrasing Shaikh
Ahmad al-cAlawi, full spiritual maturity or virility (rujuliyya) is
expressed in the glory (salat) and peace (salam) of the second for-
242 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
mula of the rosary. By salat, he said, the sufis mean the mani-
festation of divine glory, as when God pours forth His radiance
upon one of His slaves; by salam they mean the safety and sta-
bility He grants. One must not ask God for His glory alone, but
for His glory together with His peace, nor must one mention the
peace first, for it refers back to the glory, denoting stability and
strength beneath it. God may manifest His glory unto some of
His slaves and delay the vouchsafing of His peace, so that the
glory subjects them to agitation and turmoil, causing them to
cry out. God may also divulge some teaching to those not quali-
fied to receive it, which will result in their being wrongfully ac-
cused and unjustly condemned, all by reason of the isolation of
God's glory upon them. Therefore, if God wishes to preserve
them and to preserve others through them, He immediately fol-
lows up His glory with His peace, to still their agitation and
straighten the course of their lives, so that outwardly they are
among creatures and inwardly with the truth, integrating two
opposite states and combining the wisdom of each. They are
the heirs of the prophets, and they refer to this noble station as
drunkenness and sobriety, or extinction and subsistence, and the
like. By drunkenness they mean God's manifesting His glory
unto them, whereas sobriety is peace after being utterly over-
whelmed in the direct vision of their Lord. Now it is the special
prerogative of the prophets that God's peace should come upon
them together with His glory, or immediately after it; but as
for His saints, some of them are characterized by the manifesta-
tion of His glory without His peace, and some die in this state,
whereas others (the heirs of the prophets) return to their senses
while remaining inwardly firm-fixed in drunkenness. The same
distinction was made by Shaikh cAli Hujwiri, who posited the
opposition between shuki (gratitude) and sajw (calm, quiet).
1 1. He should believe that only this shaikh can meet bis aspirations
Let me cite an incident in this connection. A mwld of Hadrat
Tawakkul Shah of Ambala (died A.H. 1315 [A.D. 1897-98]),
Khwaja Mahbub cAlam, writing about his experience soon after
baica, says:
j murshid if he were to visit another saint.
When I was about to leave the Shaikh, I did not feel any stirring in my
heart. I was very angry that bai'a had brought about no change in me,
had not induced any state of contentment or ecstasy. I said to the Shaikh
in anger, "I will not recite the wild you have instructed me in." But he
was unruffled and repeated his instructions. When I reached the rail-
way station, I started feeling an unaccountable drowsiness and drunk-
enness. My heart started the orison and felt completely intoxicated and
N
ADAB IN THE MURSHID-MURID RELATIONSHIP 243
happy. This experience lasted for about a week, in which I missed the
formal prayers. But as soon as I started the namaz, I again experienced
the same intoxication. This state lasted about three months. My con-
sciousness returned when I met my Shaikh again.
The first step for the muiid is baica, the "promise of loy-
alty made to the mentor." Bai'a is a symbolic bond, an oath of
surrender. It has one universal meaning: That the divine light
passes from the hand of the mentor into the hand of the initiate.
It is only with the help of the shaikh that shari'a and tariqa
come to acquire a living meaning, and shari'a assumes an in-
tenser and deeper tone.
The company of true men, even if it is for a moment, is better
than a hundred solitary meditations and prayers. It is almost
universal in all esoteric disciplines that the coming together of
the hands of two persons symbolizes an initiation rite of self-
realization. In all love, perhaps, the coming together of hands
signifies a bond, a promise. It signifies (especially in modern
times, when a multiplicity of desires haunts people) that the
mnnd is prepared to impose on himself a limitation, a readiness
to see that he is finite. Once one is so limited, so hemmed in
with the conditions of baica, only then will Infinity be revealed.
Bai'a thus symbolizes the first break with the vicious circle of
thought. The image of the shaikh, the mentor, symbolizes a lim-
itation of one's imagination so that the infinite riches of the
"hidden treasure" can be made known.
After initiation there are some adab which the murid has to
abide by that are preconditions for spiritual transformation. Ac-
cording to Muhammad Ashraf £Ali Thanawi, the following adab
have to be observed by the murid:
and that he would be deprived of the blessings and graces of his own
2. He should always obey the shaikh and he should serve him with
his life and property. Nothing is achieved without love for the
shaikh, and obedience is the mark of love.
3. He should not imitate the shaikh without his permission. He may
act according to his own hal (condition) and maqam (stage on the
sufi path) in a way which may prove disastrous for the murid.
4. The murid should observe whatever dumd (praise or blessing) the
murshid has taught him and abandon any other.
5. He should give complete attention to the murshid, so much so that
 244 ADAB AS I S L A M I C IDEAL
he should not observe nafl (supererogatory prayer) or wazifa (daily
prayer) without his permission (apart from prayers which are fard
and surma [obligatory]).
6. As far as possible he should not stand at a place where his shadow
would fall on the murshid's shadow or clothes.
7. He should not step on the murshid's prayer carpet.
8. He should not use the murshid's place of ablution and purification.
9. He should not use the murshid's utensils.
10. He should not eat or drink or perform ablutions in his presence ex-
cept when he has obtained permission from him.
11. He should not attend to anybody else in the murshid's presence.;
12. He should not spread his feet towards the murshid's seat.
13. He should not spit in the murshid's direction.
14. He should not object to anything that the murshid says or does.
15. He should not expect a karama from the murshid.
16. If the murid has any doubt in his mind, he should express it in the
presence of the murshid. If the doubt is not resolved, he should re-
gard it as an inadequacy in his understanding. If the murshid does
not reply, he should know that the murid does not deserve a reply.
17. He should relate his dreams to the murshid and any interpretation
that occurs to him of his own dream.
18. He should not leave the murshid's presence without permission „
and without necessity.
19. He should not raise his voice above the voice of the murshid. He .
should speak briefly to him and wait attentively for his answer.
20. He should tell other people only those parts of the murshid's state- "
ments that they can understand.
21. He should not contradict the murshid even if the murid is right.
Moreover, he should believe that the shaikh's mistake is better
h than his own virtue, good or bad.
22. He should describe his state to the murshid, because he is the phy-
sician of the heart who will then suggest a remedy.
23. He should not absorb himself in invocation in the murshid's pres-
ence. If he has to, he should do so in hiding. He should ascribe all
his spiritual blessing to his shaikh. If he sees in his dream or his
vision that this grace has reached him through some other saint, he
should understand that his murshid has come to him in the form
of another saint. So said c Attar:
O heart, if you seek this journey,
hold the guide's garment and follow him.
O peerless one, be true in your intention
ADAB IN THE MURSHID-MURID RELATIONSHIP 245
\> so that you find the key to the treasure of gnosis.
!
Hold the guide's garment, O traveller; sacrifice all
you have in his way. If you travel for a hundred
years in the path
without a guide,
Useless is the fortune.
Anyone who traveled in the way of love without a companion did
not gain true knowledge of love. Regard your mentor as your ruler,
so that you recognize God in the awareness of your own faqr (pov-
erty, worthlessness).
Obey him in all matters—
Cast away the pupil of your eye in dust when he speaks,
become all cares.
Unless he asks you to speak, you remain quiet.
But these adab are to be observed only in the presence of the
shaikh i kamil, the perfect master. Some of the marks of the per-
fect master are as follows:
1. He should be more popular among scholars and fuqaia' than among
the common people.
2. His company alone should direct your attention to God and away
from mundane worries.
3. His conversation should resemble the words of earlier masters.
4. He should have authorization from some great spiritual master.
5. He should observe the shari'a in all its aspects.
4&
Maulana Jalal ad-Din Rumi also warned against false masters.
He called them "devils" and felt that the world was full of them.
Hafiz issued a similar warning to shun the company of the
profane.
These a dab are really attempts at eliminating vanity and ego-
inflation. The assumption is that unless vanity or kibi is elimi-
nated one cannot be prepared to surrender oneself to God. Vanity
is associated with Satan, and no one can reach God without true
humility. The opposite of vanity is surrender. For the beginner it
is necessary that he should surrender to some person who has
attained the state of health, that is, to one who has experienced
unity with the Godhead. The process of surrender may be irk-
some and painful in the beginning, but soon it shatters the dis-
ciple's mask and creates a protective, healing image, the image
of the mentor, the shaikh. The disciple is caught in the vicious
 246 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
circle of thought, meaningless memories of a meaningless past,
vain and empty dreams of the ever-desiring, ever-unfulfilled fu-
ture. It is only the image of the mentor that can break this circle
an image that one does not consciously direct, but that moves
and develops with its own dynamic, and becomes an answer to
questions and a fulfillment of prayers. Only through the image
of the shaikh can one break the coils of vanity and begin to expe-
rience love.
Maulana Ashraf eAli Thanawi distinguishes between true hu-
mility and false humility. False humility is inverted vanity. If a
man with apparent humility says, "I am an ignorant fool," the
best test for assessing the authenticity of his humility is to agree
with him and say outright, however boorish it might appear,
"Yes, you are an ignorant fool." A man with true humility will in
all probability remain unruffled by this blunt confirmation of his
self-assessment, but a man suffering from false humility or in-
verted vanity will take umbrage. He had made the statement in
the hope that others would contradict it. Vanity, whether open or
disguised, will always preclude spiritual development. In mod-
ern times, the ego has come to occupy a pivotal position in intel-
lectual development which is related primarily to business and
technology. Ego generates vanity and vanity strengthens the ego.
Spiritual transformation demands the elimination of vanity,
; which is equivalent to ego-inflation and glorification of one's
self. Every ego-inflation involves non-ego-deflation, or devalua-
tion of all that is not I, me, or mine. The stronger the ego, the
stronger becomes the conviction that the non-ego is hostile or
weak. The I-hostility generates and then encounters the non-I
hostility. One is thus engaged in the defensive armor of the ego.
It is an armor that wages war both against the self of the vain
person and against other people. The first condition for spiritual
transformation is thus the demolition of vanity—which is the
defensive armor of the ego.
From the psychological point of view, the concept of adab de-
rives its salience from the distinction between the sacred and the
profane. In a social situation where that distinction has been
blurred or obviated, the concept of adab has scarcely any mean-
ing. The true relationship of adab is very much like the emotion
of awe, which is a blend of fear and love, a sense of inadequacy
mingled with a sense of profound longing.
Adab is both an attitude and a relationship. As an attitude it
ADAB IN THE MURSHID-MURID RELATIONSHIP 247
means the emotion of awe and respect in the presence of an el-
der, especially a parent or grandparent. In sufi folklore it is the
"Wise Old Man," or the spiritual guide, who gives direction to
the tempestuous figures of the unconscious. In the realm of the
unconscious, this guide resolves a crisis, saves the hero or the
heroine from the edge of a precipice, and creates order and bal-
ance in a state of chaos and turmoil. Avicenna's Hayy ibn Yaqzan
is a good example of the Wise Old Man. The point is that this
attitude is generated over the entire range of "elderliness." The
elderly person deserves respect, but it is not a one-way obliga-
tion. The elderly person has to respond with shafaqa, affection
and kindness. The interesting aspect is that whereas adab has a
formal code of behavior, shafaqa is informal and spontaneous; it
radiates from the elderly person to the young. As a spiritual rela-
tionship between the mentor and the novice, adab is the precon-
dition for the establishment of this relationship.
Adab are preconditions, not the principal causes, of spiritual
transformation. Following bai'a the muzid must report every-
thing he experiences and then obey all the murshid's instruc-
tions. His transformation involves two kinds of self-scrutiny.
One is the scrutiny of his own faults and the attempt to remove
them (takhliya). The other is kindling an awareness of one's vir-
tues and strengthening them (tahh'ya}. In some silsilas (orders),
takhliya and tahliya are encouraged at the same time, but in
most only one is prescribed in accordance with the temperament
of the murid.
This process of purification has to be accompanied by aurad
(spiritual disciplines), which foster the necessary withdrawal
from worldly attachments of the heart. The aurad generally
have three phases: (1) istighfai, seeking forgiveness; (2) durud;
(3) nafi wa ithbat, nay and yea. But the real transformer of en-
ergy is dhiki, or the orison, the repetition of the supreme name.
The supreme name, being the effect of the supreme being, car-
ries within it the glow of the substance. Each repetition of the
supreme name is like looking at a sanctuary, gazing at the un-
folding of a new aspect of its beauty and grandeur.
Some sufis, however, believe that the orison must be accom-
panied by meditation, fiki. That is, that during the orison one
also meditates upon the virtues, which according to Schuon con-
stitute six themes of meditation. These six themes are based
upon either the three planes of makhafa (fear), mahabba (love),
248 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL
and ma'rifa (knowledge) or the planes of the will, of love, and of
knowledge. Each plane in turn presents two poles, passive and
active. Meditation on these different themes at different times,
either preceding, during, or after the orison, leads to a regenera-
tion of imagination and the development of moral qualities that
are necessary for the attainment of beatitude. The negative mode
of the plane of the will implies detachment and renunciation. It
is symbolized by crystal, snow, the solitary mountain heights,
cold and pure. The affirmative mode of the will implies action
and power, symbolized by lightning and the sword. The passive
mode of love implies contentment and beatitude and is sym-
bolized by calm water, the white lotus. The active mode is faith
and mercy, symbolized by fire, blood, and the red rose. The nega-
tive mode of the plane of knowledge is unity, symbolized by the
sun. These modes of meditation are related to the orison.
The first formula of the wild, astaghfim allah, evokes the
symbolism of the mirror without the sun. It is the heart while it
is still impure and blind; traditionally it is likened to a mirror
covered with rust. It cannot reflect the divine sun and must
therefore be cleaned, which is what the first formula of the wizd
represents.
The second formula, allahumma salli cala sayyidina rauhara-
mad, evokes the symbolism of the mirror reflecting the sun. It is
the purified heart that has become fit to receive the rays of the
divine sun. In the Prophet, on whom be the peace and blessing of
God, the purity of the mirror symbolizes the quality of the cabd
(slave), and the reflection of the sun symbolizes the quality of
the msul (prophet). The mirror likewise represents, from God,
the gift of salam, the balancing and stabilizing grace that is also
peace-giving, whereas the sun represents the divine gift of salat,
the sharp, sudden, and illuminating grace that is also lifegiving.
The purity of the mirror will be the faqi (awareness of depen-
dence) together with the grace of peace that it brings; and the
light reflected in the mirror will be the dhiki itself together with
the grace of joy that it brings. Here together are the four themes
of abstinence, accomplishment, contentment, and trust.
The third formula of the wild, la ilah ilia allah, evokes the
symbolism of the sun without the mirror. It is God considered in
Himself and apart from the human subject. The divine reality is
apart from human consciousness; before the creation of man it
ADAB IN THE MURSHID-MURID RELATIONSHIP 249
was; even after that creation it is without man, for God is He
who is whereas man is he who is not.
The symbolism of the themes of meditation in the amad echo
the symbolic meaning of the formal adab. For example, Maulana
Thanawi says that the murid should not spread his feet toward
the murshid's seat. This reminds one of the old sufi adage that
one who does not have to spread his hands towards anyone (beg-
ging or asking) can spread his feet towards him (i.e., be indepen-
dent of him). Spreading one's feet toward someone symbolizes
defiance or independence. In the case of the relationship be-
tween novice and mentor, the rule symbolizes a constriction of
every impulse to defy and revolt and a suppression of doubt and
unlimited curiosity.
One must not be misled by the novice's resort to what is ap-
parently impertinence. In fact the intention is so pure that the
shaikh may not regard it as a violation of adab, as in the case of
Shah Mahbub 'All's impertinence to Shah Tawakkul. In Sayyid
Mihr cAli Shah's Panjabi poetry one sees the line, "My imperti-
nent eyes look lovingly into the eyes of the Beloved." Here "im-
pertinence" is a flaunting of the misconception of the non-su/J
that the Beloved is inaccessible. There are, of course, numerous
such references in Iqbal where his expression of closeness to
God borders on impertinence.
The injunction about not casting one's shadow on the shaikh's
shadow also seems to symbolize something important. Thanawi
thinks that casting one's shadow on the shaikh's shadow may
cause actual irritation to the latter. This explanation seems to be
meant for the common reader; there is doubtless some deeper
meaning as well. Ibn cArabi, in his Fusus al-hikam, says:
God is, in relation to a particular shadow, small or large and more pure
or less pure, like the light in respect of a filter of colored glass, which
tints the light to its own color whereas it is itself without a color. The
determination of each shadow is different in apparent multiplicity of
existence, which seen from the point of view of Essence is a Unity.
One may conjecture that the shadow of a man less pure than the
shaikh may cause annoyance to the shaikh, about whom Ibn
'Arabi says, "For there exists among us someone for whom God
is His hearing, His sight, His faculties and organs, according to
the signs which the Prophet gave in his message to God."
 250 ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL ADAB IN THE MURSHID-MURID RELATIONSHIP 251

One gets a further confirmation of this view when one consid-
ers the injunction, "Do not offer prayers on the shaikh's prayer-
mat." The prayer-mat symbolizes the intimate communion with
God which makes the shaikh into His hands, His hearing, or His
sight. It is this communion between the shaikh and God that
demands some distance between him and the novice, because a
closeness and intimacy between them is not possible because of
their different stations. It has been reported in su/J literature that
it is mortally dangerous for a novice to be physically close to the
shaikh when he is absorbed in orison. The novice may collapse
into a state of unconsciousness. The prayer-mat is the temenos,
the spiritual space, in which the shaikh lives. Any disturbance
of the equilibrium of the space may well irritate the shaikh but
may also be perilous for the novice, because the latter has not
yet learned to breathe at those heights. Adab, therefore, also dra-
matizes the fact that distance is necessary between the shaikh
and the novice in the early stages of their relationship. This dis-
tance is symbolized by the physical distance necessary between
the shaikh and the murid.
of what Carl Rogers calls "the availability of the self." One has—
as is evident in the symbol that precedes the symbol of rebirth—
killed the dragon, the mother who holds you back from develop-
ing your individual self.
If not the mother, then is the sense of being in the presence of
God to be reduced to identity with a father? Again, the symbol
transcends the developmental experience of the child. The fa-
ther holds the child to customs and imposes ambition and suc-
cess. The father emphasizes the conventional role. We outgrow
that, moving toward a sense of individuation. It is this that
makes a symbol a symbol. A symbol at one level can be ex-
plained and can, following Levi-Strauss, be analyzed for struc-
tural coherence. But a symbol, as fully understood, has as well a
dynamic role to play in the transformation of the self.

Conclusion
In discussing these religious symbols I have taken the Jungian
position that a symbol has of course a reductive aspect, but it has
a teleological aspect as well. It is, moreover, never a mere sign of
something else but is in itself a transformer of energy and a means
of changing the personality from one level to a higher one.
In following Freud, one can talk about religious acts as obses-
sional neuroses or defense mechanisms if one wants to use re-
V
1*. ductive explanations. One can talk of "religion as an illusion."
But does that sufficiently explain the religious experience of
being in tune with the Infinite, of that oceanic feeling that over-
takes the believer? Freud replies, "I have never had such an expe-
rience." For those who have, however, a critical distinction can
be made. On the one hand, the experience clearly is grounded in
the earliest symbiosis between the mother and child, when the
child, in the lap of the mother, is wholly secure. The religious
experience is a reassertion of that feeling. But the later religious
experience is not the same. In it, in the oceanic feeling, one is
not only whole, but one is a creative individual. The umbilical
cord is broken. In it there is expression of one's total personality,
 Part Three

ADAB AS COSMOPOLITAN CULTURE

Sir
•*, f

II-
 11
Norms of Comportment among
Imperial Mughal Officers

J. F. RICHARDS

By the early seventeenth century, the Mughal sovereigns had

successfully resolved a major organizational problem. Building
upon the cumulative experience of centuries in the construction
of Indo-Muslim states, they created a reliable political-military
administrative elite, or as it is usually termed, a nobility. The
Emperor Akbar had succeeded in melding a heterogeneous col-
lection of Central Asian Turanis, Persians, Afghans, Abyssinians,
Arabs, Indian Muslims, Rajputs, and Khatris (among others) into
a service nobility of generally consistent reliability. In so doing
he had at least partially solved the problem of how to deal with
great men. Akbar and his successors bent Rajput chiefs, Afghan
leaders, and Persian aristocrats to their will. But the emperors
also devolved enough responsibility, independence, and power
upon their nobles to allow them to remain great men, to grow
rather than decline in imperial service. The result, by Shah
Jahan's reign, was a confident, highly visible, able elite that took
great pride in a tradition of hereditary service to the emperor and
pride in a new definition of honor.1
By the early seventeenth century the Mughals had perfected

1. See M. Athar All, The Mughal Nobility Under Aurangzeb (Aligarh, India,
1966), for a detailed treatment of the imperial elite.
256 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
another reliable instrument of rule. By that time, a skilled pro-
fessional corps of lower- and middle-status officials had emerged
to service the imperial machinery. Again drawing on the contin-
uous experience of Indo-Muslim state building, the emperors re-
cruited men whose ancestors had served preceding Muslim dy-
nasties in India. The great north Indian scribal castes, Kayasthas
and Khatris, as well as groups of Indian Muslims, supplied re-
cruits for what became a pool of well-trained subordinate impe-
rial officers. Such men possessed and refined demanding skills in
bookkeeping, auditing, minting, correspondence, procurement
and supply, record-keeping, information retrieval, and office,
stores, and industrial management. Not set by formally estab-
lished examinations for entry and advancement, necessary skills
and training were provided within the family before employ-
ment, and on the job after employment. Whether employed and
given ranks (mansabs) directly in imperial service, or employed
in a private capacity by the nobility, the professional administra-
tors came, like their superiors, to have a growing sense of corpo-
rate identity, of uniform standards of conduct and good admin-
istration, and of strong loyalty to the empire. They were also
increasingly prosperous. As the empire expanded east and south,
Kayastha, Khatri, and Muslim subordinate officials moved into
Bengal, Orissa, Gujarat, and the Deccan.
The usual picture of administration through chains of official
positions (provincial governor, faujdaz, etc.), though accurate, is
misleading in that it falls far short of describing the actual opera-
tion of the imperial system. Prescribed authoritative relation-
ships did exist among incumbents of official positions.2 How-
ever, overriding all other relationships within the system were
direct personal links between the emperor and all officials. As is
well known, every office holder or official in the imperial service
was a mansabdai. This meant that he held a personal rank (dhat)
expressed in numerical terms that determined his pay, his status,
and the type of responsibility and position he could expect to
hold. For many mansabdars a second or trooper (suwar) rank de-
noted, according to intricate rules, the number of fully equipped
cavalrymen and their mounts that he was required to recruit,
2. For the standard description of the structure of the offices and functioning
of the imperial administration, see I. H. Qureshi, Mughal Administration
(Karachi, 1966). See also J. F. Richards, The Official Structure of a Mughal
Province (forthcoming).
COMPORTMENT AMONG IMPERIAL MUGHAL OFFICERS 257
command, and pay. As the source of all authority in the system,
the emperor personally approved the recruitment, advancement
in rank, and posting of all but the lowliest of mansabdars.
For nobles, service to the emperor alternated among three
principal modes of activity. Attendance upon the emperor at
court or in the imperial encampment emphasized the element of
personal subordination to the imperial dignity of the emperor
himself. Nobles arrived punctually to line up in ordered rows in
open court, to guard the palace in fixed rotation, or to participate
in royal recreations and diversions upon command. On cam-
paign and in battle, the nobles as warriors, as soldiers under mili-
tary discipline, were expected at any time to ride unflinchingly
into battle. Ready acceptance of great personal risk in war—the
quality most rewarded by the emperor—was a certain path to
promotion. The latter mode of service stressed for all nobles the
devotion of the warrior to his master, the emperor, in both vic-
tory and adversity. Finally, nobles were posted to responsible
administrative positions or to army commands. They were gov-
ernors, envoys, fortress commanders, city prefects. One of the
great strengths of the system was the relatively constant move-
ment of nobles between service at court, military action, and ad-
ministrative posts. Paradoxically, the intensity of this direct per-
sonal relationship with the emperor at times encouraged the
grandees of the empire to ignore formal lines of subordination
in favor of direct personal appeals to the throne. The Mughal no-
bility constituted a political-military elite, not a disciplined ser-
vice of greater and lesser officials rigidly obeying chains of
command.
Cross-cutting affinities also affected the responses of the no-
bles. We find several broad ethnic/religious divisions within the
upper strata of the mansabdari corps. By the mid-seventeenth
century, sunni Muslim, Turkish-speaking "Turanis" from Cen-
tral Asia constituted perhaps 14 percent of the cadre of nearly
five hundred amirs-, sunni Muslim, Persian, or Pashto-speaking
Afghans, perhaps 9 percent; sunni Muslim, Persian-speaking
"Shaikhzadas" or long-domiciled Indian Muslims, about 13
percent; and shH Muslim, Persian-speaking "Iranis," about 28
percent. Hindu, old Rajasthani-speaking Rajput nobles held
nearly 15 percent of the noble ranks at mid-century; and Hindu,
Marathi-speaking Maratha chiefs (recruited in substantial num-
bers after A.D. 1600 from the Deccan) formed 6 percent of the
 258 ADAS AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
total.3 Subsumed within each of these ethnic/religious divisions
were clear-cut lineage and familial ties, for these divisions were
bounded by place of origin, group endogamy, sharply demarcated
social customs and habits, and severe religious differences. No
one group within the nobility—even the highly favored Iranis
was so numerous or powerful that it could dominate the others
or challenge the authority of the emperor.
Despite such cleavages, the essential solidarity of the elite and
its deference to the throne was demonstrated and reinforced by
factional alignments that were not confined within the broad
ethnic divisions. That is, informal networks of obligation be-
tween nobles of higher rank and status (patrons) and lesser rank
and status (clients) often appeared. Such factions frequently
coalesced around mature princes of the dynasty who held pro-
vincial governorships or field-army commands. Putative em-
perors, possessors of familial Timurid dynastic charisma, the
princes acted as secondary centers of centralized authority. But if
a prince's attractive power became too obvious, or if he became
identified with a policy stance contrary to that of the emperor,
considerable political tension ensued. Resolution of the crisis
often meant imprisonment or exile for the prince. The sharpest
delineation of nonethnic, nonsectarian factional division can be
seen in the major crisis at the death or faltering of the emperor
and the ensuing war of succession. The most dramatic of these
was the four-cornered struggle among the sons of Shah Jahan and
the commensurate division of the nobility in the 1656-58 war
that brought Aurangzeb to the throne.
Based on a myriad of favors (including recommendations to
the emperor for promotion), shared experiences, and reciprocal
lilli
obligations, factional ties were relatively loose and, although im-
portant in certain circumstances (as in a war of succession), were
not primary relationships in the informal authority system. In-
Mi stead, the basic units within the system were "clusters," tightly
organized and controlled by the nobles. The most prominent ex-
ample of a cluster was the establishment of a great amir or no-
ble. Typically this included the amir or noble at the apex, a
smallish group of his sons, other more distant kinsmen, and pos-
sibly several unrelated senior officers in his service. Each of these
3. See Ali, Mughal Nobility, pp. 10-37. Regarding endogamy within the eth-
nic divisions of the elite, see Afzal Husain, "Marriages Among Mughal Nobles
As an Index of Status and Aristocratic Integration," Proceedings, Indian His-
torical Records Commission, 1977, 33d sess., pp. 304-12.
C O M P O R T M E N T A M O N G IMPERIAL M U G H A L OFFICERS 259
men held a less imposing rank as a mansabdai in the imperial
service and held jagiis or direct pay from the treasury. The re-
mainder of the noble's entourage consisted of persons in his pri-
vate service or in the private service of one of his subordinate
mansabdars. A numerous body, perhaps several hundred or more,
of cavalry troopers met the obligation to field heavy cavalry as
set out in imperial regulations. Each subordinate mansabdar
also met his own suwai obligations as well, thus swelling the
number of cavalry mustered by the noble. In addition to cavalry-
men, the amir paid and employed his own military officers to
command his small army, military technicians such as gunners
for his artillery park, musketeers and swivel gunners, mounted
and foot, watchmen, spies, and others.
The administrative staff of a great noble for both his military
and household establishment was also considerable: private
secretaries, treasurers, accountants, stewards, managers, store-
keepers, and stablemen, as well as the agents (gumashtas) with
their staffs who traveled to collect the revenues from the jagiis
of their master. Other professional services were supplied by a
personal pli if the noble were Muslim, a Brahmin if he were
Rajput, by one or more astrologers, physicians, huntsmen, archi-
tects, and jewelers, as well as dancers, musicians, painters, and
the workers in other workshops producing luxury goods for the
noble household. The numerous women of the noble household
necessitated a large cadre of female attendants and servants, and
often eunuchs as guards. Beneath these groups, of course, could
be found large numbers of menial servants of all categories,
many of whom were slaves. Finally, in this list should be in-
cluded the swarm of petty shopkeepers, merchants, peddlers,
craftsmen, and the like who supplied the needs of the sizeable
populace of this great establishment. These persons, although
not formally employed by the noble, did live in the compound or
in the area adjacent to the noble's city mansion or followed the
noble's camp when he was on tour.4
The establishments of the larger nobles can quite properly be
seen from a number of perspectives: As residential, household
establishments they were obviously important as economic units
4. A full discussion of the establishments of the great Mughal amirs and the
function of nobles' mansions in the social structure of the imperial capital
cities is to be found in Stephen P. Blake, "Dar-ul-Khilafat—Shahjahanabad:
The Padshahi Shahar in Mughal India: 1556-1739" (Ph.D. dissertation, Uni-
versity of Chicago, 1974). See also Ali, Mughal Nobility, pp. 161-70.
260 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE COMPORTMENT AMONG IMPERIAL MUGHAL OFFICERS 261

of consumption, production, and exchange. As socioeconomic be 33,621 men. Just over 6,000 were musketeers, gunners, and
units within the Mughal capitals, the mansions of the nobles other specialists; the remainder, 27,497 men, consisted of man-
supplied a focus for social organization within the city. However sabdars and their followers (tabi'an). These were divided into
they can also be seen as basic political, administrative, and mili- unnamed divisions placed under the command of Firoz Jang and
tary units within the imperial structure. That is, quite apart nine of his highest-ranking nobles. Each noble commanded a di-
from any direct administrative tasks that the noble might carry vision of the arrny ranging in size from approximately 1,500 to
out in his various assignments, he headed an administrative unit 4,000 men. The first division, under Firoz Jang himself (rank
(a cluster) which organized and sustained a several-hundred-man 7,000 dhat, 7,000 suwar) comprised 3,700 cavalry of his own
army unit and which organized and carried out revenue collec- contingent, and that of Qamar ad-Din Khan Bahadur, his associ-
tion over areas sometimes including thousands of villages. Given ate, with a rank of 1,500 dhat/1,000 suwai, leading 603 mixed
these responsibilities, the number and variety of authoritative cavalry and infantry. In this division also was a body of several
relationships focusing on the noble himself, at the apex, ob- hundred infantry commanded by nine Muslim and three Rajput
viously was complicated. Domestic slaves, free servants, some man$abdars bearing ranks ranging from 600 dhat to 150 dhat.
of the soldiers, professional men, and others were integrated by The organization of the second division, commanded by an In-
the varying ties of employment and servitude. But at the heart of dian Muslim noble, Neknihad Khan, was as follows:
the noble establishment lay the ties between the noble and his
closest advisors, confidants, and officers. Many, if not most, of Neknihad Khan
these relationships were buttressed by, and originated in, kinship 3,377 men
and lineage affiliations. Mughal mansabdars tended to employ The aforementioned,
i, etc. Mir, etc.
men of the same racial background and usually of the same or 2,413 men 630 men
closely related lineages. (Indeed, imperial regulations demanded Fixed for Miran, Mir, son Barhe, son of
that a minimum proportion of a mansabdar's followers be of the the above: brother of of Miran: Miran:
same race or tribe.) That a kinship idiom buttressed and shaped 5,000 dhat Neknihad Khan: 3,000 dhat 1,000 dhat
the authority exercised by a majority of mansabdars over men 5,000 suwai 4,000 dhat 2,000 suwai 500 suwai
in their private service seems relatively certain. 1,376 men 4,000 suwar 441 men 111 men
The clustering or clumping tendency of the Mughal system 661 men
became most noticeable in a military context. When the noble Fatah, Nur Singh Rao: Nirmal Rao: Siddi Ibrahim,
establishments were stripped down to their military elements brother of 500 dhat 500 dhat son of Siddi
Neknihad Khan: 100 suwai 200 suwai cAbd ar-Rahim:
and sent on campaign in field armies, a significant change oc-
2,500 dhat 45 men 45 men 400 dhat
curred. What had previously been informal lines of influence, 100 nafai
1,500 suwai
patronage, and power now were formalized into lines of com- 331 men 23 men
mand. At war, the prime business of the empire, the emperor
Mirand,
utilized the clustering of the nobility in his military organi-
son of
zation. A general muster abstract for the field army of Ghazi Neknihad Khan:
ad-Din Khan Bahadur Firoz Jang, a leading commander under 2,000 dhat
Aurangzeb (and later head of the Turani faction), provides a valu- 1,000 suwai
able illustration of the lines of military authority and command.5 221 men
Dated January 25, 1689, in the thirty-second year of Aurang- Raghu:
zeb, the abstract states the total strength of Firoz Jang's army to 400 dhat
5. The Mughal document from which the following analysis is drawn is pub- 150 nafai
lished in Yusuf Husain Khan, ed., Selected Documents of Auiangzeb's Reign, (foot)
1659-1706 A.D. (Hyderabad, 1958), pp. 200-11. 34 men
262 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
This portion of Firoz Jang's army was clearly a family cluster in
which the main body of horsemen and infantry were under the
command of Neknihad Khan, his two brothers, and his son. The
lesser body consisted of troops under Mir and Barhe, the nephews
of this noble. Two presumably Ethiopian (possibly slave) and one
Maratha mansabdars held command positions. Other Muslim-
dominated clusters had similar mixed compositions, but those
commanded by Maratha or Bedar nobles were staffed solely by
Marathas or Bedar mansabdar subordinate commanders, many
being specifically identified as brothers or sons of the leader.
From one perspective, the decentralization, revealed in a close
examination of the noble establishments, might seem a reflec-
tion of imperial weakness and lack of centralized control. Yet as
long as the emperor maintained the active loyalty of his nobles,
the system seems to have been compatible with the concentra-
tion of active executive authority in the person of the emperor.
That is, by requiring the nobles and higher-ranking mansabdais
to carry out simultaneous fiscal, military, and administrative
functions and to maintain large private organizations for that
purpose, the Mughal emperors achieved a workable balance be-
tween centralized power and decentralized responsibility. The
nobles could accumulate wealth, rise in power and status, and
attain greater jagirs and greater military followings—subject to
rigorous scrutiny and control by the emperor and the officers of
the central administration. The practice of escheat ensured that
these estates would be pared down to modest proportions when
a son succeeded his father in imperial service. Devolution of the
managerial skills of the nobles also correspondingly reduced the
demands and pressures exerted upon the central administrative
structure. At the foundation of the dyadic emperor-noble rela-
tionship was a common notion of ideal comportment shared by
the grandees of the empire.
ILS^.
A Mughal Code of Behavior ' from local or regional aristocracies) was 213, or approximately 44 percent of
In the early years of the seventeenth century, proper behavior
and attitude for the Mughal nobles or amirs had come to be
evoked in a single term: khanazadi, or devoted, familial, heredi-
tary service to the emperor. Those nobles who called themselves
khanazads were gradually forming a cohesive, identifiable group
that viewed imperial service and preference within that service
C O M P O R T M E N T A M O N G IMPERIAL M U G H A L O F F I C E R S 263
as its prerogative. Newly recruited entrants to that service—aris-
tocratic or royal emigres from Iran or Central Asia, local warrior
aristocrats from the Deccan—could be fully assimilated into the
imperial nobility only by accepting and displaying the qualities
demanded of khanazads.6 The essential prerequisite for all nobles
was acceptance of a notion of aristocratic and military honor
compatible with dignified personal subordination to the person
of the emperor, as symbolized in the ritual at court. Personal,
lineage, and martial honor thus came to be identified with ac-
ceptance of discipline and service to a wider goal and a larger
structure for both Muslim and Hindu warrior aristocrats. In ad-
dition to such qualities as devotion, loyalty, and courage set out
above, full acceptance within the system demanded assimilation
to the polish and sophistication of Indo-Persian courtly culture
and etiquette in circumstances ranging from the hunting camp
to the full panoply of a ceremonial royal audience.
The ideals of the khanazad seem to have two discrete origins.
The first was the dynastic ideology elaborated for the emperor
Akbar by his ideologue and propagandist, Abu al-Fadl, and the
order of discipleship for select members of the nobility associ-
ated with this ideology.7 Abu al-Fadl's depiction of Akbar's pos-
session of the divine light of esoteric knowledge from the East,
and his divinely ordained ancestry from a Mongol princess,
provided a rationale for the creation of bonds of worship and dis-
cipleship between each noble-initiant and the master-emperor.
Fully effective only through the reign of Jahangir (to A.D. 1627),
the values of imperial discipleship did form one important basis
for the wider notion of the hereditary servant expressed in the
term khanazad. Although muted in emphasis, the Timurid dy-
nastic ideology continued to shape and influence the near-sacral
qualities ascribed to the Mughal emperor.
6. By mid-century the total number of khanazads (including those recruited
the total number of amirs. The remainder were either foreign aristocrats from
other Islamic territories in the Middle East or Indian Muslims and Hindus ab-
sorbed for political purposes as the empire expanded toward the extremities of
the subcontinent. Despite their slight numerical inferiority, however, it is clear
that the status of the khanazads and their standards were those that set the
norm for comportment and behavior. See Ali, Mughal Nobility, pp. 11 — 12.
7. See J. F. Richards, "The Formulation of Imperial Authority Under Akbar and
Jahangir/' in J. F. Richards, edv Kingship and Authority in South Asia (Madi-
son: University of Wisconsin, South Asia Center, 1978), pp. 252-85.
264 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
The second source for this idiorn is found in the institution of
Muslim corporate military slavery. The term khanazad itself
(literally, son of the house) is commonly translated as "offspring
of a slave." Usage of the term banda ("slave") or banda i daigah
("slave of the court") by Mughal officers in general further sug-
gests a terminological affinity to the role of a slave.8 The tightly
controlled personal service of the Islamic military slave (often
charged with responsibilities for guarding the person of the ruler)
is much in evidence in the Mughal case. When resident at court
each Mughal noble was under a rigidly enforced obligation to at-
tend the public court audiences twice a day, morning and eve-
ning, standing in ranks before the emperor. As invariably en-
forced was the rotating obligation of each principal noble at
court to mount guard with his troops at the emperor's palace,
when the noble was required to reside in the palace guardrooms
for a full week with his troops.
Another major legal attribute of Muslim servility also at-
tached itself to imperial nobles. The master's right to full dis-
position of his slave's property, one of the three restrictions on
slaves imposed by the shari'a, can be seen in the Mughal system
of escheat. Until the reign of Aurangzeb, the Mughal emperors
asserted their right to seize the estates of their nobles and to dis-
pose of them as they saw fit. The emperor appropriated money
and goods to meet whatever claims he and the imperial treasury
might have against the deceased noble and distributed the re-
mainder amongst the heirs. In so doing the emperors could and
did completely ignore provisions of either Muslim or Hindu
laws of inheritance to favor one heir as against the other claim-
ants.9 Aurangzeb somewhat modified this policy by setting out
regulations that prohibited the previous practice of routine con-
fiscation of estates. Only if an outstanding debt to the treasurer
existed could the estate be seized by imperial officials so that the
amount owed could be realized. The remainder was to be handed
over to the legal heirs.
The emperor did not commonly exercise the legal right of a
master to regulate marriages among his nobility. However, strong
8. See the articles '"Abd" and "Ghulam" in the Encyclopedia of Islam, 2d ed.
(Leiden, 1954-).
9. See Athar Ali's analysis of the principle of escheat and the royal right to
determine the disposition of the wealth of his servants, Mughal Nobility,
pp. 63-66.
COMPORTMENT AMONG IMPERIAL MUGHAL OFFICERS 265
traces of the third right of a master, control of his slaves' pro-
geny, who became slaves as well, are present. In what appears to
have been a form of dedicatory practice, nobles, on the birth of a
son, sent the news to the emperor accompanied by a gift and re-
quested that the son be named by the emperor, who obliged.10
On reaching adulthood, nearly all sons of khanazads were en-
rolled as mansabdars in imperial service.
All of these vestigial practices suggest the origins of the Mu-
ghal system in that of the peculiarly Islamic form of military
slavery. Basic to this system was the reciprocal relationship of
master to slave. In return for service and devotion, the khana-
zads expected, and obtained, continuing expressions of the em-
peror's concern for their welfare (as well as his intense interest
in their performance). Increments to dhat rank, robes of honor,
bejeweled swords, all bestowed personally by the emperor in
open court, met both needs. But more tangible evidence of the
emperor's solicitude for his servants was the provision of reli-
able, revenue-producing jaglis or tracts of land for salary pur-
poses. The security of the khanazads (save for the Rajputs who
held landed domains under their personal control) lay in their
access to jagns. As hereditary servants of the Timurids, they ex-
pected to receive preferential treatment in the assignment of
lands for salary purposes. An indication of the growing corporate
identity of the khanazads, and a further impetus, came when in
the last quarter of the seventeenth century, large numbers of Dec-
cani, i.e., former Golconda, Bijapur, and Maratha officers, were
enrolled in Mughal service for political reasons. The struggle be-
tween the khanazads and the new entrants for lucrative jagirs is
a major theme in the contemporary chronicles.11 Clearly, the
10. For examples of this practice, see Saqi Must'ad Khan, Maasir-i-'Alamgiri,
trans. Jadunath Sarkar (Calcutta, 1947), p. 235. See also Bhimsen, Taiikh-
i-Dilkasha, ed. V. G. Khobrekar, trans. Jadunath Sarkar (Bombay, 1972),
pp. 175, 178, 206.
11. Cf. Ali, Mughal Nobility, pp. 92-94, 169. Another element in the self-
perception of the khanazads might have been a strong emphasis on lighter
skin color as a proper attribute for a Mughal noble. Tolerable shades extended
to the common north Indian "wheat-colored" complexion, but usually not
darker than that. As Francois Bernier observed, the Mughal nobility was anx-
ious to marry lighter-skinned women in order to retain or improve its light
complexions: "The people of Kachemiie are proverbial for their clear complex-
ions and fine forms. . . . The women especially are very handsome; and it is
from this country that nearly every individual, when first admitted to the court
of the Great Mogol, selects wives or concubines, that his children may be
266 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
master's obligation to provide both material and emotional se-
curity was at stake in the "crisis of the jagiis" of the late seven-
teenth century.
The authoritative relationship between emperor and servant,
with its strong emphasis on martial values and service, extended
through the lifetime of the khanazad, despite any vicissitudes of
favor or disfavor. On the occasion of the death of one of his
nobles, or even lesser mansabdars, the emperor sent robes of
mourning to the bereaved and later confirmed the sons of the de-
ceased in imperial service. A dramatic deathbed meeting be-
tween the Emperor Aurangzeb and Khan Jahan Bahadur Zafar
Jang Kokaltash affords a view of the highest ideals of this rela-
tionship at the very apex of the system. Zafar Jang Kokaltash,
a Persian khanazad, one of the most eminent nobles in the em-
pire (ranked at 7,000 dhat, 7,000 suwai], had been one of Au-
rangzeb's adherents in the 1656-59 war of succession. Although
frequently differing with Aurangzeb on policy issues, he had
nonetheless remained in the imperial favor. In November 1697,
after learning of the severity of his illness, Aurangzeb visited the
dying amir at his home:
The Khan was confined to his bed and could not rise; the Emperor
sat on the masnad, and the Khan continued to lament that he could
not kiss the imperial feet. He said, "I had wished to die in battle and
thus be of service to Your Majesty." The Emperor replied, "You have
been devoting yourself to my service all your life, and yet your desire
for it is not satisfied!" Behold a servant's devotion and a master's
favor! On Tuesday, the 23rd of November, 1697719th Jamad A., the
Khan died. He was a grand amir, full of piety and virtues, and a great
commander.12
whiter than the Indians and pass for genuine Mogols." Francois Bernier, Travels
in the Mogol Empire, trans, and ed. Archibald Constable, 2d ed., revised by
V. A. Smith (London, 1914), p. 404. That these concerns probably engendered
some prejudice against some Hindu nobles from the Deccan, although not nec-
essarily those Persian or Afghan nobles of Golconda and Binjapur, is clear from
the reception accorded Padiyah Nayak, the dark-skinned Bedar chief, in 1688.
Cf. J. F. Richards, "The Imperial Crisis in the Deccan," Journal of Asian Stud-
ies 35 (February 1976): 245-46.
12. Saqi Must'ad Khan, Maasii-i-'Alamgiri, p. 237. A similar scene at the
death of Ruhullah Khan Bakhshi is cited by Saqi Mustcad Khan and indepen-
dently by Bhimsen in his unofficial memoir. Bhimsen writes:
Ruhullah Khan was ailing and the time of his death arrived. He wrote to the Emperor:
In the night of parting, the distracted lover to whom Death has arrived. [(
How sadly win he die if he does not see you! ,,, V J5
C O M P O R T M E N T A M O N G I M P E R I A L M U G H A L O P F I C E R S 267
The extremity of his situation might be expected to meet the
charge that such expressions of sentiment on Zafar Jang Kokal-
tash's part were prompted only by the conventional demands of
high court etiquette or by self-serving motives. Yet even if the
Khan's speech were indeed prompted by a mixture of motives
(such as the desire to remind the emperor of past service for the
sake of his heirs), the recitation by the chronicler neatly sets out
the essentials of the relationship: for the master, undivided con-
cern; for the khanazad, lifelong service, the sacrifice of the war-
rior, and personal sacrifice.
The Rajputs, nearly all khanazads, in imperial service were a
special case. The relationship established between the emperor
and various Rajput nobles was based on the peculiarly Rajput
ideal of personal service to a ruler, as a form of worship or devo-
tion. By the seventeenth century, after Akbar's initiatives, the
Mughal emperors, by virtue of their manifest power and sov-
ereignty, had come to be regarded as essentially Rajputs. Indeed,
in some local traditions, the Mughal emperor was equated with
Rama himself.13 At the same time, the compact arrived at with
Akbar in the sixteenth century allowed the dozen or more lead-
ing Rajput rajas continued secure possession of their patrimo-
nies, the lands of their kingdoms in Rajasthan. Along with local
security went opportunities for employment as Mughal gover-
nors and commanders throughout the empire. That the Mughal
emperors succeeded in eliciting extreme loyalty from the Raj-
puts is a matter of record.
Shared Values
At first glance, it is not easy to identify the divide between the
imperial political-military elite and the technicians of the em-
pire. Military officers holding ranks well below 1,000 dhat (or
personal decimal rank), the cut-off point for noble status (that of
The Emperor went to his house. It was his last breath. As soon as the Emperor entered,
he spoke extempore:
With what pride fnaaz) will this servant (nayazaud) leave the world.
That thou hast arrived at his head at the time of his giving up his life.
Bhimsen, Taiikh-i-Dilkasha.
13. See Norman P. Ziegler, "Some Notes on Rajputa Loyalties During the
Mughal Period," in J. F. Richards, ed., Kingship and Authority.
268 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
an amir], were nonetheless men of great power and influence.
They served as faujdars, as fort commanders, or as subordinate
field commanders in prominent and responsible positions with
ranks as low as 300 to 500-plus dhat. Simultaneously, the most
able and successful technical-professional officers serving as
diwans of provinces might hold similar ranks and possess simi-
lar prominence and visibility. Both types of officers could well be
known personally to the emperor and have been recognized by
him at court or in the imperial camp. Both types of officers were
predominantly men whose families had been actively committed
to imperial service for two, three, four, or more generations by
the reign of Shah Jahan (1627-56). As such they both subscribed
to the ethos of the khanazad or fully committed life servant of
the emperor (see below).14 Both were intimately tied to and depen-
dent upon one or more great noble patrons for jobs and prefer-
ment. Consequently, the connections and interaction between
and among the greater and lesser nobility and the technical pro-
fessional cadres of the empire were continuous and intimate.
Nevertheless, the distinctions between these groups were also
significant and well known to all members. Hindu and Muslim
familial groups who supplied the bulk of recruits for positions in
the imperial mints, treasuries, customshouses, and arsenals spe-
cialized in administration and management, especially in fiscal
matters, rather than in military affairs and governance. Occasion-
ally an especially able officer might rise to 500 dhat or above,
but generally the ranks of this group reflected their subordinate
status, ranging from 20 to 200 dhat. Officers in this cadre were
not ostentatiously wealthy in the style of the grand amiis, but
were prosperous because they received generous cash salaries or
assignments of villages or portions of villages, or both, as jagus.
They did not usually command bodies of troops, although they
could be and often were engaged in active military service. In
general, however, we might argue that the nonmilitary role of
these technical administrators was predominant. They were
14. As we shall see below, Bhimsen often described himself and members of
his family as a khanazad. By that time, other subordinate or service groups
apparently had appropriated the term and the ethos implied by it from the
nobility. For example, the seventeenth-century artist Daulat uses the term in
his signature to a miniature painting prepared in the royal atelier. Milo Beach,
The Grand Mogul—Imperial India, 1600-1660 (Williamstown, Mass., 1978),
p. 116.
COMPORTMENT AMONG IMPERIAL MUGHAL OFFICERS 269
involved in and concerned for administrative efficacy in the con-
solidation of imperial control over newly conquered territory.
They maintained peace, order, and prosperity in the older prov-
inces by means of a smoothly-running regulation imperial
system. We might therefore assume that their ethos and com-
portment, although expressed within a shared framework of
hereditary service to the emperor, would reflect this emphasis.15
Nor should these free officers be confused with the numerous
slave officers found within the imperial system. The latter were
invariably owned by and served Mughal nobles and officers in
various domestic, administrative, and even military capacities.16
Their juridicial status as slaves was sharply demarcated by Mus-
lim law, and was often emphasized by mutilation in the form of
castration. More capable eunuchs often rose to highly responsi-
ble positions as assistants to their masters, but rarely if ever did
they become mansabdais holding dhat ranks within the system.
By and large, the domain of the professional-technical officers
was that of the structured array of subordinate formal offices.
Such positions as secretaries to provincial fiscal officers, or su-
perintendents of mints, treasuries, and the like, were filled by
men from this group who held rank as mansabdais. In these
posts, literacy and technical competence in administration and
finance were primary attributes. The same qualities also meant
that men from this group found ready employment in the house-
hold, military, and administrative organizations of individual no-
bles or lesser mansabdais. Possibly somewhat less prestigious,
in that private officers serving individual nobles ordinarily did
not receive mansabs or imperial ranks, this was still a most lu-
crative and rewarding source of employment. In either case a de-
tailed knowledge of imperial regulations and procedures was es-
sential for successful performance.
The unobtrusiveness of the middling technicians of the em-
pire and the paucity of surviving source material largely explain
the relative lack of scholarly attention directed at this group in
recent years. The nobility, zamindais, and others have been far
more favored. We are fortunate, nevertheless, that a private, au-
15. See Bhimsen's views on this point, below.
16. See Gavin Hambly, "A Note on the Trade in Eunuchs in Mughal Bengal,"
Journal of the American Oriental Society 94 (1974): 125-30, for much useful
information on the practice in Mughal India.
270 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
tobiographical memoir, Bhimsen's Tarikh i dilkasha, does sup-
ply unsurpassed detail about the behavior and beliefs of both the
nobility and the technical-professional cadre in the last half of
the seventeenth century. The author, who refers to himself as a
khanazad, was a member of a long-established, officially em-
ployed, extended family of Hindu kayasthas belonging to the
subordinate official class of the empire. The Tankh i dilkasha,
the "heart-revealing" or "heart-expanding" history, is thus more
than the statement of a single individual; it may be read as a
credible summary of the ethos of a numerous, widely dispersed,
and successful family in imperial service. Based upon direct ob-
servation, Bhimsen's memoir is also a detailed recounting of
high politics and military affairs in the Deccan during Aurang-
zeb's long reign (A.D. 1658-1707). Since its first discovery and
utilization by Jadunath Sarkar in his massive history of Au-
rangzeb's reign, the Dilkasha has been used by many historians
for data and insights into imperial political and military history
during that period. As a result, the veracity and accuracy of
Bhimsen's factual statements have been generally accepted,17
The voluminous memoir has not been read and analyzed for
what it might disclose regarding the behavior and beliefs of the
servants of the empire—especially the nobility and its support-
ing professional cadres. A close study of the Dilkasha does give
us a number of insights into the attitudes and actions of both
groups. In it, for example, we can trace a distinct shift in the atti-
tudes and behavior of the imperial servants in the Deccan during
the latter decades of Aurangzeb's rule. This change is reflected as
well in a major shift in Bhimsen's career. During the first three
decades of his imperial service (circa A.D. 1658-89), Bhimsen
held a succession of respectable posts as a lower- and middle-
17. Bhimsen, Dilkasha. This translation is adapted from that originally made
by Jadunath Sarkar for his own use some years ago. Apart from what appear to
be one or two very brief omitted passages, the translation is extremely reliable.
Khobrekar, as did Sarkar, used the British Museum Oriental 23 ms. for his
translation, but did not consult or collate this with the Bibliotheque Nationale
ms. or the partial text in the India Office Library. A note on the flyleaf from its
British donor states that this is the copy given to Captain Jonathan Scott in
1781-82 by the Raja of Datia, grandson of Ra'o Dalpat Bundela. Scott, who
served as a military interpreter in the Anglo-Maratha wars, made his own
abridged translation of the text. I have consulted a film of the British Museum
ms. in order to verify the passages cited or used in my essay. As the foliation of
the British Museum manuscript seems to vary somewhat from that given by
Khobrekar, I have cited what I found in the manuscript in English numerals.
COMPORTMENT AMONG IMPERIAL MUGHAL OFFICERS 271
ranking imperial mansabdar. For this period, he gives an ac-
count of a generally prosperous imperial structure. The empire
confidently expanded into the Deccan at the expense of the two
remaining Muslim sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda and suc-
cessfully absorbed the rural aristocracy of western India, the
Marathas, into its service. For the latter two decades (circa 1689—
1707), Bhimsen, after a brief retirement, accepted an appoint-
ment as a secretary and deputy of Dalpat Ra'o Bundela, the Raja
of Datia. The latter was an extremely capable Rajput field com-
mander who followed his family's tradition by becoming a high-
ranking Mughal noble in the emperor's service. From this van-
tage point, Bhimsen's account becomes much more sober. He
describes the steady demoralization, the general devastation,
and the disarray of the imperial territories in the south as the
endless wars against the rebellious Marathas dragged on.
Before the downward spiral of imperial power culminated in
the post-1690 debacle of Aurangzeb's Deccan policies, Bhimsen
and his family and colleagues, all khanazads, served the empire
and the emperor with energetic loyalty in a confidence born of
the continuing success of the imperial system. As we can see
from the events of Bhimsen's life and work before his first retire-
ment in 1689, his family's willingness to adapt to the demands
of Indo-Persian official and secular culture derived from a collec-
tive prosperity and success in filling the subordinate offices of
the growing imperial machine.
Bhimsen was born a kayastha of the Saxena exogamous sec-
tion, in A.D. 1649 in Burhanpur, capital of Khandesh, the north-
ernmost of the Deccan provinces.18 Bhimsen's father and his five
uncles, as well as numerous other members of the family, held
subordinate positions in the imperial service. All skilled in Per-
sian and assimilated to the official Indo-Persian culture of the
court (save for their Hindu religious beliefs), this family of Sax-
enas thoroughly lived up to the chameleon-like attributes of this
secretarial caste.19
18. A brief biography of Bhimsen appears in Jadunath Sarkar, "A Great Hindu
Memoir-Writer/' Studies in Mughal India (Calcutta, 1919), pp. 236-41. Sarkar,
who became thoroughly convinced of Bhimsen's veracity, relied upon him
heavily for both facts and insights into the history of Aurangzeb's reign.
19. See Karen Isaksen Leonard, Social History of an Indian Caste (Berkeley
and Los Angeles, 1978), pp. 12-14, for a summary of the generally accepted
cultural attributes of the twelve subcastes of north Indian kayasthas, all said
to be descended from the mythical Chitragupta, recordkeeper for Yama (the
 272 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
In 1636, Bhimsen's eldest uncle, Bhagwandas, began a connec-
tion with Aurangzeb, then prince, which was to continue until
the latter's death in 1707. Bhagwandas (presumably with his
other brothers) moved south with the Mughal prince to the
Deccan when Aurangzeb became viceroy of the Deccan. The
uncle, first an assistant of the dlwan of the Deccan, in 1657
became dlwan himself with the honorable title of Dianat Ray
(the Ray of Probity).20 In 1658, obedient to Aurangzeb's orders
Bhagwandas left his family and household in Aurangabad and
marched north to assist the prince in his struggle for the throne
in the war of succession. Thereafter Bhagwandas served Au-
rangzeb personally at court while Bhimsen's father Raghunan-
das, remaining in the south, became a mansabdar of 150 dhat
employed at Aurangabad as inspector and auditor (mushairaf) for
the imperial artillery of the Deccan.21 Bhagwandas, given the fur-
ther honorific of raja during Aurangzeb's coronation, remained
dlwan of the Deccan, administering the post through a deputy.
Shyam Das, the third brother, returned from the court in 1659
to serve as secretary for the bakhshi (army inspector general) of
the Deccan.22 This was the apogee of the family's fortune in the
god of death of the good and bad deeds of men). As Leonard points out in her
summary (pp. 14-15), the kayastha community was heavily Islamicized, de-
spite its Hindu beliefs: "Boys were well educated in Persian and Urdu and . . .
Arabic. They, like Muslim boys, were taught by moulvis (Muslim clerics). . . .
Their education commenced with the ceremony called bismillah (part of the
Islamic life cycle). Kayasth men . . . wore the customary court dress and could
converse fluently in Persian and Urdu, following the conversational and social
mannerisms appropriate to Mughal court society. Kayasthas prided themselves
on their literary skills and made substantial contributions to prose and poetry
of the Mughal period.
"Some of the essentially occupational patterns followed by kayasth men car-
ried over into domestic life, especially in nomenclature, diet and manner of
eating, and amusements. Kayasthas often took personal names customarily
used by Muslims, as in Jahangir Prasad, . . . Kayasth diets [included] . . . meat
regularly (usually a high-caste Hindu prohibition) and [they] enjoyed a reputa-
tion as gourmets of Mughali cuisine. They were famous wine-drinkers too;. . .
characteristic of the court culture under most of the Mughal emperors . . .
Feasting and wine-drinking were major elements of Kayasth entertainments.
Weddings featured the Hindustani classical music and dancing patronized by
the Mughals." Unfortunately, despite its importance, Leonard's study does not
deal with the Kayasths under the Mughals, but only under the Hyderabad
regime.
20. Bhimsen, Dilkasha, p. 19; text, fol. 15a.
21. Ibid., p. 20; text, fol. 15b. '*
22. Ibid., p. 31, text, fol. 21b-22a. "''
1
COMPORTMENT AMONG IMPERIAL MUGHAL OFFICERS 273
brief years until the death of Bhagwandas (Raja Diyanat Ray) in
A.D. 1664.
Writing forty years later, from the perspective of a much more
perilous time, Bhimsen saw the peace, prosperity, and order of
his childhood, his family, and the empire as intertwined. His fa-
ther, Raghunandas, was posted first to Burhanpur, provincial
capital of Khandesh, and later to Aurangabad, capital of the
Mughal Deccan. Until his health began to fail in the mid-1660s,
Raghunandas, although not holding more than a modest rank,
was responsibly employed and well rewarded for his efforts. In
1664 he supervised the recruitment and organization of a ten-
thousand-man army to be employed under Jai Singh in the first
Mughal campaign against Shivaji.23 At Aurangabad, Raghunan-
das constructed a large house with a spacious garden irrigated by
a water channel leading from the river. As Bhimsen nostalgically
wrote: "At that time my father held the rank of 150 and he led a
very decent life with all the suitable luxuries and prosperity."24
From his earliest years Bhimsen absorbed from the example of
his father and uncles the values of the professional administra-
tors in hereditary service to the emperor. Until the age of thirty-
nine, Bhimsen's career in imperial administration seems to have
been typical. His first experience and training came in service
for his father. From as early as age fourteen until the age of
twenty-one, Bhimsen assisted his father in the latter's post as in-
spector of imperial artillery. During the last years he did all the
work for the post as his father aged and weakened. In this period
Mir cAbd al-Macbud, the superintendent (daiogha) of the artil-
lery, a mansabdai of 500 dhat, treated the young Bhimsen very
kindly, allowed him to carry out his father's duties without ob-
jection, and even taught him official skills. Finally, in 1670,
Bhimsen's father resigned his post, forcing Bhimsen to search for
other employment.
His next position was as inspector and auditor for his old pa-
tron, Mir cAbd al-Macbud, now inspector general and intelli-
gence officer (bakhshi} in the army of Daud Khan Qureshi, a
high Afghan noble serving in the Deccan. In this capacity, Bhim-
sen survived a sudden falling out between Daud Khan and Prince
Mucazzam which sent him and his immediate superior to the
23. Ibid., p. 34; text, fol. 23b.
24. Ibid., p. 31; text, fol. 21b.
274 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
service of Maharaja Jaswant Singh for a few months. Then, in
1670, Shivaji's raid on the port of Surat restored Baud Khan to
favor as he led a punitive expedition against the Maratha king.
As clerk (peshdast) to Mir cAbd al-Macbud, the imperial bakhshi,
Bhimsen, deputed once again to Daud Khan's army, capably or-
ganized and directed the army spy system. He also gained his
first battlefield experience fighting desperately with his patron
at the Mughal defeat of Vani-Dindori.
In early 1671, after further active campaigning against the
Marathas, Daud Khan Qureshi was transferred north to Hin-
dustan. Bhimsen, although promised a promotion by Daud Khan
if he went north, refused, "as I had the responsibilities of my de-
pendents," presumably including his aged father.25 His position
terminated, Bhimsen's powerful patron Jaswant Singh proposed
his name for the post of inspector and auditor (mushmfi) over
the Deccan field armies. The recommendation was accepted by
the emperor even though "in those days the names of Hindus
were never recommended," because Bhimsen was "an old servant
[khanazadi maurathi] of his [Aurangzeb's] court/'26 Despite the
emperor's favor, Bhimsen endured more than a year of uncer-
tainty and unemployment when a rival family group outman-
euvered him and preempted the position. Finally, in mid-1672,
through the intervention of a noble whom he had met and im-
pressed at the battle of Vani-Dindori, Bhimsen obtained his long-
sought position of inspector and auditor under the bakhshi for
muster and branding of horses of the cavalry in the Deccan field
army. He held this office continuously for the next eighteen
years, until 1698.
Now solidly established, Bhimsen, although far from having
noble status, was a man of consequence, holding a mansab rank
in imperial service. He headed his own cluster of agents, ser-
vants, clerks, secretaries, and accountants in his own employ.
(During the dark days of his unemployment, Bhimsen records
that "many old servants in my private service became very rest-
less and anxious.")27 He was also linked by family ties to a num-
ber of officials holding similar posts and responsibilities in the
25. Ibid., p. 82; text, fol. 51a; the term translated as "dependents" is muta'alli-
qan, which generally connotes kinsmen and domestics.
26. Ibid., p. 83; text, fol. 51a: "ba wujudike dai an waqt tajwlz ba nam hinud
namlshud, be ma'azai khanazadi mamuthi."
27. Ibid., "mardum-i qadim."
COMPORTMENT AMONG IMPERIAL MUGHAL OFFICERS 275
Deccan and in north India. His third uncle, Shyam Das, was, for
example, head clerk of the bakhshi of Aurangabad province.
Brothers and cousins were scattered in like positions. Although
spatially extended, this family constituted a recognizably dis-
tinct group of imperial servants. A familial tradition of commit-
ment to official service, of competence and honesty, and of per-
sonal devotion to the emperor encouraged Aurangzeb's favor and
employment and patronage by senior nobles. If necessary, these
kayastha officers were also prepared to serve actively on the bat-
tlefield. Although Hindu in private belief and practice, the Sax-
ena kayasthas seem to have assimilated, along with fluency in
Persian and Muslim dress, the idiom of hereditary service as
khanazads.28 Their loyalties were first to the emperor and the
system that he symbolized and secondarily to their successive
noble employers and patrons.
Between 1672 and 1686, Bhimsen carried out his official du-
ties under a succession of superintendents (daroghas) of the
bakhshi's office. Although he built a new residence in Auranga-
bad, he spent much of his time on tour to various forts and army
installations. During these years, Maratha raiding of Mughal
provinces continued. Intensified imperial military responses in-
creased the burden on the Deccan military administration.
At an unspecified point during that period, Bhimsen renewed
a familial tie with the Rajput house of Datia. Datia was a small
Rajput kingdom situated just to the south of Agra and Etawah,
the original home in Hindustan of Bhimsen's family and still the
residence of many of his kinsmen. During the war of succession,
Bhagwandas (Dianat Ray), Bhimsen's uncle who was diwan of
the Deccan, had served Aurangzeb beside Subhkaran Bundala,
the raja of Datia. The two officers had traveled north together to
support their master in the great conflict. Two decades later
Bhimsen renewed this old connection with Dalpat Ra'o Bundela,
the then raja of Datia. Like his father a mansabdai in Mughal
service, Dalpat Ra'o was employed in the punitive Maratha oper-
ations in the western Deccan. The Bundela chief, a contempo-
rary of Bhimsen's and a fellow countryman, seems to have found
a congenial companion in Bhimsen, despite any ostensible dif-
ferences in their personal status (although Dalpat Ra'o, ranked at
28. Bhimsen used this term to describe himself and to explain his favor at
court; see note 26.
 276 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
only 500 dhat at that time, was not highly advanced in the impe-
rial service).29 This connection enabled Bhimsen to place his
younger brother Hamirsen (Bhirnsen's own closest confidant) in
Dalpat Ra'o's service.
However, despite what appears to have been able work, Bhirn-
sen's career did not advance. Finally, in 1686, disgruntled and
dissatisfied with his lack of promotion, he resigned and with-
drew to retirement.
Applying a Code of Behavior '*•*
In his opening invocation to God, Bhimsen explicitly sets out his
highest beliefs. In praise of that Beloved God who created human
beings, Bhimsen writes that
He hoisted the banner of love in the field of the human body by mak-
ing the heart the ruler of the empire of physical body of man and He
gave orders to the other parts and the limbs of the body to abide by the
commandments of the heart. In the same way, the wisdom and in-
tellect were made to decide about the affirmations and negations of
things. Thus the true, sense of slavery and obedience is that each limb
should have a definite work to do and must have clear significance and
not a single moment should be wasted in having the responsibility en-
trusted to it so that the said limb should become useless and crippled.30
In this passage Bhimsen sets forth the metaphor that informed
his life of service. As a minor but essential "limb," he and his
fellow family members and their dependents and employees
served God by serving the emperor, who was the "heart" of the
body, which was the empire. Such service was arduous: it de-
i.i', manded "firmness of [one's own] heart, consolidation of the in-
ner self, purity of deeds, and [an attempt to] improve general
il
conditions."31
The true servant acts with detachment by ignoring the accumulation
of worldly things. The true servant of God and his agent, the Emperor,
29. When Dalpat Ra'o brought the army treasure for the payroll on one mis-
sion, Bhimsen records that they held "certain mutual meetings and entertain-
ment." Bhimsen, Dilkasha, p. 133; text, fol. 80a.
30. Ibid., p. 1; text, fol. 4a. Another remark of Bhirnsen's is as revealing: "I be-
came permanent in my post and had collected sufficient money to indulge in
luxuries. I treated both friends and strangers very kindly and showed them
favors. The way I used to show my benevolence was extraordinary and superior
to that of the high class nobles." Ibid., p. 95; text, fol. 63a.
31. Ibid., p. 2; text, fol. 4b. ' ~J
COMPORTMENT AMONG IMPERIAL MUGHAL OFFICERS 277
does not try to create destruction, but rather to foster peace and pros-
perity. These are the fruits of the empire or its synonym—successful,
meaningful human activity. It is only God's kindness that permits this
to happen in this the Kalyug, the last of the four periods.32
And it is through God's help that Bhimsen has recorded "[his]
impressions which [he] constantly gained by experience or ob-
servations" and which "have been recorded without any omis-
sion" in the memoir of his life.33
The setting for this metaphor of service was the Deccan: that
vast area reaching south from the Narmada River to the Kaveri
River. During the first decades of Bhirnsen's active service, he
saw the gradual culmination (by A.D. 1689) of the protracted im-
perial effort to conquer the Muslim sultanates of the Deccan.
Imperial objectives in the south, as perceived by Bhimsen, did
not arise from ignoble desires for aggrandizement and plunder,
but rather from hopes for fulfillment of the divine wish for peace,
order, and prosperity for mankind. It was only under the dispas-
sionate administration of the empire that these ideal conditions
could be sustained. The process of invasion and conquest was a
distasteful but necessary precondition to that end. Consequently
the individuals, social groups, and events described by Bhimsen
in his autobiographical statement are, to our eyes, strangely re-
stricted. Only those groups and events that are directly impor-
tant for the imperial effort are described: the emperor's actions
and statements; the career of Dalpat Ra'o Bundela, Bhimsen's
patron; the actions and words of various nobles whom Bhimsen
encountered or worked for; his male kinsmen and their col-
leagues in official service; and (rarely) ordinary soldiers, ser-
vants, or clerks. Bhimsen omits virtually any reference to his
wife or female kin and any discussion, save the most general, of
his domestic life. Even his often moving statements regarding
his spiritual life, worship, and events such as pilgrimages are
couched in terms of the overall metaphor of divine service as ex-
pressed in his performance of his duties for the empire. Periods
of unemployment recurring in the first part of his career were
especially distressing, not simply because of lack of pay and
work, but because this was a sign of the emperor's indifference
and, ultimately, divine indifference to his devotion.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., p. 5; text, fols. 3b-4a.
278 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
From his childhood on, Bhimsen marked his life by salient
events in the life of his master, Aurangzeb. During Bhimsen's
early childhood in Burhanpur, Aurangzeb served as governor
of the Deccan provinces. Later, in 1656-58, Bhimsen's father
and other members of his family loyally campaigned with Au-
rangzeb in the long-drawn-out four-part war of succession for the
throne. After Aurangzeb's coronation, Bhimsen's father, suitably
rewarded, moved to Aurangabad, the city founded by Aurangzeb
near Daulatabad fort to become the capital of the Deccan. There-
after, the mileposts of Bhimsen's life, which also divide the
sections of the narrative, were the fifty regnal years of Au-
rangzeb. His active career and narrative both culminate in the
near-simultaneous deaths of the emperor and of his patron,
Dalpat Ra'o Bundela, in A.D. 1707.
Bhimsen consistently portrays the emperor as the active mover
of the imperial system. In keeping with official ideology, Au-
rangzeb as scion of the Timurid line was divinely illumined: "He
came on the throne like the Sun and the sky prepared itself
strongly to obey him."34 Thoroughly familiar with the Akbar
nama of Abu al-Fadl, Bhimsen refers to the light-illumined
Mongol line of descent for Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb's father.
As the second Timur (Sahib Qiran) Shah Jahan [is] the son of Jahangir,
the son of the king Akbar, the son of [king] Humayun, the son of the
king Babar, . . . the son of Sahib Qiran, the king Timur Shah whose ge-
nealogical tree goes up to the Adam (Hazrat Adam) and this all is
clearly illustrated in the Akbar nama.35
Aurangzeb was thus truly the legitimate "heart" and guiding in-
tellect of the imperial body politic. Throughout the first three
decades of Aurangzeb's reign, virtually all events occurred as a
consequence of the imperial will. An edict from the emperor ar-
rived and action was taken. Only occasionally, as in the series of
misadventures with the Maratha king Shivaji, did anything oc-
cur that was beyond the emperor's control. Certainly all true
khanazads governed their lives and actions in response to the
emperor's will.
'+•'
34. Ibid., p. 25; text, fol. 18a.
35. Ibid., p. 7; text, fol. 8a. This is the line of descent (silsila) of the Timurids
from the light-impregnated Mongol princess, Alan-qo a, which provides Akbar
and his successors with esoteric knowledge and powers. For a full account of
this dynastic legend and the ideology of rule that it buttressed, see Richards,
"The Formulation of Imperial Authority/' in Richards, ed., Kingship and
Authority.
COMPORTMENT AMONG IMPERIAL MUGHAL OFFICERS 279
The emperor displayed a detached, dispassionate sense of duty
and divinely inspired mission in his relationships with his ser-
vants of all ranks and with the ordinary subjects of the empire.
His duty was to so direct his servants that they secured the pros-
perity of all subjects—not for reasons of personal glory, but for
the sake of God's wish for all mankind. To achieve this end—
above all else—the emperor must cherish and reward his faith-
ful, efficient servants with advancement in rank, title, position,
and salary. He must chastise ineffective, corrupt servants by re-
moval of these benefits. The emperor should not succumb to un-
seemly anger or tyrannical behavior and in doing so, treat his ser-
vants badly. Generosity and benevolence encouraged proper
performance far better than severity and parsimony. When the
Dlwan of the Deccan provinces, acting under direct orders from
the emperor, investigated and dismissed or reduced the rank of a
number of nobles and lesser mansabdars, and numerous com-
plaints reached the emperor, "he lost his temper" at the Diwan's
excessive zeal, for "most of the servants who had been removed
or suspended had a long record of loyalty and obedience."36
In this memoir, Bhimsen is preoccupied with the behavior,
character, and performance of the amirs or great nobles serving
in the Deccan. To Bhimsen, the nobles are "limbs" of the empire
but clearly are also living simulacrums of the emperor himself.
Each noble, like the imperial master, must be a "heart" that pro-
vides active energy for the imperial enterprise. Each great noble
must display royal virtues in terms of dispassionate action, be-
nevolence, courage, and sagacity. In his comportment the noble
must be dignified, courteous, and well-mannered in the Indo-
Persian style. He should display these attributes in the largess of
feasts and entertainments. He should not greedily demand or ac-
cept bribes in the performance of his duties.
Bhimsen's close study of the nobles also, of course, reflects his
own and his family's dependence upon the personal support and
patronage of one or more grandees for preferment and jobs. More
than merely opportunistic, however, men like Bhimsen could
not perform effectively in their tasks unless they were assured of
the active personal support of a noble, or better, a group of no-
bles. If provincial governors or field generals or provincial fiscal
36. Bhimsen, Dilkasha, p. 59; text, fol. 36a, "az qadim dai bandaglya wala
baigah."
rr
280 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
officers lacked the qualities valued by Bhimsen, the effectiveness
of all imperial servants would be lost in the political struggle and
confusion brought on by venality and corruption. For highly in-
telligent and able men like Bhimsen, proud of a long familial
tradition of capable performance, personal subordination to "un-
noble" amirs was dismaying. One suspects as well that the quali-
ties valued by Bhimsen included as well a consistent loyalty
toward able subordinates that would lessen the risks of the
ongoing struggle between various technical-professional family
groups in imperial service.
For himself, his male family members, and fellow officers of
the same stratum, Bhimsen's notions of proper comportment
follow from his expectations for the emperor and the nobility. A
continuing need to interact with the nobles and other high-
ranking mansabdars meant that men such as Bhimsen must
themselves be dignified, well-schooled in proper Indo-Persian
etiquette, and able, in short, to carry on in sophisticated com-
pany from a position of relative weakness. To obtain ready per-
sonal access to a nobleman or his deputy was a constant goal for
Bhimsen and his fellows. Only personal influence could ensure a
ready reception for advice and for the exercise of one's technical
skills and experience. When circumstances permitted, Bhimsen
and his colleagues tried to enhance their influence and standing
by imitating, so far as possible, the lifestyle and entertainment
habits of Mughal amirs.
Shaikh Abdul Wahid, the Munshi [secretary] of the Amir ul-Urnara,
who had a lot to say in the affairs of the royal court, was getting only
one hundred rupees monthly but the way he was leading his life he
could easily match with most of the renowned and major nobles. Nam-
dar Khan and Sarbuland Khan often used to pay him visits at his house
and he used to give them parties and feasts and it was not difficult to
accommodate the mansabdars of five or six hundred [personal or dhat
rank] in his house. He had won the hearts of the people around due to
his good manners and attractive behavior.37
Bhimsen and his fellows also were royal officers who were not
completely at the mercy of noble caprice. Senior men in this cate-
gory occupied highly responsible positions. Most bore a badge of
royal office: metal ink seals that stamped their name, office, and
date of entry to that office on all documents endorsed by them.
37. Ibid., p. 31; text, fol. 18b. Literally, the "means and expenditures" (auqat o
ikhrajat).
COMPORTMENT AMONG IMPERIAL MUGHAL OFFICERS 281
In this sphere, a reputation for qualities of resourcefulness, man-
agerial and organizational skills, reliability, and honesty served
to further the individual's career.
Effective performance also rested on lateral and downward ties
and linkages quite distinct from those extending to the emperor
through the nobility. Bhimsen stresses the importance of famil-
ial loyalties and support in all aspects of obtaining and carrying
out the duties of royal posts. Younger men accompanied their el-
der kinsmen as apprentices and assistants until suitable employ-
ment could be found for them. Established elders always took
great care to introduce their kinsmen to men of affairs and influ-
ence. As we have suggested earlier, competition for place and
preferment was between family groups—not individuals.
Bhimsen's notions of proper comportment extended as well to
his own role as a master and patron. To refer to Bhimsen as an
individual filling an office is somewhat deceptive in that he
clearly headed a section of perhaps a dozen men who were his
personal assistants and servants. When Bhimsen obtained a post-
ing, he expected to use the services of these dependents in carry-
ing out the duties of that office and to obtain pay for them. Some
of these employees were kinsmen; some were not. To use his es-
tablishment effectively, and thus to make his own tiny group of
servants happy and prosperous in service to him and to the em-
pire, was part of Bhimsen's ethos.
Transferring a Code of Behavior
After two years of life in a village located opposite Naldurg fort
on the Bori river (near Sholapur), Bhimsen, at the urging of his
friends, sought and obtained restoration of his previous position
and returned to active service with the Mughal armies. At this
juncture, Dalpat Ra'o Bundela offered Bhimsen a lucrative posi-
tion in his private service.38 As the Rajput commander's personal
assistant, Bhimsen was to receive 12,000 silver rupees a year
paid from revenues of villages in Bundelkhand, Dalpat Ra'o's
home territory. Bhimsen accepted this generous offer with high
praise for his new employer and patron. He also, through the as-
sistance of his cousin, Sukhraj (son of Bhagwandas), who was in
the emperor's service at the imperial camp, obtained Bhimsen's
old position and mansab for his younger brother, Hamirsen.
38. Ibid., p. 176; text, fol. lOla-b.
282 ADAS AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
In thus shifting to Dalpat Ra'o's private employment, Bhirn-
sen, no longer an imperial official, adopted a new and, in many
respects, far more demanding role as Dalpat Ra'o's deputy. The
Kayastha administrator now served as his master's personal con-
fidant. The role of a deputy was a position long recognized as ab-
solutely necessary for the smooth functioning of the establish-
ments of higher-ranking imperial officers. The need for reliable,
effective advice and assistance in their personal and administra-
tive affairs led all nobles and most mansabdars to form a close
personal bond with a deputy. They needed someone who could
act in their interest at all times and who could be completely
trusted in all matters, not simply those of the battlefield. Intra-
lineage disputes and friction or interfactional conflicts all engen-
dered insecurities and worries about loyalty. Therefore, to have
one person counted as fully devoted to his master's interest was
essential. For the most part, wives were prevented from filling
this role because of polygyny and the seeming distance of male-
female relationships in high-status marriages within the impe-
rial official elite. One option, if the nature of the relationships
permitted it, was to employ a son in this capacity. Such exam-
ples can be readily found.
Perhaps the most common solution to this problem—even if
sons were loyal and capable—was to employ a trusted slave in
this role. These were usually eunuchs, purchased in early life
after they had survived mutilation and sale, who won the trust of
their master.39 A slave-confidant of this type frequently engaged
in a sexual relationship with his master, which could intensify
the affective tone of the relationship. Such alter egos also acted
as personal bodyguards by staying constantly in their master's
company. Although unquestionably a relationship with two
well-defined roles of super- and subordination, it can also be ar-
gued that in many instances such a tie came close to idealized
patterns of friendship or even marriage. That is, both partners
placed full trust in one another as a result of extended and inti-
mate acquaintance and each was concerned, often selflessly, for
the welfare of the other. The master or noble assured full suste-
nance and honorable responsible employment to his alter ego,
who in turn took his master's affairs as his own.
Perhaps most significantly in a system of considerable uncer-
39. See Hambly, "A Note on the Trade in Eunuchs."
C O M P O R T M E N T A M O N G I M P E R I A L M U G H A L O F F I C E R S 283
tainty, the deputy also accepted his master's trust in adversity as
well as success. From Manucci's account of the mid-seventeenth-
century war of succession comes an anecdote of a eunuch having
such trusted relationships with one of the Mughal princes con-
tending for the throne. When Aurangzeb and Murad Bakhsh
were ostensibly in alliance for the struggle, the latter's eunuch
Shahbaz, "seeing clearly that Aurangzeb was deceiving his mas-
ter, . . . and that certainly he would lose his life by such deceits,
made up 'his mind . . . to commit a terrible act." Shahbaz was
fully prepared, according to Manucci, to sacrifice his own life in
the killing of Aurangzeb and "would die content, having put to
death those who meant to kill his master."40
Much of the work of the empire was carried out by trusted
deputies acting for nobles and other mansabdais, in the most
intricate and difficult of assignments and circumstances. These
were not mansabdars, formally enrolled in imperial service, but
they often acted with great power as surrogates for their masters.
Each noble or other mansabdai gained in operational efficiency
to the extent that he could successfully employ a trusted deputy.
The interpersonal authoritative relationship between emperor
and noble, the fulcrum of the imperial system, was extended in
another direct paired relationship to the deputy.
Failing the juridical distinctions of slavery, or the weight of
kinship obligations, the entrance of a free officer into this alter-
ego relationship was somewhat unusual. For a once relatively in-
dependent officer to sustain the intensity of such a relationship
seems unlikely. On the whole, however, one suspects from the
tone of his account of these years that this role was far from un-
congenial for Bhimsen. To serve as Dalpat Ra'o's deputy and, on
occasion, his surrogate was highly satisfying. So long as he held
his master's confidence, Bhirnsen could count on a form of se-
curity for himself, his family, and his dependents that he had
never before enjoyed in imperial service. Bhirnsen's entrance
into the Ra'o's service and the seeming ease with which he re-
tained his master's good will emerged from the long-standing fa-
40. Niccolao Manucci, Storia Do Mogor (London, 1907), vol. 1, pp. 249, 253,
263. Shahbaz ranked as an amn of 5,000 dhat. For another example of a close,
affective tie between a Mughal noble and a slave eunuch, see Mirza Nathan,
Baharistan i Ghaybl, ed. and trans. M. I. Borah, 2 vols. (Gauhati: Assam, 1936),
for the role of Mirza Nathan's slave-confidant in Bengal in the early seven-
teenth century.
284 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
milial relationship between the rajas of Datia and the kayastha
family, all of whom were hereditary khanazads in the imperial
service, from a shared north-central Hindi-speaking culture, and
from the same Hindu cultural and religious identity. In the con-
fusion of Aurangzeb's last years, all of these shared identities
were coming under increasing pressure. Members of khanazad
families felt threatened by the entrance of "Deccani" Muslim
and Maratha recruits into imperial service. Hindu officers felt
threatened by the pro-Muslim policies of the emperor. Such
pressures probably encouraged the sense of companionship and
solidarity between the two officers, who were clearly compatible
on a personal level.
Aurangzeb's obsessive policies in the south placed unprece-
dented demands on his nobles for sustained campaigning under
difficult conditions never before seen by the nobility. Between
1690 and 1698, Dalpat Ra'o, one of the leading commanders and
adherents of Dhu al-Faqar Khan, son of the imperial wazir, served
at the protracted siege of Jinji fortress, refuge of Rajaram, the
Maratha king. Between 1699 and 1707, Dalpat Ra'o remained
consistently faithful as he assaulted Maratha-held hill fort after
hill fort in the last years of Aurangzeb's reign. Finally, in June
1707, the Bundela raja, a supporter of Prince Azam in the war of
succession following Aurangzeb's death, was killed on the bat-
tlefield. Bhimsen, wounded in the same battle, burned his mas-
ter's body and retired to obscurity thereafter.41
Although probably hired for his administrative rather than his
military qualities, Bhimsen through necessity became a hardened
soldier. He was almost constantly in the company of Dalpat Ra'o
Bundela as the latter led his Rajput soldiers on increasingly
arduous, bitter, and ultimately futile campaigns in the south.
When they were not besieging forts, Dhu al-Faqar Khan's armies
were rapidly pursuing raiding Marathas. Bhimsen records that in
a six-month period in A.D. 1701 the exhausted imperial army
covered nearly three thousand kuioh (over seven thousand miles)
and fought nineteen large battles.42
The intrepid administrator rode into battle seated behind his
41. Sarkar, "A Great Hindu Memoir-Writer/' p. 239.
42. Bhimsen, Dilkasha, p. 233; text, fol. 141b. This figure, which Bhimsen
states as "about [qanb] 3,000 kuioh" at 2.59 miles per unit, is probably some-
thing of an exaggeration. It may have been a total for several divisions of
the army.
COMPORTMENT AMONG IMPERIAL MUGHAL OFFICERS 285
master on Dalpat Ra'o's elephant. When the Mughal camp at
Jinji broke under a Maratha attack in 1692, Dalpat Ra'o, trying to
rally his troops, was fired upon: "As the rain of the bullets was
heavy I from behind the Rao on his elephant seized the shield
and held it before the Rao for his protection. Although God is the
protector of every one, two bullets successively hit the shield
near my shoulder."43 When Jinji was finally taken in 1698, Bhim-
sen and his master scaled the wall of the fort together under fire.
Bhimsen was trusted as Dalpat Ra'o's deputy in all his per-
sonal affairs. These ranged from sheltering the Ra'o's wives and
youngest sons at Naldurg under the care of the reliable Hamirsen
to finding a competent physician for his master and to traveling
to the emperor's court to plead for a mansab for the younger son
of Dalpat Ra'o. In 1698 Bhimsen carried out an extremely deli-
cate mission for the Ra'o when Ramchand, Dalpat Ra'o's oldest
son, tried to seize the throne at Datia. Ramchand, in league with
the Mughal faujdar of neighboring Etawah, brought false charges
to the emperor that his father had ordered the murder of Rarn-
chand's mother and seventy of her retainers and had illegally
seized lands of a Mughal zamindar. Aurangzeb angrily demoted
Dalpat Ra'o by 500 dhat instead of rewarding him for the final
occupation of Jinji fortress. Upon the intercession of Dhu al-
Faqar Khan, the emperor agreed to appoint an officer to investi-
gate the charges. Dalpat Ra'o sent Bhimsen north, "crossing the
Narmada for the first time in my life," to Agra to meet with the
faujdai of Agra, who was to conduct the inquiry. At an audience
with the arrogant faujdai, Bhimsen, "Out of my regard for the
Ra'o made such entreaties as I had never before done in my life."
In company with the agent sent by the imperial faujdai to Datia,
Bhimsen took depositions (mahdars) that proved the accusa-
tions to be false. Aurangzeb restored the rank of Dalpat Ra'o on
receipt of the official report from the investigation.44
The challenge that Dalpat Ra'o faced from his son for control
of the Datia gaddi resulted, in part, from his prolonged absence
on Mughal service—an absence enforced by Aurangzeb's new
and excessive demands on his nobles for extended military ser-
vice. But Dalpat Ra'o's attitudes toward Aurangzeb's demands
scarcely wavered for nearly two decades. He consistently re-
43. Ibid., p. 187; text, fol. 109b.
44. Ibid., pp. 211-13; text, Ms. 125b-28b.
 286
ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
cruited and led more Bundela troops than his suwai rank de-
manded, simply as a matter of his own honor. At the darkest
moments of the siege of Jinji, Dalpat Ra'o offered Dhu al-Faqar
Khan thirty to forty thousand rupees from his own funds for the
pay of the army in order to keep it from retiring in disgrace. At
the same time, when false rumors of the death of Aurangzeb had
swept the camp at Jinji, Dalpat Ra'o, "as required by his heredi-
tary servantship and true fidelity, had given up bearing arms and
decided that if, God forbid it, the news turned out to be true, he
would give up service and his rank."45
Conclusion
For nearly a decade after the fall of Jinji, Dalpat Ra'o, and with
him Bhimsen, rode at the head of his army contingent against
the marauding, rebellious zamindars and chiefs of the Deccan.
Dalpat Ra'o brought his troops against fortress after fortress in a
series of costly, bitter operations directed personally by Aurang-
zeb. He persisted, without relief, without returning for respite
to Datia, enduring fiscal and supply shortages which in earlier
times would have been regarded as intolerable for an imperial
field commander. A growing sense of futility arose from wide-
spread public disorder. In 1706, as food grains became scarce in
the Deccan, Dalpat Ra'o sent his family, along with Bhimsen's,
north to Datia to take refuge in the care of Hamirsen, Bhimsen's
younger brother. Bhimsen, writing his memoirs, in a series of
often-quoted passages reflects that sense of helplessness and bit-
terness. He comments: "I have found the men of the world very
greedy, so much so that an Emperor like Alamgir who is not in
want of anything, has been seized with such a longing and pas-
jj sion for taking forts that he personally runs about panting for
ii some heaps of stone (i.e., hill forts)."46 The failure of Aurangzeb's
policies caused a decline in the standards of performance and
conduct for all imperial servants—to the detriment of the gen-
45. Ibid., p. 190; text, fol. Ilia. The Ra'o uses the term khanazadi, which
Sarkar renders as "hereditary servantship," and the term naukanioi "service."
46. Ibid., p. 233; text, fol. 134b. In the same passage Bhimsen also comments:
"At this time . . . little money came from my jagiis and outwardly I suffered
from lack of resources. But I did not feel downcast, because I formerly had no
love for money, and now too I did not care for it. Men do not look at money, but
at their name and honour."
COMPORTMENT AMONG IMPERIAL MUGHAL OFFICERS 287
eral population in the Deccan and indeed in the north. Bhimsen
was most offended by the displacement of the hereditary profes-
sional writers and accountants, whose "posts have been given to
unprofessional men." The latter had no norms of proper con-
duct, for "having learnt the art of arithmetic [they] have become
masters of authority, and engaged in plundering the public."47
The ultimate failure was the inability of the imperial system
to impose and sustain peace and prosperity for its subjects. In a
famous passage, Bhimsen contrasts the situation in the Deccan
under Jahangir and Shah Jahan, who placed conquered territor-
ies under "high grandees at the head of large forces who con-
trolled them effectively." At present, under Aurangzeb, no such
' nobles were left to carry out these tasks. The Marathas, as well
as lawless men of all sorts, had rebelled and plundered the coun-
tryside. Zamindais no longer kept their obligations, but "as-
sumed strength, joined the Marathas, enlisted armies, and laid
the hand of oppression on the country." The agents of the jagir-
dars oppressed and abused the peasantry as they collected taxes.
The peasants themselves "procured horses and arms and joined
the Marathas."48 Returning to his theme a few pages later, Bhim-
sen defined the central problem:
When the aim of the ruling sovereign is the happiness of the people,
the country prospers, the ryots are at ease, and people live in peace. The
fear of the king's order seizes the hearts of high and low, and also the
royal agents are cured of their wicked desires as said in old books. Now
that the last age (Kaliyuga) has come, nobody has an honest desire; the
Emperor seized with a passion for capturing forts, has given up attend-
ing to the happiness of the subjects. The waziis and umaia have turned
aside from giving good counsel.49
As a technician, a member of the professional castes and groups
of the empire, Bhimsen was disturbed that the technical pro-
cesses of imperial administration were not operating properly.
With the king distracted, the imperial machinery did not pro-
duce its necessary products: peace, order, prosperity, and justice.
That degree of meaning—beyond provision of a comfortable
life—which service to the emperor had previously provided was
no longer apparent.
Despite this growing sense of futility and loss of meaning, the
47. Ibid., p. 240; text, fol. 141a.
48. Ibid., p. 230; text, fol. 139b.
49. Ibid., p. 24; text, fol. 146b.
 288 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE COMPORTMENT A M O N G IMPERIAL MUGHAL OFFICERS 289

relationship between Aurangzeb and Dalpat Ra'o (emperor and that intensified its relationship and ties with the emperor, and a
noble) and that between Dalpat Ra'o and Bhimsen (noble and second group that found these ties to be atrophying.
deputy) continued. In these two authoritative relationships— There may be a number of other possible reasons as well for
which as types were essential for the operation of the imperial the connection between Dalpat Ra'o and Bhimsen. The position
system—the norms, or code of behavior, of mutual responsibili- was clearly lucrative, allowing Bhimsen to support his family
ties were not violated. Here we may well ask why in view of the and himself better than did his former position in imperial ser-
difficulties of Aurangzeb (which included in his final days such vice. The personal sympathy and liking of each for the other is
indignities as the insolent operations near his headquarters of also noteworthy. As we noted earlier, Bhimsen, although born
parties of Marathas), did Dalpat Ra'o and his deputy continue to in the Deccan, belonged to a kayastha family originally from
serve the emperor? As a Rajput chief, with a homeland, Dalput Etawah in the vicinity of Dalpat Ra'o's territories. They were fel-
Ra'o could have made excuses and retired to Datia. Rejection of low countrymen. Moreover, Rajput rajas had a long tradition of
an assignment did occur as he himself had demonstrated in 1698 employing administrators, many of whom were kayasths in the
when he refused the commandership of Adoni fort (near Jinji). seventeenth century. But the impression one gains from reading
In attempting a reasonable answer, we obviously should not Bhimsen's memoir is that the transfer from the emperor's ser-
overlook the force of a lifetime of military service: habit and the vice to the private employ of Dalpat Ra'o did not change his sta-
unwillingness to break it. It is clear also that Dalpat Ra'o was tus as a khanazad. He still served the emperor and the empire
punctilious in the matter of his Rajput honor. Having com- and still followed his profession as a middling imperial admin-
mitted himself to his master, to the empire, and to the Maratha istrator. The symbols of imperial rule suffused and sustained
wars in the south, he was unwilling, for the sake of his name, to Bhimsen's relationship to Dalpat Ra'o. Bhimsen was serving a
reject lightly a sacred obligation to the service. He termed him- lesser Rajput ruler, but also a king of kings, a ruler with far
self a khanazad or hereditary servant of the Mughals. Another greater power and sovereignty.
possibility that must be considered is that in personally taking
command and keeping a number of his most able nobles (nota-
bly Dhu al-Faqar Khan and Firoz Jang) in the field under his eye,
Aurangzeb limited for those nobles and their subordinate amirs
their modes of action. That is, by confining these men to ar-
duous military service under his personal command, Aurangzeb
may have intensified the element of personal loyalty to himself
and to his throne as the locus of all authority. Simultaneously,
however, he cut off the opportunities for those nobles in the Dec-
can to undertake and carry out independent operations, away
from his direct or near-direct supervision. But the consequence
of this policy was to leave a larger number of nobles in indepen-
dent commands for long periods of time without bringing them
back to court to wait personally upon the emperor. In so isolat-
ing many nobles (such as Amir Khan, the governor of Kabul for
nearly twenty-five years), the emperor lost the continuing affir-
mation of their active personal loyalties, as well as the informa-
tion and insights to be gained from their direct observations
elsewhere in the empire. In other words, in Aurangzeb's last dec-
ade or so, the nobility divided into one group, perhaps a minority,

12
Prize-Winning Adab:
A Study of Five Urdu Books
Written in Response to the
Allahabad Government
Gazette Notification
C. M. NAIM
The officers of the British East India Company had started taking
interest in the education of Indians even in the eighteenth cen-
tury but it was not until 1813 that a clear mandate in that regard
was announced. That year, for the first time, a clause was in-
serted in the East India Company Act, declaring that "it shall be
lawful for the Governor-General in Council to direct t h a t . . . a
sum of not less than one lac of rupees (Rs. 100,000) in each year
shall be set apart and applied to the revival and improvement of
literature, and the encouragement of the learned natives of India,
and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the
sciences among the inhabitants of the British territories in In-
dia." ' Although ten years went by before any action was taken,
the next four decades saw the rapid development of an educa-
tional system that included both private and government in-
stitutions, catering to the traditional literary classes of both Hin-
dus and Muslims. A major controversy developed, during this
initial period, on the question of the medium of instruction. A
group of so-called "Orientalists" wanted to continue with the
traditional medium of classical languages (Arabic, Persian, and
1. Quoted irf Y. B. Mathur, Women's Education in India, 1813-1966 (New
York: 1973), p. 4.
PRIZE-WINNING ADAB 291
Sanskrit), whereas another group of "Anglicists" wished to use
English. Eventually, the "Orientalists" lost to the "Anglicists" at
the level of higher instruction. At the levels of primary and sec-
ondary education, they lost to regional vernaculars that, in turn,
remained inferior in status to English.
In 1854, the Education Despatch from the Board of Control in
London further directed the East India Company to expand its
efforts, leading, among other things, to the establishment of re-
gional departments of public instruction and the institution of
universities in the Presidency towns of Calcutta, Madras, and
Bombay. The despatch emphasized the "importance of encourag-
ing the study of the vernaculars as the only possible medium for
mass education. . . . [It] further advocated the promotion of fe-
male education and Muslim education, the opening of schools
and colleges for imparting technical instruction, and insisted on
a policy of perfect religious neutrality."2 In North India, the
effects of these policies were felt with the extension of the Brit-
ish authority over Delhi and the North-Western Provinces after
1803, over the Punjab after 1849, and over Oudh after 1856. The
abortive revolt of 1857 did not significantly slow down the pro-
cess; the policies of the Company were affirmed and continued
by the Crown.
The decline of "Oriental" learning, the increasing awareness
on the part of literate people of the range of scientific knowledge
available in English, and the need to provide school texts in
regional vernaculars, led a number of individuals and associa-
tions to produce translations as well as original works in Urdu in
the realm of what was seen as cilm (knowledge; science), as op-
posed to shici and dastan (poetry and tales). It is interesting to
note that just when the teachers and students at the famous
Delhi College (for the instruction of the natives) were engaged in
translating into Urdu books on analytical geometry, optics, and
galvanism, Goldsmith's History of England, selections from
Plutarch's Lives, and Abercrombie's Mental Philosophy,3 the
traditional munshis at the equally famous College of Fort Wil-
liam (for the instruction of British officers) were busy putting
into simple Urdu the Gulistan of Sacdi, the Tale of the Four Der-
vishes, the Tale of Amir Hamza, Singhasan Battisi, the Shakun-
2. Ibid., p. 7.
3. <Abd al-Haqq, Maihum dihlikalij (Delhi: 1945), pp. 141-43.
292 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
tala of Kalidasa, and a selection of stories from the Arabian
Nights,4 the books that the British thought were necessary to
learn "the language and the manners of the people of Hindo-
stan." The aim of the people at Delhi was to promote cilm in In-
dia through the medium of the vernaculars, whereas John Gil-
christ of Fort William desired to "form such a body of useful and
entertaining literature in (Hindustani), as will ultimately raise it
to that estimation among the natives, which it would many
years ago have attained among an enlightened and energetic peo-
ple."5 The work at Fort William dwelt upon the achievements of
the past; the work at Delhi College was concerned with the
needs of the present and the future.
The two aims were not necessarily in conflict—the syllabi of
courses at Delhi reflected that fact—but as the motives behind
education became increasingly utilitarian and the nature of edu-
cation itself came to be defined by the British, a dichotomy be-
tween literature (now referred to as adab) and science (now re-
ferred to as cilm) began to be felt by many of the newly educated
Muslims. It was at this time that the lieutenant-governor of the
North-West Provinces, Sir William Muir, issued his momentous
call for useful books in the vernacular. Its text follows.
Allahabad Government Gazette, Notification No. 791A, dated the
20th August 1868.
It is hereby announced that, with the view of encouraging author-
ship in the language of the North-Western Provinces, the Hon'ble the
Lieutenant-Governor is pleased to make it known that rewards will be
given for the production of useful works in the vernacular, of approved
design and style, in any branch of science or literature.
For this end, the writing may be original composition, or it may be a
compilation, or it may be even a translation from books in any other
language. Theological treatises will not be received, nor treatises con-
taining anything obnoxious to morality. There is no other condition ei-
ther as to the subject or treatment. The theme may belong to history,
biography, or travel, science, art, or philosophy; it may be a work of fact
or of fiction, and may be composed either in prose or verse. In short, the
only condition is that the book shall subserve some useful purpose, ei-
ther of instruction, entertainment, or mental discipline; that it shall be
written in one or other of the current dialects, Oordoo or Hindee, and
that there shall be excellence both in the style and treatment.
Neither is there any restriction as to the author, whether in respect
of birth, place of education, or residence.
4. M. Atique Siddiqi, Origins of Modern Hindustani Literature (Aligarh: 1963),
pp. 159-60.
5. Gilchrist to College Council, quoted in ibid., p. 127.
PRIZE-WINNING ADAB 293
The reward will, as a rule, in each case be one thousand rupees; but
it may be more, or it may be less, according to the merits of the work.
The Lieutenant-Governor will be prepared to give at least five such
prizes in the coming year.
Books suitable for the women of India will be especially accept-
able, and well rewarded.
The Government will ordinarily be prepared to aid in the publica-
tion of any meritorious work by subscribing for a number of copies.
Such assistance will be exclusive of and in addition to the rewards now
promised.6
Altaf Husain Hall, the great poet and biographer of Sir Sayyid
Ahmad Khan, describes this announcement as one "for which
Hindustan will always be grateful." He continues, "Though the
awards stopped after a few years, the effect of the announcement
itself was like a current of electricity. It galvanized all the people
who possessed, to whatever degree, the talent to compose and
compile in the vernacular, but did not know how to put it to good
use."7 It is difficult for us to establish the accuracy of Hall's judg-
ment—we do not have access to any list of either the applicants
or the winners—but there is no denying the announcement's
significance from another perspective. Within the heartland
of Urdu, it was the first and perhaps the most widely dissemi-
nated declaration of official support for "useful" literature in
general, and for books for women in particular. It also estab-
lished the fact that the Government of India was the new patron
of learning, that the patronized learning was to be put to use for
the general good as conceived by it, and that it had the power not
only to approve certain ideas through rewards and disapprove
others through neglect, but also to disseminate the approved ones
through the educational system—the books so favored being
purchased for libraries and prescribed for various examinations.
It is our purpose in this study to examine five Urdu books that
won different prizes under the terms of this announcement. One
of the five fell into oblivion rather quickly; another fared better,
and went into at least three printings; the remaining three, all by
6. Allahabad Government Gazette (India Office Records V/II/1248), pp. 349-
50. Emphasis added. The author is grateful to Miss Maureen Patterson of the
University of Chicago for her help in obtaining a copy of the notice.
7. Altaf Husain Hall, Hayat i javed (Lahore: 1965), p. 323. Hall also suggests
that the initial impulse for instituting such awards may have come from Sir
Sayyid, who broached the subject in an address presented to Sir William Muir
on behalf of the Scientific Society at Aligarh, on May 9, 1868.
294 ADAS AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
one author, have stayed in print since they first appeared, two of
them having been a part of the syllabi of instruction for many
generations of Urdu speakers. We shall try to identify the rea-
sons for their appeal, or nonappeal, to their British patrons and
native readers. In that process we shall also compare them with
such classics of adab as Gulistan, Akhlaq i nasiri, and Qabus
nama.
We shall begin by looking at the book that gained the least
success: Nata'ij al-macanl by Mirza Mahmud Beg Rabat, pub-
lished at Agra in 1874.8 Rahat was a Mughal from Delhi. He be-
gan his professional life as a soldier in Skinner's Regiment, later
joined the service of Akbar Shah II (d. 1837) as the camil of a
village, and finally became a confidant and courtier of Nawwab
Jahangir Muhammad Khan of Bhopal (d. 1844). After the Naw-
wab's death, Rahat returned to Delhi to live a life of retirement,
but the Mutiny of 1857 forced him to leave home again in search
of patronage. We know that he went to Patiala and wrote a book
of poems, some of them praising the local rulers, but apparently
did not get what he desired. He died sometime before 1881.
While in Patiala, Rahat took his book of poems to a publisher,
who agreed to publish it but advised him to abstain from such
efforts and instead write a book "in prose . . . in the clear lan-
guage of everday speech, with contents beneficial to the general
public," which could then be submitted to the authorities as per
the Gazette Notification no. 791 A. "For then," the publisher
friend continued, "the patronage of these ocean-hearted pearl-
throwers and the munificence of these pearl-raining clouds in
the sky of generosity, will remove that dust of unhappiness which
the unappreciativeness of the people of this age has cast on the
mirror of your disposition."9 Rahat was quick to respond and
very soon put together a book, containing some events that had
happened to him as well as some stories that he had heard.
He called it Nata'ij al-macani [Conclusions (full of) intrinsic
qualities].
The book consists of sixty-seven stories arranged into five
chapters, preceded by the traditional benedictory sections, in-
cluding one honoring Queen Victoria, and followed by a short,
8. Mahmud Beg Rabat, Nata'ij al-macam, ed. Gauhar Naushahi (Lahore: 1967).
The biographical and bibliographical information presented here is based upon
Professor Naushahi's valuable introduction.
9, Ibid., p. 28. The printed text has two errors: "1891-A" for 791-A and "August
1864" for August 1868. The source of the errors is not clear.
PRIZE-WINNING ADAB 295
prayerful conclusion. According to Rahat, the first chapter has
stories dealing with the cadl (justice) of the rulers, the second,
the sakhawa (generosity) of the wealthy, the third, the shuja'a
(bravery) of the soldiers, the fourth, the chalaki (cunning) of offi-
cials and retainers (ahl i kai) and thieves, and the fifth contains
entertaining tales that "earlier wits have told before nobles and
kings." At the end of most stories Rahat has added a qitca of two
couplets to point out the moral or "conclusion" that is to be
drawn from that tale. The stories are all quite entertaining, sev-
eral of them describing events that happened to the author him-
self, but their edifying nature is often a bit dubious. His conclud-
ing couplets, therefore, often appear forced, and are of generally
poor quality. That is somewhat surprising, inasmuch as Rahat
was the disciple of no less a poet than Mu'min, and wrote better
verse elsewhere. The prose of the stories exhibits some literary
pretension, but not to an excessive degree. The language is closer
to the prose of the storytellers of Fort William than to that of the
d<3St<in-narrators of Lucknow. In that sense it is relatively simple
and colloquial. Nevertheless, it is still the language of a learned
man, who could not help but write as if for other men of worldly
knowledge and experience.
The book did receive some reward, as is indicated in a pub-
lisher's note at the end, but perhaps only a nominal one, because
no sum is indicated. No copies of the book were bought by the
government, nor was it ever prescribed for any examination. The
author, apparently, uses the Gulistan of Sacdi as his model, ar-
ranging his stories into chapters and adding aphoristic couplets
at the end of each story. He writes with approval of such virtues
as justice, generosity, bravery, presence of mind, sweetness of
discourse, and the like—all well-known themes of adab—but
his scope remains limited. He is neither comprehensive nor
sharply focused. His tales convince us that he must have been an
excellent courtier, but by the same token he is not the kind of
edifying author that the new educators would have approved of.
He does not talk of useful new sciences; rather, he suggests a life
in which the wisdom of age and experience counts for more.
Even the Englishmen who appear in his tales appear as rulers
and soldiers, in no way different from the Indian protagonists.
The milieu of baronial courts and the celebratory tone in which
it is—quite successfully—depicted by Rahat had little appeal for
earnest English civil servants and eager Indian wage earners.
The next book to be discussed is cAql o shu'ur [Intellect and
296 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
sagacity] by Maulawi Sayyid Nizam ad-Din, son of Maulawi
Sayyid Amir CAH, probably of Lucknow, published in Lucknow
in 1873 by the famous Newal Kishore Press.10 According to an
inscription on its title page, it was awarded a prize of Rs. 3007-,
and three hundred copies were bought by the government for its
Department of Public Instruction. Another inscription, in En-
glish, runs: "Aql-o-Shu'ur, For Indian Girls, Boys, Ladies and
Gentlemen/' Encyclopedic in conception, it is an amazing cor-
nucopia of both fact and fiction. Some idea of the ambition be-
hind it, and the style of its execution, can be had from this ex-
cerpt from its preface.
Ni?am, of humble name and little fame, begs to submit to his alert
readers, the keen seekers of knowledge, that for a long time this recluse
of the house of despair remained hidden behind seclusion's veil, and
despite possessing a tongue of flame, cared little for fame, choosing to
be rnute like a candle. . . . The anguished heart shed many a tear, and
the sickened soul was gripped with fear, lest the gale of ignorance ex-
tinguish the lamp of learning, plunging into darkness the heavens
a-turning. A storm of indiscrimination raged on all sides; the barge of
discernment sank out of sight. No one cared, none gave a hoot, to listen
to men of merit, to give ear to their suit. I wept for my talent, so fine yet
so battered; I cried out this verse as my hopes lay shattered.
Whom can I show my mind, so gallant?
This age, alas, has no patron of talent.
But Allah be praised, the notice issued by the English Government, so
firm and determined, instigated me to add glory to my name, and gave
me an occasion to indulge in expression, and for sooth obtain fame.
Verily, the Nawwab Lieutenant-Governor Bahadur acted like a messiah
. . . Consequently, hoping for a reward, and bearing in my heart a desire
for the general good, I began this book. . . . The name of this treatise,
full of merits, is cAql o shu'ur. Its every phrase has a benefit, hidden,
and its every chapter has a purpose, given. Without a doubt, it is an
elixir for those who are parched for learning, and without any reserva-
tion it can be taught to ladies and children. The author has divided it
into an Introduction, ten Chapters, and a Conclusion. The Introduction
is called Tajalli i nur (Lights and Splendor), the Chapters are called
cUqul i cashaia (The Ten Intellects) and the Conclusion is titled fau-
har i faid (The Singular Substance). The meaning of Knowledge and
Ignorance, the nature of Reason, single letters and compound phrases,
the counsels of the wise and the advice of the learned, the rules of mor-
phology and syntax, logic and ethics, rhetoric and prosody, refinements
of speech and elegance of expression, Geography and History, Arithme-
tic and Geometry, Physics and Chemistry and Astronomy, marvels of
10. Sayyid Ni?am ad-Din, cAql o shu'ui, 3d ed. (Lucknow: 1914).
P R I Z E - W I N N I N G ADAB 297
the world and the world of fantasy, the history of the Freemasons, the
secrets of mesmerism and electricity, the wonders of the steam-engine
and telegraphy, electro-plating, compass, thermometer, photography,
the art of calligraphy and drawing, letter-writing, horsemanship,
swordsmanship, gymnastics and wrestling, disputation and debate,
etc.—all of these subjects, subtly and carefully, have been transferred
from the tablet of my heart to the surface of these pages.11
The above list is merely a summary of the contents. To enhance
the fascinating quality of the book, the enterprising author has
provided numerous line drawings, probably of his own making,
to illustrate the text.
The text is cast in the form of a tale, whose characters carry
allegorical names. In the Land of Freedom, in the city called the
Abode of Learning, ruled a king, whose name was Embodied In-
tellect. He had a son, Cherisher of Wisdom. When the prince
reached the age of six, the king asked his five ministers to sug-
gest some plan of education for him, and eventually accepted the
advice of his fifth minister—a genie—called Word-Fathoming
Sagacity. The minister then flew off to the region of Qaf to bring
an old friend of his named Sage of the Age. It took this sage five
years to instruct the prince in all branches of learning, and the
king evaluated his progress in a public examination at the end of
every six months. Thus each of the ten chapters is in two parts:
in the first, the sage covers a range of topics as he instructs the
prince; in the second, the prince ranges over a number of re-
lated—and not so related—subjects as he answers his exam-
iners. At the end the king abdicates in favor of his son, the sage
returns to his mountain peak, and we all live happily every after.
The book must have gained some popularity, for it went
through at least three printings, the third in 1914. But it could
not possibly have been a prescribed textbook in schools; its sales
must have been to libraries and individual men, and they were
boosted by the fact that the government bought three hundred
copies for its own institutions. It does not have much in it to ap-
peal to women and girls, who are, in fact, never mentioned in the
text after the inscription in English on the title page. It is pri-
marily a book for adult males, for the "gentlemen" of the au-
thor's time, and it is easy to see its appeal for them.
First, in language and style it is not unlike the dastans that
were extremely popular in that area at that time. Its narrative
11. Ibid., pp. 3-4.
298 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
structure is that of a tale; its prose is flowery and rhyming, inter-
spersed with verses in Persian and Urdu; and it makes use of
many elements of the supernatural. Even its long lists of the
names of flowers, foods, countries, and so on, are like those that
the traditional storytellers were fond of reeling off at any oppor-
tunity. It is a quest story—a quest for knowledge, in this case—
and its prince-hero undergoes tests—not trials by fire, in this
case, but public examinations, much like interviews for jobs.
Secondly, it contains basic information on a great many "won-
ders" of Western civilization, such as the railway, telegraph, and
photography, not to mention the Freemasons.
Thirdly, it does not denigrate the traditional branches of learn-
ing, such as prosody, letter-writing, and astrology. In fact, it de-
lineates them in much detail.
Fourthly, it also purports to be a guide of a more practical na-
ture, explaining to its readers how to do electroplating, make
electric cells, take photographs, and survey land, activities not
quite providing the hunai (skill) that a prince may need to
possess to earn a living, but practical nevertheless. In spirit, of
course, this is like what the princely author of Qabus nama had
in mind when he taught his son how to be a musician, an astrol-
oger, or even a merchant.
Fifthly, it is indeed the first book of its kind in Urdu: a com-
pendium of "useful information" for ordinary curious persons.
If nothing else, it provides them with such exciting, though
rudimentary, facts on a vast array of subjects as would add to
their self-esteem and self-assurance in the company of the better
educated.
Finally, even while celebrating the glories of caql (intellect)—
each of its chapters is called an caql—it does not question any of
the social or religious constructs of its time. Religion, society,
science—they appear in a state of peaceful coexistence in this
book. It does not challenge any of its readers' beliefs, nor even
their supersitions. The cilm (knowledge; science) of tilismat (su-
pernatural mysteries) is as seriously dealt with as are the 'ulum
of physics and astronomy. Its world view is traditional: theistic
and hierarchical. Although its author carefully avoids making
any overt mention of religion—there is hardly any quotation
from the Qur'an or hadlth—he takes the supreme authority of
God as given. He is careful to tell is that there are two types of
caql: caql i macad (the caql of the hereafter), whose fruit shall be
P R I Z E - W I N N I N G ADAB 299
received after death, and caql i ma'ash (the caql of living), which
is useful in this world. That he devotes his book entirely to the
latter is, no doubt, due to his narrow interpretation of the condi-
tion in the Gazette Notification against "theological treatises."
Likewise, though he declares that all classes of men should pur-
sue <ilm, his book deals only with the culum of the gentry. It con-
tains, for example, no mention of such "hand-soiling" occupa-
tions as agriculture and trade. Its ethics are similarly traditional.
The author has incorporated in it material from numerous ear-
lier books of adab, and constantly appeals to the authority of the
past to underscore the validity of his remarks.
It must therefore have appeared as a near-perfect book to many
of its gentlemen readers of that time who, secure in their reli-
gious beliefs and confident of their social habits, but curious
about Western technical achievements, must have found it as
much comforting as it was informative. As for the British, if they
were not totally beguiled by its scientific airs, they were still
right in giving some reward to a pioneering enterprise of such
magnitude. Needless to say, as education spread and literary
tastes changed, as the "wonders" became commonplace and the
traditional culum lost their value in the job market, the same
qualities eventually made it quite irrelevant to the new gentry.
What the new sharif folk wanted was provided to them by Nad-
hir Ahmad, three of whose many award-winning books will be
considered below.
Nadhir Ahmad (1830-1912) was a man of remarkable talent.
Born in a family of maulawls and muftis of Bijnore, he studied
Persian, Arabic, and other traditional subjects, first with his fa-
ther, then later under other maulawls in Bijnore and Delhi. A
chance encounter led to a scholarship to study at Delhi College,
where he joined the Arabic class, studying calculus, trigonome-
try, algebra, geography, and natural philosophy, along with Ara-
bic literature. That course of study lasted eight years. Because of
the objection of his father, he did not study English at that time,
but made up for it later. He began his professional career as a
maulawi of Arabic, but soon moved on to be a deputy inspector
of schools in the Department of Public Instruction. Later, by dis-
playing his genius in translating the Indian penal code into Urdu,
he was nominated to the Revenue Service and became a deputy
collector in the North-West Provinces. Still later, he rose to high
administrative positions in Hyderabad state. Throughout his
300 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
life, along with his professional work, he continued to write and
translate. In the annals of Urdu literature he is deservedly given a
very high position, not only for writing the first "novel" in Urdu,
but also for writing some of the most influential books in that
language.12
The three books under consideration are his first three novels:
Mil'at al-carus [The mirror of the bride], first published in 1869,
Banat an-nacsh [The daughters of the bier], first published in
1872, and Tauba an-nasuh [The repentance of Nasuh], first pub-
lished in 1874.13 Together they formed for him "a syllabus for the
instruction of women: Mir'at al-carus for teaching household
arts (umuri khanadari], Banat an-nacsh for teaching useful facts
(ma'lumat i dururl], and Tauba an-nasuh for teaching piety
(khudaparasti)."1*
Mir'at al-carus was begun in 1865-66 as a reader for his daugh-
ter and was completed in 1867-68. The book became very popu-
lar among the female relatives of the author. He even gave a copy
of it to his daughter as part of her dowry. Later, it was submitted
in competition, and in 1869, the first year of the awards, won for
the author not only the full prize of one thousand rupees but also
a watch as a personal token of appreciation from the lieutenant-
governor. The government purchased two thousand copies of
the book for its institutions and recommended its inclusion in
school syllabi.
Banat an-nacsh followed in 1872 and won the prize of five „.,
hundred rupees. The author called it the second part of Mir'at,
12. A number of books have appeared in Urdu on Nadhir Ahmad and his vari-
ous novels, but by far the best and most comprehensive is by Professor Iftikhar
Ahmad Siddiqi of the University Oriental College, Lahore: Iftikhar Ahmad
Siddiqi, Maulawi Nadhir Ahmad Dihlawi: ahwal o athar (Lahore: 1971). It is
an invaluable source of insights into the social, religious, and literary issues
that were of concern to the Muslims of India in the nineteenth century. In
English, one 'can consult with much benefit Muhammad Sadiq, A History of
Urdu Literature (London: 1964), ppi 316-25, and Shaista Akhtar Banu Suhra-
wardy, A Critical Survey of the Development of the Urdu Novel and Short
Story (London: 1945), pp. 41-65.
13. The following editions of these novels have been used in this study: Mir'at
al-carus (Karachi: Sultan Hasan &. Sons, 1963); Banat an-nacsh (Lucknow: Tej
Kumar Press, 1967); and Tauba an-nasuh (Lahore: Majlis-i Taraqqi-yi Adab,
1964); this carefully edited edition also has an introduction by Professor I. A.
Siddiqi.
14. Nadhir Ahmad, in his preface to Fasana i mubtala, ed. Sadiq ar-rahman
Qidwal (New Delhi: 1971), p. 9. There is some internal evidence to suggest
that the series was planned.
P R I Z E - W I N N I N G ADAB 301
but it was not a sequel.15 It merely expanded upon some events
that were briefly mentioned in the first book. In its preface,
Nadhir Ahmad said "Mix"at was intended to teach ethics (akhlaq)
and good housekeeping (khanadari}. This book does the same,
but only secondarily; its primary concern is with scientific
knowledge (ma'lumat i cilmi). Now remains the topic of reli-
gious piety (dindari). If time allows . . . that too, God willing,
shall be presented next year/'16
He kept his word and presented for competition in 1873 his
masterpiece, Tauba an-nasuh. It won him the first prize again,
came out in 1874, and has not been out of print since. Matthew
Kempson, the director of public instruction at that time, liked it
so much that he translated it into English and published it in
London in 1884.
Both Mir'at and Tauba have been a permanent part of the syl-
labi of Urdu schools from their first publication. Mir'at has had
many imitators, and its main motif of two sisters, one good and
the other bad, has been used in innumerable novels and stories
aimed at the female audience. It has been translated into several
Indian languages, and an English version came out in London in
1903. Tauba, a superior and more complex book, has had no imi-
tators, but it was itself an imitation of Daniel Defoe's The Fam-
ily Instructor, part I. Nadhir Ahmad felt no need to acknowledge
that fact, nor did his English admirers. They were right. Borrow-
ing the bare plot from Defoe, Nadhir Ahmad made it his own by
developing better, more believable characters and by creating a
compelling air of authenticity through accuracy of description
and naturalness of dialogue. By any measure, his book is a far
superior work of creative imagination than Defoe's.
Mir'at, in the days of its greatest popularity, was simply known
as the story of Akbari and Asghari. These are two sisters living
,„ in Delhi: Akbari, the elder, married to a man named Muham-
mad cAqil, and Asghari, the younger, still living with her mother
but engaged to be married to "Aqil's younger brother, Muham-
15. According to Muhammad Sadiq (A History of Urdu Literature, p. 323),
Banat is based on the History of Sandford and Merton by Thomas Day, "a ped-
agogic [story] that came in the wake of Rousseau's Emile," This fact was never
acknowledged by Nadhir Ahmad or his English patrons. One is also hard put
to understand the significance of the title of the book, which refers to a con-
stellation of stars (Ursa Major) and literally means "the daughters of the bier."
16. Banat, p. 2.
302 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
mad Kamil. The fathers in both families live on their jobs, away
from Delhi. Akbari is illiterate, ill-tempered, and absolutely
without any talent. Soon after her marriage she demands a house
of her own, but once installed, quickly manages to make a mess
of it. Asghari, on the other hand, is literate, sweet-tempered, and
multitalented. Before her marriage she runs her mother's house,
and after her marriage, transforms the life in her husband's quar-
ters. She first rids the house of a thieving maid, then slyly gets
her husband to mend his ways and obtain a job. She starts a
school for girls in her house, brings Akbari and "Aqil back into
the fold, and carefully arranges the marriage of her sister-in-law
into a wealthy family.
Nadhir Ahmad never explains just why the two sisters turned
out to be so different from each other. He seems, however, to
imply that while Akbari had taken after her mother, who re-
mains nameless in the book, Asghari was like her father, appro-
priately named Durandesh Khan (Farsighted) and may have re-
ceived proper instruction from him at an early age. They also
correspond with each other, a fact that forcefully brings out the
importance of literacy. Asghari's innate good nature, some proper
upbringing, and a degree of education have made her a paragon of
virtues. Just as her calmness never gives way to hysteria, so does
her sharp mind never fail to come to her rescue. The most out-
standing thing about her is her practical bent of mind (hikma i
camall). She is a remarkably practical person and a meticulous
planner. She dominates the book. Her own father and brother are
only marginal characters, whereas the three male members of
her husband's family have much to say and do in the book, yet
all three of them are totally inept and impractical compared
with her. She leads them and they follow. She is also shrewd
enough to know when to be direct and when subtle. She is al-
ways right, and this does begin to annoy us. Because she is always
serious and never invites us to laugh with her, we may catch our-
selves inclined to laugh at her. That we do not quite do so is only
a proof of Nadhir Ahmad's success in impressing us with his
ideal sharif woman. Asghari was Nadhir Ahmad's beloved hero-
ine, and he had to write a second book, Banat, to tell us all that
he had wanted to tell about her.
Banat is ostensibly the story of Husn Ara, a spoiled girl from a
rich family, who is sent to Asghari for instruction. It presents
Asghari as the ideal teacher. To underscore that role she is gener-
P R I Z E - W I N N I N G ADAB 303
ally referred to as ustaniji (lady teacher). An equally important
role is also played by a protegee of hers, her sister-in-law Mah-
muda. Together they inculcate good values and habits in Husn
Ara, and also expand her knowledge in terms of facts of geogra-
phy, history, and general science. They also teach her and the
other girls in Asghari's maktab how to cook, sew, and manage
household budgets. The facts are conveyed through stories and
interpolated comments; the skills are taught through playing
with dolls and through small projects. Banat apparently presents
Nadhir Ahmad's ideal of a school for girls: run by an individual
or two, catering to a small number of students (carefully selected
for their aptitude), and self-supporting. The teacher receives no
salary—as a sharif lady, Asghari could not be expected to charge
a fee. The girls do handicrafts, which are sold to raise funds for
school expenses. As for the syllabus of this ideal school, Nadhir
Ahmad gives a detailed description of it at the end of Banat, when
he describes what Husn Ara had learned in her approximately
three years there.
When liusn Ara joined the maktab she was a little over ten years old.
As her thirteenth year ended, the family in Jhajjar began to press for
marriage. In the meantime, Husn Ara had learnt to read the Qur'an,
and, since she regularly read two sections every day, knew it as if by
heart. As for Urdu, she could read and write with no difficulty. Even her
handwriting was fair. Urdu translation of the Qur'an, Kanz al-musalla,
Qiyama nama, Rah i najat, Wafat nama, the story of the King of Rum,
the story of the Sipahizada, the miracle of the King of Yemen, Risala i
maulud sharif, Mashariq al-anwai—these were the religious books
that she had read. In addition she had studied the fundamentals of
arithmetic up to the fractions, the geography and history of India,
Chandpand, Muntakhab al-hikaya, and Mii'at al-carus (all by Nadhir
Ahmad). She could read Urdu newspapers. In addition to reading and
writing, she had learned all the arts (hunai) that a woman needs to
manage a household. She had also learned as many useful facts (maclu-
mat i muflda) as would be sufficient to add comfort and pleasure to
the rest of her life. But what she had learned from books was only a
thousandth part of what she had learned from Asghari and the other
students.17
Banat begins with the arrival of Husn Ara at the maktab and
ends with her departure, but it is not a chronicle of her educa-
tional progress. It is mainly concerned with the early days: how
Asghari and Mahmuda slowly induced her to give up her bad
17. Ibid., p. 228.
304 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
habits and gave her a taste of the fruits of education. These are
the titles of some of the chapters: Husn Ara's contempt for the
other girls and how Mahmuda cured her of it; Mahmuda makes
Husn Ara understand that those who are rich are also the needier;
Husn Ara begins to get up early; the meaning of true generosity;
some fun with arithmetic; air pressure; magnetism; the need for
civilization; some description of the English people; the geogra-
phy of Arabia and the ways of the Bedouins.
Compared with Mii'at, Banat is dull and didactic. It has no
story to hold our attention. All through it, Nadhir Ahmad, the
deputy inspector of schools, is in the forefront; Nadhir Ahmad,
the novelist, displays himself only in some of the conversations
where his command of the subtleties of feminine speech be-
comes evident. It was rightly given a lesser award. Moreover, it
has not been as popular, though it too has remained in print.
Two major concerns inspire most of Nadhir Ahmad's fiction:
the uplift of sharif women and the proper upbringing of sharif
children. Together they form the foundation of what is critically
important for him: the family. For him, the enrichment and
fulfillment of the lives of individuals can take place only within
the context of a family, within which each member has his or
her share of responsibilities, that share determining the individ-
ual's worth. The uplift of an entire society, according to him, can
come about only if its constituent members—the individual
families—are first brought to a state of enlightenment. (Nadhir
Ahmad, of course, assumes society to be hierarchical, and fo-
cuses his attention on sharif families.)
Sir Sayyid, the great educationist-reformer and a senior con-
temporary of Nadhir Ahmad, in order to transform his Muslim
compatriots, wanted to duplicate in Aligarh the corridors of Ox-
ford and Cambridge—and perhaps also the cricket fields of Eton
and Harrow. Nadhir Ahmad, for the same purpose, sought to
change the life in the courtyards and kitchens of ordinary homes,
and frequently presented glimpses of English domesticity for the
edification of his readers. What first-hand experience he had of it
is not clear, probably very little and even that misunderstood,
such as his understanding of the "royal powers" of Queen Vic-
toria, who is often mentioned in exaggerated terms in his novels.
In Banat there is a long section describing the virtuous and
happy life of an English family that bears no resemblance to real-
ity. These people, however, serve a useful purpose in his scheme,
P R I Z E - W I N N I N G ADAB 305
just as does the English lady doctor in another novel. They pro-
vide strong, intelligent, and practical women as models for
emulation.
Four of Nadhir Ahmad's seven novels are concerned with the
problems of women. Mii'at and Banat deal with the difficulties
caused by their lack of proper education, an area wherein, accord-
ing to Nadhir Ahmad, they were themselves mostly to be blamed.
The other two books are concerned with the pain and suffering
that their male-dominated society inflicts on them, by allowing
men to have a second wife (Muhsinat, or Fasana i mubtala,
1885), and by not allowing widows to remarry (Ayyama, 1891).
In each of these four novels, Nadhir Ahmad presents at least one
major female character who impresses us by being different from
the prevalent image and self-image of Muslim women. These
creations of Nadhir Ahmad are amazingly dynamic people, pos-
sessing sharp and practical minds. In each instance, they are
more competent, stronger, and more effective than almost all
the male characters. Even the best of the men tend merely to
preach. They have power and wield it, but we get the impression
that if pressed to answer, these men may not be able to justify
the authority and superiority they claim.
Nadhir Ahmad holds that "the cart of life cannot move an inch
unless it has one wheel of man and another wheel of woman." He
writes,
No doubt God created woman a bit weaker than man, but He gave her
hands and feet, ears and eyes, wit (caql), understanding (samajh) and
memory (yad) equal to any man. The boys make use of these gifts and
become calim, hafiz, hakim, craftsmen, artisans, experts in every art
and craft. The girls waste their time in playing with dolls and listening
to stories, and remain devoid of hunai (talent; art). However, those
women who recognized the value of time and put it to good use became
famous in the world just like men. For example, Nurjahan Begum, Zeb
an-nisa' Begum, or, as in our days, Nawwab Sikandar Begum and Queen
Victoria, who have run, not just some small household, but an entire
country, even the world.18
He reminds women of the popular opinions held about them:
women are faulty of intellect (naqisat al-caql); women are crafty
and sly; they are obstinate and fickle; if women (zan) had de-
served any better they would have been called ma-zan (don't
beat!) instead of zan (beat!). Seeing no hope for their relief from
18. Mii'at, p. 15.
 306 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
the seclusion of parda, which would allow them knowledge
through experience, he concludes that the only way for women
to improve themselves is through education. "Education has
more importance for women than for men."19
In giving such importance to women, in allowing them the in-
herent capacity to be coequal with men in almost all matters,
and in laying such emphasis on women's education, Nadhir
Ahmad was going against the prevalent views. The greatest
Muslim educator of that time, Sir Sayyid, wrote hardly anything
concerning women and was in fact not in favor of "wasting" any
national effort on their education. The education of husbands
and sons was of far greater importance to him. He believed that
the benefits of education would eventually filter down through
them to women. We are not suggesting that Nadhir Ahmad's
was a lone voice—there were many others who expressed sor-
row at the plight of women—but it was certainly the most radi-
cal and far-reaching. The radical nature of Nadhir Ahmad's ideas
becomes clear when we compare them, on the one hand, with
the views on women in such popular classics of adab as the
Qabus nama (eleventh century) and the Akhlaq i nasiri (thir-
teenth century), and, on the other, with the opinions of Maulana
Ashraf CAH Thanawi, a younger contemporary and one of the
most influential Muslims of twentieth-century India.
The two medieval classics20 are, of course, directed toward
men. They pay attention to women only insofar as men need
wives to perpetuate their line and look after domestic chores;
problems also arise because men sire daughters as well as sons.
Although these treatises allow that women can be chaste and
kind, thrifty and efficient, and adorned with wit and honesty—
for these are the qualities to be preferred in a wife—the under-
lying attitude is somewhat misogynistic. Although women can
be the best of friends, they can also be the worst of enemies
(Qabus}. Women cannot be trusted, so one should not share
one's secrets with them, nor should one consult them in every
matter (Akhlaq}. You should not marry a wealthy woman, for
she will look down upon you, nor a beautiful woman, for she
will be faithless, nor a nonvirgin, for she will tend to compare
19. Ibid., p. 25.
20. Kaikaus ibn Iskandar, Qabus nama, Sa'idNafisi, ed. (Tehran: 1342 Shamsi),
pp. 95-99; Nasir ad-Din Muhammad at-Tusi, Akhlaq i nasiri (Lahore: 1952,
pp. 212-21.
P R I Z E - W I N N I N G ADAB 307
you with other men all the time (Qabus and Akhlaq}. Do not
give yourself into the hands of your wife though she may be a
paragon of virtue and beauty (Qabus}. Do not fall in love with
your wife, but if you do, hide it from her (Akhlaq}.
As for daughters, according to Qabus, they are better not
born, but if born, they should be either by the side of a husband,
or in the lap of a grave. Their education is to be limited to domes-
tic chores and the rites of religion. Interestingly, whereas the ear-
lier book, Qabus, is not against women being taught how to
read, the later one, Akhlaq, is bluntly against it. As for learning
how to write, that is forbidden by both. Writing is perhaps seen
as a more active and dynamic expression of the self and the intel-
lect than mere reading, and women are not considered to have
either in a positive sense. It is significant that in both the books
the first instruction concerning sons is that they should be given
good names. This does not obtain in the case of daughters.
Maulana Ashraf cAli Thanawi's Bihishtl zewar is directed to-
ward Muslim women, and may be the first book of its kind in
Islamic adab literature.21 First published in 1905, it was written
at a time when female education was rapidly making progress in
India, and Muslim women themselves were playing an active
role in that process. Whereas Nadhir Ahmad had intended his
novels to be useful to all women, Thanawi is concerned with the
needs of Muslim women alone. According to Thanawi, women,
through their actions, affect not only their children, but also
their husbands; thus what they do or do not do affects the so-
ciety as a whole. He then reasons:
Poor faith (bad i'tiqadl} gives birth to bad ethics (bad akhlaqi}, bad eth-
ics produce bad actions (bad a'mali}, bad actions lead to bad interaction
with others (bad mu'amalagi}, which is the root of all evil in the so-
ciety. Since the opposite of something is its antidote, it is^evident that
the cure in this case is the knowledge of religion (cilm i din).22
Accordingly, his syllabus for women includes the Qur'an (vo-
calizing of the Arabic, and understanding of the Urdu transla-
tion), rules of fiqh insofar as they concern women, and some
21. Muhammad Ashraf CAH Thanawi, Bihishtl zewai (Lahore: n.d.). The edi-
tion used here is popularly known as the Taj bihishtl zewai, after its pub-
lishers, Taj Company Ltd., Lahore. It is based on the definitive edition pub-
lished by Maulana Shabbir cAli in 1925, but differs in pagination and some
arrangement of the text. It is perhaps the best-printed edition.
22. Bihishtl zewai, sec. 1, p. 3.
308 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
essentials of domestic bookkeeping, health care, cooking, and
other such things. No history or geography for him, nor the won-
ders of the heavens. According to him, women should be taught
how to read, for that will improve their language, strengthen
their faith, and make them better homemakers. As for the art of
writing, it has its uses too, such as keeping of accounts and com-
municating through letters, but it should be taught only to those
who are not bold (bebak) by nature. Otherwise it may be harm-
ful. "After all," he concludes, "writing should not be more dear
to you than your honor (abru.}."™
Thanawi is against the newly opened zanana (all female)
schools and the books that were taught there. He strongly disap-
proves of the newly emerging "feminine" literature, including
the four novels of Nadhir Ahmad mentioned above. Near the end
of Bihishti zewar, he lists the names of some "harmful" books
and includes the four novels. He then adds: "These four books
contain some discourses that teach discernment (tamlz) and
proficiency (saliqa), but they also contain discourses that weaken
faith (din)."24 Inasmuch as Thanawi does not elaborate further,
we can only speculate about the objections he may have raised.
The obvious ones would be: (1) Nadhir Ahmad's equating of
Islam with other religions; (2) his praise of the Christian English
at the cost of Muslim Indians; (3) his making fun of certain types
of maulawis. But we will not be far wrong, perhaps, if we add to
that list (4) his depiction in the two later novels of the sensual
aspects of marital ties and the emotional needs of women and
(5) his portrayal of highly capable and dynamic women, who
tower over the men around them.
As noted earlier, Nadhir Ahmad is concerned with Muslim
women's lot as a whole, and not merely with the corruption
of their religion. He believes in the efficacy of education as a
given universal, and feels no need to anchor his espousal of it in
the Qur'an and hadlih, as does Thanawi. Nadhir Ahmad sees
women as victims of their own lack of initiative as well as of the
unmitigated authority of men, and champions their cause. He
perhaps feels very close to them; he portrays them well in his
novels. He feels no need to improve their language; in fact, it is
his command of their idiom that makes his dialogues ring so
23. Ibid., p. 80.
24. Ibid., sec. 10, p. 54.
P R I Z E - W I N N I N G ADAB 309
true. With reference to women, Nadhir Ahmad displays an atti-
tude and opinions that must have appeared radical to the ortho-
dox of his time. It would be wrong, however, to think of him as
one who took his religion lightly. On the contrary, Nadhir Ahmad
stresses again and again that religion—any religion—has to be at
the core of a person's being, to generate for him or her the values
to live by. Within the context of Islam, that is Thanawi's belief
too. It is no surprise, then, to find him giving full approval to
Nadhir Ahmad's third novel, Tauba an-nasuh: he lists it among
the books it would be beneficial for women to read.25
In his preface to Tauba, Nadhir Ahmad declares:
In this book we discuss that duty of mankind which is called "the up-
bringing of children" . . . [which] does not amount merely to giving
them nourishment so that they grow big, or teaching them some pro-
fession so that they can earn a living, or arranging their marriages, but
also includes the polishing of their morals [akhlaq], the improvement
of their dispositions (mizaj], the reform of their habits (cadat), and the
correction of their ideas and beliefs [khayalat am miftaqidat).
Further:
My intention was to prove to people the importance of instruction in
good ways and fine morals, and do so without underscoring religidn
(bila takhsis-i madhhab). But to separate goodness (neki) from religion
would be like trying to separate the soul from the body, the fragrance
from the flower, the light from the sun.
He then goes on to stress that though his book was not without
religious discourses, it contained nothing that could hurt the re-
ligious sentiments of other communities. "Thus, though the
story is about a Muslim family, even the Hindus, by changing a
few words, can benefit from it."26
Tauba is about Nasuh, a sharif Muslim of Delhi, and his at-
tempts to reform the ways and manners of his family members
by inculcating in them a deep respect for their religion, its rituals
as well as its ethics. Nasuh takes on this task after himself go-
ing through a radical transformation under traumatic circum-
stances. In a cholera epidemic, Nasuh loses his father and an-
other relative,- soon afterward he, too, falls ill. On his sickbed, he
is filled with self-pity at having to die when he still has so many
25. Ibid., sec. 10, p. 53.1 am indebted to Professor Barbara Metcalf for bringing
Thanawi's comments to my attention.
26. Tauba, pp. 5-8.
310 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
things to take care of in this world. As the doctor's medicine
puts him to sleep, Nasuh has a dream: he sees himself as if pres-
ent in the kachahri (court of justice) of God. There he encoun-
ters his deceased father, who tells him of the exactitude and se-
verity of God's judgment, and the need to inspire one's acts on
Earth with the true sense of piety in order to fully discharge the
individual and social responsibilities laid down upon mankind
by his Creator. Recovering from the illness, Nasuh launches his
campaign. He finds a willing ally in his wife, Fahmida, who had
already had a poignant and instructive encounter with their
younger daughter, Hamida. The older daughter, Nacirna, how-
ever, does not take to religion easily. She goes off to stay with an
aunt, whose religious household eventually has the desired effect
on her. Of the sons, the younger two, cAlim and Salim, accept
Nasuh's program readily, because they had already found influ-
encing factors outside their own family: in one case, a book of
moral principles given by a Christian missionary, and in the
other, the company of a poor but pious schoolmate. It is the el-
dest son, Kalim, who proves to be the most obstinate. He chal-
lenges the authority of his father and the importance of religion
in one's life. He runs away from home, has several misadven-
tures, and returns repentant, but dying. With his death ends
the book.
It is not our purpose here to provide a critique of Tauba as a
novel; we are concerned only with the didactic aspirations of the
book. To that extent, it will suffice to look closely at only one
major theme: the tussle between the reforming old-new and the
recalcitrant young-old, represented by the father and the son re-
spectively. Nasuh is older in age, and exercises his traditional au-
thority as the father; his emphasis on religion can also be called
old-fashioned. But his reforming efforts are directed at such cher-
ished cultural values as he had himself lived by until that event-
ful dream. These same values, however, are obstinately held
onto by Kalim, his father's son in more ways, perhaps, than the
author realizes.27 In fact, Kalim sees no reason for change. He is
already living by the values a person of his background and posi-
tion—i.e., a sharif young man—is expected to have, with the
27. Kalim's obstinacy in his ways is identical with Nasuh's rigidity in his re-
forming zeal. Both require some traumatic experience to bring about a change
in them.
P R I Z E - W I N N I N G ADAB 311
full knowledge and, therefore, tacit approval of his father. He is
popular as a poet. He is ranked high among the players of chess,
backgammon, cards, and other games. His pigeons are among
the best in the city, and none can beat him in a kite-flying match.
He is well-read, and he can write well. As he tells his mother,
"Just as there are other sons of respected and sharif families, so
am I one. If I am not better than all, I certainly am not worse
than any."28 He regards his father's demands as unfair, and leaves
home to seek his fortune on the strength of the talents he pos-
sesses and cherishes. He leaves British India and goes to a small
native state, and when his poetry does not get him far, he be-
comes a soldier, only to be mortally wounded in his first skir-
mish.29 In contrast to him, his "reformed" younger brothers do
very well indeed: one gets a job in the Education Department,
the other becomes a practitioner of yunanl medicine.
Kalim is by no means an uneducated person; on the contrary,
he is well-read in Persian and Urdu classics. We are told that he
is popular in the city as a poet. In his conversation, Kalim is
shown as constantly quoting poetry. He thinks poetry adds force
to his arguments, and marks him as an educated man. In a clear
sense he lives up to his name. But Nadhir Ahmad has only con-
tempt for that kind of "education"; he regards it as useless for
this world and harmful for the other. In his authorial voice,
he says: "Kalim was cursed with poetry" (kalim par sha'iri ki
phitkar thi}.30
As for the books that Kalim had read and collected, Nadhir
Ahmad has Nasuh destroy them in what may be one of the most
horrifying scenes in Urdu novels. After Kalim has left the house,
Nasuh inspects his rooms, and finds a large cabinet full of books
in Urdu and Persian. They consist of "false tales, foolish dis-
courses, obscene ideas, vulgar subjects, all far removed from de-
cency and goodness."31 And so he has the full cabinet dragged
28. Tauba, pp. 179-80.
29. Kalim goes to Daulatabad, ready with a panegyric, but when he arrives
there, he finds that the English have already curbed the powers of its wastrel
ruler and set up an administrative council manned by pious and competent
people. Kalim decides to become a soldier, a foolish decision made out of van-
ity, which, according to Nadhir Ahmad, is "another accursed habit of poets."
30. Tauba, pp. 265, 326.
31. Ibid., p. 253. Nadhir Ahmad's opinion of classical Urdu literature, particu-
larly poetry, was not different from that of his contemporary Hah, who de-
scribed it in his Musaddas as being "worse in stench than a latrine."
312 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
outside and burnt to ashes. What Lord Macaulay had only hinted
at in his famous Minute, Nadhir Ahmad has Nasuh put into ac-
tion. That conflagration symbolizes, more than anything else,
the rejection of the "old" by the "new," of literary excellence in
favor of social usefulness, of "metaphor" in favor of "realism." It
must have left an indelible mark on the minds of many genera-
tions, for nearly seventy years went by before anyone found fault
with Nasuh and saw Kalim as a victim of circumstances, as a
"strange mixture of good and evil."
In his preface to Tauba, Nadhir Ahmad quotes the following
verse (33:72) from the Qur'an:
Lo! We offered the trust unto the heavens and the earth and the hills,
but they shrank from bearing it and were afraid of it. And man assumed
it. Lo! he hath proved a tyrant and a fool.32
In a footnote, Nadhir Ahmad explains "trust" to mean caql, vari-
ously translated as intellect or reason. It is the loss of this caql
that has led, according to Nadhir Ahmad, to the dreadful state in
which the Muslims of India find themselves. The rise of the Brit-
ish, conversely, is due to their making full use of their caql. In
Banat, Asghari tells her girls: "The British are embodiments of
caql, otherwise they couldn't have come here, thousands of miles
from their home, and become kings."33 Nadhir Ahmad is none-
theless devoutly religious, having come to his faith after a period
of anguish and doubt in his youth.34 Faced with the question of
reconciling religion with reason, he shows his characteristic in-
clination to be practical: he ignores it, at least in these three
prize-winning books.35 Consequently, these books are readily ac-
ceptable to the average Indian Muslim, who can easily see that
he requires caql, to succeed in this world, and religion, to redeem
him in the hereafter. If religion leads to good habits, which in
turn lead to success here, so much the better for religion. In fact
32. Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Qui'an,
(Mecca: 1977), p. 450.
33. Banat, p. 198.
34. Ram Chandra, Nadhir Ahmad's favorite teacher at Delhi College, a Hindu,
had converted to Christianity in 1852, and Nadhir Ahmad very nearly followed
suit. Siddiqi, Maulawi Nadhir Ahmad Dihlawi, pp. 66-68.
35. Later in his life, Nadhir Ahmad translated the Qur'an into Urdu and also
wrote a more formal adab book, al-Huquq wa al-faia'id (in three parts). The
former became quite popular for a while, but the latter never caught on. Unfor-
tunately, neither was available to me at the time of this writing.
PRIZE-WINNING ADAB 313
it may appear that success and rewards are of decisive impor-
tance in Nadhir Ahmad's vision. He wants his readers to receive
their due reward in this earth as well as in heaven. After all, he
makes a point of letting us know the heights of success his
"good" people do reach.
In Khanum's Bazar there stands a huge mansion built by Asghari. In
fact, the neighborhood is named after her. That lofty mosque in Jauhari
Bazar that has a well and a tank was built by her too, as was the entire
colony of Tamizgunj. In Maulawi Hayat's mosque, twenty travelers are
fed daily through her generosity. She also built that said'I for travelers
in Qutb §ahib. It was she who distributed five hundred copies of the
Qur'an in one day in the mosque of Fatehpuri, and it is from her house
that one thousand blankets are given to the poor every winter.36
Compared with the achievements of Asghari, the heroine of the
caql books, the success of Nasuh's "good" children is not espe-
cially outstanding, but nevertheless, success it is.
Before it all happened, £Alim was having a hard time passing even the
Entrance examination. Now, however, he passed his B.A. One excellent
job after another was offered to him, but he, due to his good nature,
chose the Department of Education, so he could be of benefit to his
compatriots. The other son, Salim, when he grew up, became a tabib of
such eminence that even now the finest tabib of Delhi practice medi-
cine using his prescriptions. As for Hamida, that saint-from-birth, she
memorized the Qur'an and studied the hadlth. Indeed, all the interest
in education that you see among women of the city, is entirely due to Bi
Harnida.37
What is also noteworthy here is a certain apparent split or sepa-
ration. cAql, guide to the steam-engine, telegraph, and efficient
households, is extolled in Mii'at and Banat, There is no men-
tion in them of the need to say one's prayers regularly. The prayers
are highlighted in Tauba which, in its turn, stays away from the
wonders of modern science. The Qur'an, the Word of God, and
Nature, the Work of God, are pragmatically kept separate. Un-
like his great contemporary Sir Sayyid, Nadhir Ahmad feels no
need to demonstrate a tight fit between the two, at least not in
these three books, his most popular ones. Here the natural world
and the world of the supernatural seern to exist in perfect har-
mony, neither enroaching upon the territory of the other—a re-
assuring concept for the average Muslim then, as it is now.
36. Mdz'dt, p. 77.
37. Tauba, pp. 347-48.
314 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE

The medieval classics display a more holistic attitude. Begin- 13

ning with the concept of the Oneness of God, they extend it to
perceive unity within all phenomena. They develop a concept of The Adab of Musicians
cishq ("love") to describe what they perceive as an interrelation-
ship between all beings as well as between their multifarious ex-
pressions of themselves. Such cishq finds no mention in these BRIAN SILVER
novels of Nadhir Ahmad, nor, for that matter, in Thanawi's
book. (It appears again later in the writings of Muhammad Iqbal,
1877—1938.) Similarly, the earlier books, written for the nobility,
came out of societies where the temporal authority was a part of
the community of believers: the world belongs to God, and the
country and command belong to the king, but the king himself
can be said to be a "slave of Allah." Nadhir Ahmad, on the other
hand, writes for the emerging middle and lower-middle classes
of wage-earners in a society where, not too long ago, the cry of
the town crier used to be: "The world (khalq) belongs to God,
the country (mulk) to the King, and the command [hukm) to the
Company Bahadur."
To conclude, these novels of Nadhir Ahmad are just the right
kind of success stories that the Muslims of India needed to hear An examination of the lives of a number of prominent—and not
in the trying years after the failure of the Mutiny and the dis- so prominent—musicians in the tradition of Hindustani music
solution of all symbols of their temporal power. Separating the discloses divergent styles of individual action. Given the syncre-
world of God from the world of Caesar—in effect though not, tic nature of musical culture in the northern Indian subconti-
perhaps, in intention—and suggestive of an Islamic version of the nent, the Muslim musician propagating an art at least partially
Protestant ethic of success, these novels are precisely the kind of Hindu in origin provides an interesting subject for an explora-
adab that both the rulers and the ruled seem to have desired at tion of the meaning and implications of adab.
that particular time in history. This explains their success. To begin with, the fact that Hindustani music has been an
overwhelmingly oral tradition ensures that there can be no re-
course to basic texts (such as the manuals considered elsewhere
in this volume) that might explain in detail proper conduct for
professional musicians. The search for a musical adab leads us
instead to the existence within that oral tradition of a genre of
exemplary stories, sometimes legendary, that serve a major di-
dactic role in the nurturing of "proper" behavior by professional
or aspiring musicians. Yet even here there is no unified, absolute
standard of behavior, for the question has been complicated not
only by the rich synthesis of Hindu-Muslim cultural elements,
but also by the existence of divergent musical lineages, called
gharanas—which to some extent espouse different principles of
music and musical etiquette—as well as by the effects of the
316 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
various political, socioeconomic, and technological changes that
have swept the subcontinent in the past few decades.
This study will attempt to outline the range of variables that
may be observed in the adab of Muslim musicians. The sources
for this examination are (1) the exemplary stories mentioned
above, which are propagated through the oral tradition; (2) mate-
rial from the few published works containing useful biographical
information on musicians; and (3) my own personal observa-
tions during fifteen years' acquaintance with musicians in India
and Pakistan. Central foci will include adab in ta'lim (educa-
tion), adab in musical performance, and adab in the realm of
spiritual action.
Adab in Ta'lim
Inasmuch as the process of ta'lim in the framework of the ghai-
ana system has been treated elsewhere at some length,1 it seems
unnecessary here to do more than summarize the essential fea-
tures of that process: (1) Musical education is accomplished al-
1 three sons, a male (Christian) and a female (Hindu) shagiid, as
most entirely through oral transmission from the ustad (master,
teacher) to the shagiid (disciple, pupil) in a direct relationship;
among Muslim musicians the shagiid is often a son, because the
profession of music tends to be an hereditary occupation, though
increasingly in recent years unrelated individuals have demon-
strated a sufficient motivation to convince the ustad of their
seriousness, so that he will accept them as disciples. (2) The
shagiid is often, particularly during the last hundred years, a
Hindu, so that the tradition of syncretism has been effectively
strengthened; though there are fewer examples of Muslims learn-
ing from Hindus, the phenomenon is not unknown, and there
are occasional instances of conversion from one community to
another. (3) The role of the shagiid is characterized by scru-
pulous attention to adab, as demonstrated by respect (touching
the ustad's feet and bringing the hand to the forehead), obe-
dience and service (following the ustad's wishes and guidance in
both musical and extramusical matters), and extraordinary dedi-
1. Daniel M. Neuman, The Life of Music in North India: The Organization of
an Artistic Tradition (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1980), pp. 145-
67. Brian Silver, "On Becoming an Ustad: Six Life Sketches in the Evolution of
a gharana," Asian Music 7-1 (1976): 27-59.
THE ADAB OF M U S I C I A N S 317
cation to learning through riyad (practice). (4) In the past, the
ustad was expected, when it was possible, to teach his shagiid
without any payment; as musicians under court patronage re-
ceived a regular stipend, this was usually feasible. The most
serious students, in fact, were often maintained entirely by the
ustad.
In the above features of ta'Hm there are many similarities to
the Hindu tradition of guru shishyd paiampaia (teacher-pupil
succession). The most distinctive similarity, however, is in the
custom of ganda bandhan, or the tying of the thread that binds
the pupil symbolically to the teacher. To my knowledge, no de-
tailed description of this process in a musical context has ap-
peared in English, hence it seems worthwhile to examine it in
some detail. In the present instance, it is necessary for me to rely
on personal observation; clearly, other ganda bandhan cere-
monies may vary from this pattern.
The ceremony in which I participated2 involved the ustad, his
well as the shagiid (American) to be initiated. The male partici-
pants tied handkerchiefs to cover their heads, and incense was
ignited and placed with the thread on a tray containing a co-
conut, cand (chickpeas), some sweets, and some rose blossoms.
The ustad took the thread in his hands and passed it through the
incense smoke, folding and refolding it a number of times while
reciting silent prayers and requests for blessings from the ghai-
ana ancestors. The ustad then tied-the thread—made of several
strands of cotton dyed red—around the right wrist of the initi-
ate, who was then instructed to follow the ustad's performance,
phrase by phrase, in rag Yarnan. After this brief exemplary ses-
sion of instruction, the teacher placed a piece of sweetmeat in
the initiate's mouth, more sweets were passed to the other par-
ticipants, and the ceremony was concluded with the injunction
that the initiate observe in each succeeding year the anniversary
of this occasion with covered head, prayers, and requests for
blessings while passing the thread through incense. In return the
new pupil gave his ustad a token gift of cash (101 rupees), and
2. This occurred in Ahmedabad, India, in 1965; it is interesting to note the
combination of elements associated with both Hindu and Muslim religious
practices.
318 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N
later extended the gift to a concert tour of America in gratitude
for his initiation into the art of music.
Part of the a dab of the pupil is that he should remain loyal to
his ustad for life, though in some instances he or she may move
among several teachers, particularly if they are in the same
gharana. An ungrateful desertion of an ustad, however, is usu-
ally the cause of much bitterness and unhappiness on both sides.
The continuity of the educational process creates an interest-
ing circumstance in that, as a musician passes through several
stages of progress, he may himself become an ustad, yet in his
relationship to his own teacher he remains forever a shagird. A
recent film, The Guru3 (which in reality is about an ustad}, con-
tains a superb scene in which a prominent sitarist, Ustad Zafar
Khan, visits his ustad in the company of a British disciple; sud-
denly the proud, dignified master musician is like a small cower-
ing boy weathering the scolding of his teacher. This is a typical
example of the way in which musical adab, like other types of
adab, must undergo modification of the sort that is charac-
terized in language changes as code-switching.
Adab in Musical Performance
The process of education is taken into the arena of actual perfor-
mance when the ustad involves his disciples in one way or
another in his programs. The least active participation by the
shagirds is in their mere presence in a circle around him; in fact,
this is one of the ways in which fathers help their sons to de-
velop a "stage presence," by having a boy as young as three or
four years old sitting with him on the dais. Often a pupil or two
will be asked to play tanpura—a task demanding more skill
than might seem evident—or occasionally join in a duet, partic-
ularly in the case of vocal students, who may both play the tan-
pura and take occasional solo or supportive phrases, though
always, as ordained by etiquette, in a weaker voice and more
subdued style than that of the teacher.
When adab is brought into performance, it becomes not only
a duty but a strategy as well: the musician will shape his behav-
ior to achieve a certain effect and to attain certain goals. His
3. Directed by James Ivory, released in 1969.
CULTURE THE ADAB OF M U S I C I A N S 319
circumstances of his performance, as well as by his audience.
Traditionally, well into the first decades of this century, Hin-
dustani classical music was most frequently performed in a
courtly setting, the musicians being under the patronage of a
particular maharaja or nawab. In such circumstances ustads
were subject to being called at any time of day or night to per-
form before their patron, and often to instruct him or members
of his family; otherwise, their only obligation was to practice. In
this milieu, there was a rather standardized and highly formal
adab to be followed. Adab could be more relaxed on the occa-
sion of the "dinner-cum-recital" that some of the musicians or-
ganized among themselves; when not playing for their patrons,
it was not unusual for musicians to gather for combined music
and feasting, and a biography of cAbd al-Karim Khan describes
several such occasions in which he participated. He ultimately
eschewed such gatherings, however, because he saw them as
"sheer hot-beds of quarrels and jealousies among musicians."4
In the contemporary era, however, the possible settings for
concerts may be much more varied: programs ranging in size
from small private performances in an individual home to enor-
mous gatherings in open arenas, occurring for no special reason
beyond the presence of a visiting musician or honored guest, or
in observation of a founding anniversary of an institution or the
**
death anniversary of a great musician, or as part of a regular con-
adab
\e of a particularcert will most
series often be
or festival determined
sponsored by themusical organization.
by some
Under these circumstances the type of program and the nature
of the audience can vary widely, as we shall see presently. What
is of central concern to us is the precise nature of the performer's
relationship to his accompanists, his patron, and his audience,
for this will determine the adab that he is to follow.
In visualizing the performer's relationship with these individ-
uals, it is useful to think in terms of three concentric circles
with the solo performer at the center. Within the first circle will
be the musical accompanists, usually a tabla player and one or
4. Jayantilal S. Jariwalla, Abdul Karim: The Man of the Times (Bombay: Bal-
krishnabuwa Kapileshwari, 1973), p. 96. It is interesting to note that virtually
all available biographies in English of Muslim musicians are written by Hindu
authors.
320 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
two tanpura players, and in the case of a vocalist, an accompa-
nist on the sarangi or the harmonium, or both; in the compara-
tively rare occurrence of the jugalbandl, or duet, there will be a
second solo performer, usually a relative or gum-bha'i subordi-
nate in status to the main soloist, who is in charge of almost all
aspects of the musical program.
Within the next circle of the musician's awareness will be the
patron, honored guests, and other musicians attending the pro-
gram. It usually happens that these individuals are seated closer
to the performers than less important guests; in the event that
the soloist sees such a person sitting further back in the audi-
ence, it is not at all unusual for him to call that person up to the
front of the audience. It is from this second circle, as we shall see
presently, that the greatest interaction with the performer occurs
in the evaluative sense.
In the third and outer circle, finally, are those members of the
audience who are essentially unknown to the musician, and
who are presumably of lesser status and are assumed to possess
less musical sophistication.
The seating arrangements of a program usually reflect these
circles. In the traditional mahfil, the musicians will sit either
on a floor or on a slightly raised dais in a central position, and the
members of the audience sit around them, also on the floor. In
the more modern setting of the concert hall—a setting that un-
derstandably diminishes the intimacy to which musicians are
accustomed in the mahfil—the performers will sit on the stage,
often accompanied by family members or special shagirds or
friends. Vilayat Khan often brings a troupe of a number of such
individuals with him to the stage in an attempt to remedy the
impersonality of the concert-hall milieu. The front one or two
rows are reserved for the cognoscenti and special guests of the
patron who, it is interesting to note, will almost never sit on the
platform with the musicians, unless he is very clearly in the sub-
ordinate role of shagiid. The remainder of the hall contains the
rest of the audience, who may affect the performers by their
numbers, but only infrequently by any individual presence.
The performer will usually be fully aware of all three circles of
the people around him, and will shape his performance in the
light of this awareness. The category of musicians who do not
seem to care for their audiences will be dealt with in the next
section, on the adab of spiritual action. The type of program
THE ADAB Of M U S I C I A N S 321
almost universally most highly prized by the musician is the
mahfil, in which, practically speaking, the majority of the audi-
ence will be perceived to be within the second circle—the knowl-
edgeable and the noble. The mahfil is certainly the most pres-
tigious of settings for a program, for it carries echoes of the
imperial or provincial darbais of past ages; most musicians feel
that the knowledgeable and cultivated patronage of nawabs and
rnaharajas was far preferable to the often bourgeois support of
the modern music circles with their chaotic music festivals. Ac-
cordingly, the specific etiquette of the best performances is based
on courtly models.
One of the most important aspects of the adab of a perfor-
mance is in the correct use of language in introducing a program
or particular rags. This language has not retained the degree of
artifice and self-effacement that one hears, for example, even in
contemporary musha'ira. Musicians will more frequently use
the simple verbs gana and bajana in place of the more elaborate
pesh kama and card kama. Certain musicians feel uncomfort-
able making any sort of announcement, and at best mumble an
introduction that hardly serves to fix the attention of the audi-
ence. Others, such as Vilayat Khan, take an obvious pleasure in
cultivating a voice and verbal manner that aspires to a very high
adab: he speaks slowly in a deep, almost prophetic voice, and
uses a comparatively elegant Urdu that most certainly gives his
performances a particular stamp of distinction.
The audience of the mahfil, similarly, is expected to respond
to the performance of the musician with similar courtliness, and
exchanges of praise and acknowledgment are much the same as
those that occur in a musha'ira: expressions such as wah wah,
kyd jawab or jawab nahin, shabash, or subhan allah are com-
mon, along with such more particularly musical varieties as kya
tan lagaya and "ooooff." The performer is usually expected,
according to the prevailing adab, to acknowledge such praise,
particularly if the person offering the praise is of equal or higher
status; in cases of junior musicians being too vocal in their
praise—in an attempt to attract attention—it occasionally oc-
curs that a soloist may deliver a lecture to the presumptuous
youngster on the proper way of expressing such praise. The solo-
ist will acknowledge praise with some sort of signal, whether the
upturned hand raised to the forehead, or a simple nod or smile in
the direction of the person offering praise.
322 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
Expressions of praise, whether intentionally elicited by the
performer or not, are likely to follow (1) the particular delicacy
of a phrase or ornament; (2) a particularly tayyai (rapid and effec-
tive) execution of a passage; (3) a strikingly effective presentation
of the special qualities of a rag; or (4) the ingenious manipulation
of tal (rhythm) in the structure known as tiha'I (a passage re-
peated three times, the last beat of the last repetition falling on
the first beat of the rhythmic cycle); cAbd al-Karim Khan is said
to have called the tiha'I "the trump card of musicians,"5 in that
it is the most effective way of gauging the audience's capacity for
anticipation—with alert listeners responding along with the mu-
sicians on the hitting of sam (the first beat) in much the same
way that poetic connoisseurs will anticipate the qa.ft.ya (true
rhyme) of a ghazal couplet.
In a particular instance of using adab as a strategy rather than
an obligation, the musician may choose to give his audience the
sense of being khass log (special people, i.e., connoisseurs) by
giving them some unusual demonstration or particular type of
information. In such a case the musician will interrupt the per-
formance to explain some rare technique, or some specialty of
the composition or lag.
Many musicians feel that a performance should be suited to
the sophistication and experience of the audience. A distinction
is usually made, as we have already seen, between a khass audi-
ence and one that is not (ko'i khass nahin). Almost all musi-
cians would agree that one is obliged to give one's best perfor-
mance to a khass audience, thus to save for individuals who will
be properly appreciative the choicest compositions, rags, and
technical flourishes. For the more pedestrian audiences, there
are two basic approaches. Some musicians feel that it is inap-
propriate to "waste" the finer musical moments on the uniniti-
ated, with the result that they may give a performance that they
find unsatisfying to themselves or may resort to sophisticated
tricks of rhythm or technique to impress and delight the audi-
ence. Other musicians feel that music has its own inherent power
to charm (one is reminded of stories of Tansen singing to trans-
fixed animals), and will give their best to virtually any audience
but a hostile one. An interesting example of the latter attitude
was demonstrated by cAbd al-Karim Khan, who is said to have
5. Ibid., p. 102.
THE ADAB OP M U S I C I A N S 323
subdued a school full of unruly boys with his singing, knowing
as he did that "music presented with understanding could con-
trol the devil in man."6
One factor can be said to be fairly consistent, however, in
most musicians' perception of adab: a performance should be
designed to reach the highest level of sophistication and under-
standing represented in the audience, whether or not the most
sophisticated listeners are sympathetic (for the presence of rival
musicians sometimes generates a certain ambience of hostility
in the program). A few stories are told of musicians who could
become openly hostile to their audience. One account of Nasir
ad-Din Khan, the father of the Dagar Brothers, alleges that
his supreme contempt of his visible audience was a part of his genius
and temperament. When he would get no response from his audience,
he would righteously rebuke his listeners and appeal to them to culti-
vate a refined taste and have an ear for the real classical versions of
Hindustani Sangeet.7
Not all performers, however, seem greatly concerned with the
response of their audiences. For years Amir Khan performed in
his distinctively—to some, excruciatingly—slow style of kha-
yal to audiences who, it is said, hooted him off the stage. He per-
severed, and in time, through patient education of his audiences,
became one of the premier vocalists of recent times. For the late
bin player, Sadiq CAH Khan, "the art of listening is like the art of
courtship one practises for years. He expects his listeners to se-
duce him into doing his best. If they fail in their duty and if he is
not in the proper mood, he refuses to give his best."8 And the
story is told of how this musician "sat on the stage and had just
started playing Raga Darbari when suddenly he stopped at the
end of seven minutes, leaving his audience to guess and imagine
the rest."9 An even more striking example of indifference or con-
tempt for listeners is in the story told of Bande cAli Khan, who
responded to what he felt was an insincere and impudent request
to hear his bin by smashing the instrument down onto the
ground, with the bitter comment, referring to the horrific sound
6. Ibid., p. 203.
7. S. K. Chaubey, Musicians I Have Met (Uttar Pradesh: Information Depart-
ment, 1958), pp. 47-48.
8. Ibid., p. 103.
9. Ibid., p. 102.
324 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
of wires snapping and gourds shattering, "you have heard the
Bin. Go now."10
While all of the adab of performance discussed above is in a
context that might be called communally neutral—in that it ap-
plies to Muslim and Hindu musicians alike—the Muslim vocal-
ist must decide as part of his adab how he will treat the lyrics of
traditional songs. He has a choice of a number of Urdu composi-
tions addressed to such pirs as Nizam ad-Din Auliya' or such
faqus as Lai Shahbaz Qalandar, or figures such as Sultan cAlam
and Muhammad Shah, who were apparently rulers, or patrons of
past musicians. In Pakistan, for obvious reasons, such lyrics tend
to be more common than in India. Yet a recent anthology of
twenty classical recordings from Pakistan still contains an over-
whelming majority of lyrics, mostly in Braj, with an essentially
Hindu flavor.11 These musicians apparently feel no sense of con-
tradiction in singing such lyrics even though they are Muslims,
as we shall see presently.
In addition to the adab of behavior between solo performer
and audience, there will be varying codes of conduct between
the soloist and his accompanists. Traditionally the accompanists
were to follow the preferences of the soloists in every respect,
unless the accompanist were senior in age or status to the solo-
ist, in which case the accompanist would be given much more
latitude, the soloist often expressing publicly his sense of honor
and privilege at being accompanied by such an august musician.
Occasionally, however, rancor and rivalry will erupt between the
two, with the result that the soloist may chastise the accompa-
nist publicly, regardless of the justice of such chastisement. In
the present age, however, the status and privileges of the tabla
player have been somewhat elevated, so that he is permitted
more opportunities to demonstrate his skill in the course of a
performance,- ideally, however, he should never disturb the de-
velopment of the solo performance, and should take his solos
only on a clear signal from the main performer. Contemporary
10. Jariwalla, Abdul Karim, p. 118.
11. These records are on the EMI (Pakistan) label, numbers EMCP-5060 through
5079. The Pakistani musician is faced with the dilemma of how to identify his
music, given the fact that what he is performing is known largely throughout
the world as "Indian music." The compiler and editor of this record series,
Khwaja Khurshid Anwar, has attempted to solve the problem by identifying
the music with the term ahang i khusiawi, (the melody of Khusrau).
THE ADAB OF M U S I C I A N S 325
saiangi players, similarly, will use more initiative in suggesting
melodic phrases to the soloist than was previously the case.
Yet the existence of competitiveness between the soloist and
some rival musician or musicians in the audience is not uncom-
mon, and this sort of problem can be particularly acute when the
sequence of performance in a music festival is to be decided
upon, and some musicians have been known to walk off the
stage in a fury if they feel that have not been accorded sufficient
respect; such behavior is usually considered to be not of the
highest adab, but it occurs nonetheless. An extreme example is
to be found in the story of the father who brought poison to
swallow if his son did not win a competition.12 It is not unusual,
on the other hand, to have two brothers, or a father and son, en-
gaged in a program of friendly competition, for such matches,
if conducted with proper decorum, are a central part of much
courtly entertainment, and lavish prizes are given to the victor.
Going beyond purely musical performance, the musician will
often use gestures and histrionics, as well as dress, as part of his
strategy of adab. Some musicians eschew any sort of showiness,
and prefer to let their music make its own impact. Others em-
ploy many different head motions, facial expressions, and hand
and arm gestures to add extra effect to their music; it is interest-
ing to note here that this is one of the few areas in which old
music texts do prescribe a set of behavioral prohibitions, as in
the case of the Macdin al-musiqi, with its catalog of twenty-five
offensive mannerisms to be avoided in singing.13
There is a similar divergence in sartorial styles. Although elab-
orate turbans, legendary moustaches, rack of medals across the
chest, and distinguished sheiwani covering the two-chickens-a-
day belly are things of the past, there are still some traces of
courtly pornp in rich embroidery on the kuxta, or in the exquisite
Kashmiri wool shawl covering the shoulders or feet. Otherwise,
the currently favored style tends toward a modest moustache (or
none at all), plain white wide-legged pajama, no headgear—
though occasionally long prophet-like hair, and a white cotton
or gold raw-silk kurta. One still encounters occasional pan
stains on the pajamas, lest the whole flavor of the old ways be
lost.
12. Chaubey, Musicians, p. 52.
13. Munshi Muhammad Karam Imam Khan, Ma'dan al-musiqj (Lahore:
Bazm-i Sadarang, n.d.), pp. 118-21. (Written 1857).
326 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
All of these extramusical elements of language, gesture, and
dress represent other strategic aspects of a musician's adab:
through them he makes a statement about himself and his atti-
tudes, and through them establishes a relationship with his au-
dience. The final contact that a musician has with the audience
is at the end of the performance, when the praise and applause of
the listeners is to be acknowledged. In public concerts, the artist
will usually respond by standing with slightly bowed shoulders
and offering either a manual adab, if the audience is predomi-
nantly Muslim, or a namaste gesture for a largely Hindu audi-
ence; before a western audience, musicians may simply bow
from the waist, though performers more accustomed to the west
may join hands, as do Alia Rakha and Ravi Shankar, and bow
after the fashion of western musicians or actors at curtain call.
It is also a standard part of musical adab — though not always
an honorable one — to respond to compliments after the program
with some sort of disclaimer. The performer may, in the most
humble and mannerly fashion, explain that whatever he may
have achieved was due to the bounty of his ustad, or of God, or
to the sophistication and nobility of the audience. Or alterna-
tively, to give the suggestion that his talents are greater than the
program demonstrated, he may complain of, or apologize for, the
acoustics of the room, or of some indisposition of his health or
mood that prevented him from giving his best performance. This
sort of response reflects a more or less conscious choice on the
musician's part to project an attitude somewhere along a con-
tinuum running from humility and simplicity [sadagi] to ele-
gance and pride (fakhi). Such a choice usually reflects the atti-
tude of the individual musician towards the origins of Hindustani
music, and with this last example of the adab of performance,
we shall turn more specifically to the relationship between reli-
gion and adab.
Adab in. the Realm of Spiritual Action
Two basically distinct types of behavioral models may be recon-
structed from the various musicians and musical stories one en-
counters: the simple man14 and the courtly man. The simple
14. See Neuman, The Life of Music, p. 194, for an example of the artist as a
similar type, "a humble man."
THE ADAB OF M U S I C I A N S 327
man has no care for money, fame, recognition, medals, or per-
sonal luxury; he thus shares to some extent in the roles of both
faqir and sadhu in performing the austerities of music simply
for their own benefit, or whatever benefit they may bring from
a divine source. In such a category was said to be the above-
mentioned Bande cAli Khan. Described in the words of the Pir-
zada of the dargah near which he is buried,
Bandeali was a Fakir. He never moved in society, nor knew anybody.
. . . His Bin was not for the entertainment of men. It was for the plea-
sure of the gods. He would rise at 3 o'clock in the morning and play the
Bin to the glory of Allah, and some blessed souls would hear it from far-
off nooks and corners.15
For the pursuit of music in many ways is other-worldly: there
are numerous stories of musicians who gave up the world en-
tirely for a number of years in order to practice, or even went in-
sane with practice.16 Other musicians, though not giving up the
world, embrace it in a sort of mystical fervor, as was the case of
Bundu Khan, who, it is said, was willing to play whenever the
mood overtook him, even in the middle of a busy street or bazaar.
Such devotion to music as a spiritual expression or a kind of
spiritual discipline is common to the mystical traditions in both
Hindu bhaktl and some traditions of sufism, particularly the
Chishtiyya; with the prevalence of such devotional music in the
subcontinent in both communities, it is not surprising to find
most Muslim musicians justifying their performance of music
as an act of devotion, whether or not they actually do engage in
purely devotional thoughts in the course of their performances.17
The courtly man, on the other hand, represents the transition
of musical patronage from temple and saint's tornb to the medie-
val court. He is concerned with the proper manners of a civilized
nobleman, and many of the great musicians of the past who are
not described as sada are described as sharif. The courtly musi-
cian will relish witty and informed conversation, and will speak
a cultivated Urdu. His dress will be immaculate, whether simply
dignified or that of the dandy, and he will often display proudly
any medals he has received. He will most likely be versed in the
art of poetry and fond of such aristocratic pursuits as cooking
15. Jariwalla, Abdul Karim, p. 118.
16. Silver, "On Becoming an Ustad," pp. 30-31.
17. Neuman, The Life of Music, pp. 60-61.
328 ADAB AS C O S M O P O L I T A N CULTURE
and hunting. In the modern era he is likely to aspire to be some-
thing of a patron himself,18 and it is not unusual to find him driv-
ing a Mercedes, or wishing that he could.
The legendary Fayyad Khan, aftab al-muslqi ("the sun of mu-
sic"), was "once mistaken for the ruler himself in a certain dur-
bar,"19 and it has also been said that "he carried with him the
atmosphere of a Mughal court."20 And it was not only elegance
that he cultivated:
Modest and unassuming, courteous and polite, he combined greatness
with childlike simplicity. . . . No amateur's music was too insignifi-
cant to be altogether ignored by him. He had a word of encouragement
for every beginner in the art who showed any promise. He was mag-
nanimous as only really great men can be.21
This is not to say that a musician cannot be both courtly and
saintly in many respects. He simply chooses to display his art
more in one mood than the other. In the matter of lyrics, for ex-
ample, he may choose to approach them as expressions of devo-
tion, and even though they may be addressed to Krishna, he will
feel that they capture the same spiritual feelings as do the lyrics
of qawwali. Or the vocalist who feels uncomfortable with bhaktl
lyrics may render them virtually unintelligible, while concen-
trating his efforts on the purely musical discipline that he
is offering.
For to a greater or lesser extent, the musician reveres the ma-
terials of his music. Although the Muslim musician may not
share the aspirations of the Hindu musician that the actual per-
sonified form of the rag be conjured up, he will no doubt have
some sense that his music possesses certain powers, if not to
evoke actual beings, then perhaps to capture the attention of cer-
tain animals or /inns.22 Similarly, the instruments or other pos-
sessions of past ustads are often revered as sacred items, perhaps
carrying the baiaka of the master.23 The veneration of saints,
18. Silver, "On Becoming an Ustad," pp. 39-40.
19. Susheela Misra, Music Profiles (New Delhi: 1955?), p. 51.
20. Chaubey, Musicians, p. 13.
21. Misra, Music Piofiles.
22. It is said that the favorite lag of jinns is Malkauns.
23. Such veneration may continue even in the most contemporary of settings,
as shown in a large newspaper advertisement showing the photograph of an
eminent musician with the following testimonial: "For many generations, my
family has been collecting rare musical instruments," says Vilayat Khan. "Each
is a treasure, some with memories of great musicians. I take every precaution
THE ADAB OF M U S I C I A N S 329
musical ancestors, and one's own teacher is, in fact, one of the
greatest sources of spiritual vitality for the individual musician,
a vitality that enables the performer to persevere in a difficult
and much misunderstood discipline.
Conclusion
This brief examination of certain aspects of musical adab has
attempted to show the flexibility of a system drawing largely for
its inspiration on an oral tradition that has as its sources both
Muslim and Hindu cultural elements. Given the fact that there
are common elements in the adab of musical offerings made in
contexts either "religious" or "secular," the individual musician
may engage in an act of spiritual devotion in a civic auditorium,
or in an act of simple musical discipline in singing lyrics prais-
ing an alien god. This living code has for centuries enabled musi-
cians of differing traditions, communities, and ages to perform
together for similarly diverse audiences, under circumstances
ranging from the temple to Town Hall, and from the darbai to
the television studio. As a duty and an obligation, musical adab
trains the individual performer to develop spiritual and technical
strengths, and as a strategy, this code of conduct facilitates for
him the attainment of various goals under differing circum-
stances. With strong, deep roots in the past and a resilience to
adapt to the future, adab provides the musician with a means of
surviving, even thriving, in the crucible of a changing world.
to preserve these instruments. They are kept in a cabinet made entirely from
Sungloss. Sungloss keeps out moisture, heat, insects and mildew, all of which
can damage the wood and tonal quality of prize instruments."
 Part Four

ALTERNATIVES TO ADAB
 14
The Political and Religious
Authority of the Shrine
of Baba Farid

RICHARD M. EATON

In Islam the ultimate source of moral authority is absolutely un-

ambiguous. As a guide to how individuals and society ought to
be, the Qur'an proclaims its moral authority on the basis of its
being the very Word of God, for in Islam God revealed Himself
not in any historical personage, but in a Book. The moral ideal
thus established by the Qur'an is at once objectively knowable,
universally applicable to all peoples and times, and derived from
a source external to humanity. These basic features of Islamic
moral authority stand in contrast to Hindu-Buddhist ethical doc-
trines according to which reward and retribution operate on the
self-fulfilling and self-regulating principle of karma, rather than
on the judgment of a wholly transcendant, external god.
To Muslims literate in Arabic, the Qur'anic source of moral
authority presents no problems in terms of gaining access to that
authority. But what could nonliterate, non-Arabic-speaking vil-
lagers or pastoralists make of such a religion? With reference to
contemporary Morocco, Ernest Gellner has argued that to the
unlettered Berber tribes of the Atlas, the lineages of holy men,
saints, are not just interpreters of Islam for the tribesmen nor
mere representatives of a world religion. "Koranic propriety ema-
334 ALTERNATIVES TO ADAB
nates from their essence, as it were/' writes Gellner. "Islam is
what they do. They are Islam."1
Another way in which the Book was conveyed to such peoples
was through the vast shrines built over the tombs of saints. In
India these shrines displayed, theater-style and in microcosm,
the moral order of the Islamic macrocosm. Although such shrines
possessed important economic, political, and social ties with the
masses of villagers who frequented them, their fundamental
raison d'etre was religious. For it was through its rituals that a
shrine made Islam accessible to nonlettered masses, providing
them with vivid and concrete manifestations of the divine order,
and integrating them into its ritualized drama both as partici-
pants and as sponsors. Theologically, this involved interposing
the spirit of the saint, sustained and displayed through the shrine
institution, between the devotee and the supreme deity of the
Qur'an, For it was believed that the saint enjoyed a closer relation-
ship with God than the common devotee could ever have, and
that the saint's spiritual power (baraka) to intercede with God on
the devotee's behalf outlasted the saint's mortal lifetime and ad-
hered to his burial place. The latter therefore frequently evolved
into a great center of pilgrimage for persons seeking divine aid in
their personal, matrimonial, or business affairs.2
In the nineteenth century, reformist movements such as that
expressed by Maulana Thanawi's Bihishti zewar vigorously op-
posed the entire culture of saints and shrines, the colorful pagean-
try they displayed, and above all the claims that they possessed
an intermediate status between Man and God. Accordingly, sup-
porters of these reformist movements sought to replace the
shrine as the source of Islamic moral authority with a reasser-
tion of the Book as the only legitimate source. Theater, in a
1. Ernest Gellner, Saints of the Atlas (Chicago, 1969), p. 149. The emphasis
is Gellner's.
2. The remarks of a British officer concerning the mediating role of Punjabi
saints in 1911 are equally true of medieval shrines: "The general idea of our
riverain folk seems to be that the Deity is a busy person, and that his hall of
audience is of limited capacity. Only a certain proportion of mankind can hope
to attain to the presence of God; but when certain individuals have got there,
they may have opportunities of representing the wishes and desires of other
members of the human race. Thus, all human beings require an intervener
between them and God." Major Aubrey O'Brien, "The Mohammedan Saints
of the Western Punjab," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 41
[1911): 511.
THE S H R I N E OF BABA FARID 335
word, was to be replaced by Scripture. Inasmuch as this was the
case, an investigation of the formation and nature of this theater-
oriented Islam as represented by one such shrine, that of Baba
Farid in Pakpattan, Punjab, would be appropriate in the present
collection of essays.
The shrine of Shaikh Farid ad-Din Ganj i Shakar (d. A.D. 1265),
known to his devotees as Baba Farid, lies on the right bank of the
Punjab's most southeasterly river, the Sutlej, roughly halfway
between Ferozepore and Bahawalpur. The town in which the
shrine is located, known since the sixteenth century as Pakpat-
tan, is the ancient city of Ajudhan. As the principal ferry point
on the Sutlej river, this town served from ancient times as a
major nexus for east-west trade between the Delhi region and
Multan. Ajudhan also lay fully exposed to the brunt of Turkish
migration and invasions of India from the late tenth century on-
ward, a process that culminated in the thirteenth century when
Mongol pressures forced waves of Turkish settlers into the sub-
continent, many of them settling permanently in the urban cen-
ters of the Punjab, such as Lahore, Dipalpur, and Multan. Hence
Baba Farid's decision to establish himself in Ajudhan was but
one part of a larger process; it was the religious dimension of a
very slow transformation of the Punjab's cities from a Hindu to a
Turkish-Islamic orientation. Even when Baba Farid reached Ajud-
han sometime in the early thirteenth century, a Jamic mosque
had already been established there, a resident qadiwas there ad-
ministering justice according to Islamic law, and the city was
politically subordinate to a Muslim governor in neighboring
Dipalpur.3
This is not the place to discuss the tradition of sufism as
espoused by Baba Farid, which in any case has been superbly
treated in the writings of K. A. Nizami.4 Suffice it to say that two
traditions of Islamic devotionalisrn developed at Ajudhan during
Baba Farid's lifetime. One was the tradition of mystical endeavor
practiced by full-time residents at Baba Farid's convent (jama'a
khana), men who had been initiated into the Chishti order, who
lived a communal life of a strongly ascetic nature, and who, in
3. Shaikh Jamali Kamboh Dihlawi, comp., Siyar al-'arifin (Delhi, 1893),
pp. 33-34.
4. See his The Life and Times of Shaikh Farid-ud Din Ganj-i Shakar (Delhi,
1973) and his Tarikh i masha'ikh i chisht (Islamabad, n.d.).
336 A L T E R N A T I V E S TO ADAB
short, had resolved to tread the arduous sufi path to God. The
second tradition was more popular-oriented and is the one with
which the remainder of this paper is concerned. At the same
time that Baba Farid instructed his elite group of initiates (khali-
fas] in the mysteries of his order, he also handed out ta'widh or
amulets to the common masses, who saw in these ta'widh a pro-
tection against evil, a boon for good fortune, or an agent for the
cure of an illness. As is recorded in the contemporary hagiogra-
phy by Amir Hasan Sijzi,
Once when Shaikh Nizam ad-Din Auliya' started for Ajodhan, a neigh-
bor, Muhammad, who had a serious ailment, requested him to bring
an amulet for him from Shaikh Farid. When Nizam ad-Din placed
Muhammad's request before his master, the latter asked him to write
a ta'widh on his behalf. Shaikh Nizam ad-Din wrote the following
names of God on a piece of paper and presented it before the Shaikh
who touched it, read it, and gave it back to him to be handed over to
Muhammad.5
Huge crowds gathered daily at Baba Farid's convent to receive
ta'widh, which, as in the case cited above, normally consisted of
a scrap of paper on which were written the names of God or
some Qur'anic verses. The tediousness of writing out these
ta'widh, however, compelled the saint to delegate much of the
work to assistants. This was an aspect of Islamic devotionalisrn
that has not changed at all from the thirteenth century to the
present; even now the successors of Baba Farid and his as-
sistants, in common with those of other shrines in the Punjab,
continue to write ta'widh for the masses.
When the ta'widh passed from the shrine to the devotee, the
latter, or murid, would frequently offer to the shrine some kind
of gift, called futuh. This would typically be in the form of
sweets,6 but could be almost anything, and even in Baba Farid's
own day the gift swelled to enormous proportions.7 Baba Farid's
giving of ta'widh or amulets, and the devotees' giving of futuh or
gifts, provided the structural framework upon which the subse-
quent devotionalism of the shrine rested. In a religious sense the
ta'widh-futuh system defined and sustained Baba Farid's in-
termediary status between the devotee and God, as a conduit
5. Amir Hasan Sijzi, comp., Fawa'id al-fu'ad (Lucknow, 1884), p. 62. Cited in
Nizami, Life and Times, p. 52n.
6. Ibid., p. 127. Cited in Nizami, Life and Times, p. 53.
7. Ibid., pp. 124-25, 41. Cited in Nizami, Life and Times, p. 54.
THE S H R I N E OF BABA P A R I D 337
through whose intercession with God one's wishes may be ful-
filled. In a social and institutional sense, moreover, the ta'widh-
futuh system required the shrine to adopt a certain degree of ra-
tional organization with respect to the distribution of material
wealth. For it was Baba Farid's practice to distribute among his
khalifas and the common devotees the presents that other de-
votees had brought.8 The shaikh's convent, and later his shrine,
thus served as a nexus for the circulation and redistribution of a
great deal of material wealth in the region.
In 1265 Baba Farid died, and with his death began the career of
the vast shrine complex based on his tomb, in time encompass-
ing a mosque, a welfare kitchen (langai khana], and a number of
related buildings. By the thirteenth century, it had become com-
monly believed in the Muslim world that a great shaikh's spir-
itual power (baiaka) adhered, after his death, to his familial
descendants as well as to the place of his burial. Accordingly,
the position of prime successor to Baba Farid, later called the
"diwan," fell to his son, Badr ad-Din Sulaiman (1265-81).9 The
accession of Badr ad-Din as the Diwan immediately set a pattern
of hereditary religious leadership at the shrine. Amir Khusrau
mentioned the annual cms or death-date celebration on the occa-
sion of the fiftieth anniversary of the shaikh's death and de-
scribed in detail the curs celebration for the year 1315: the pil-
grimage of pious persons to Ajudhan, the recitation of the saint's
wonderful deeds, and the entertainments performed by an en-
semble of darweshes.10 The Jawahii al-Fandl, an important col-
lection of biographies of Baba Farid's spiritual and lineal descen-
dants compiled in 1623, records that all the major rituals of the
shrine had become instituted in Badr ad-Din's day. These in-
cluded the tying on of the turban (dastai band!} indicating for-
mal inheritance of Baba Farid's spiritual authority; the regulariz-
ing of ecstatic singing (qawwali) at the shrine; the establishing
8. Mir Khurd Kirmani, comp., Siyaz al-auliya' (Delhi, 1885), p. 131.
9. It is noteworthy that although every diwan of the shrine down to the pres-
ent has been the eldest son of his predecessor, Baba Farid's own first and second
sons were passed over in favor of Badr ad-Din, who was the third son. More-
over, he was the only successor not to have received the office from his father
and predecessor, as he was given the office directly by the Chishti elders in
Chisht, western Afghanistan. Siyai al-auliya', p. 188.
10. Amir Khusrau, Raha al-muhibbin, Urdu edition (Lahore, 1957), pp. 63-64.
Cited in M. Abdullah Chaghatai, "Pakpattan and Shaikh Farid," Iqbal Review
9(1968): 131.
338 A L T E R N A T I V E S TO ADAB
of a public kitchen (langai khana) from which the diwan him-
self would, on formal occasions, direct the distribution of food
and sweets; and the tradition of the diwan opening the southern
door (bihishti daiwaza] of Baba Farid's tomb on the occasion of
the shrine's annual cuis celebration, allowing the masses of com-
mon devotees to pass by the shrine's sanctum sanctorum, ritu-
ally entering heaven.11
The successorship of the second diwan, Badr ad-Din's eldest
son, Shaikh cAla' ad-Din Mauj Darya (1281-1334), firmly estab-
lished a tradition of hereditary religious leadership associated
with Baba Farid's shrine and witnessed the spectacular growth of
a popular cult that focused on the shrine. We find two dimen-
sions of this growing cult: patronage by the Delhi court and the
extension of mass devotionalism into the countryside. Although
Baba Farid himself assiduously avoided contact with the mun-
dane world of the court and its ministers,12 and although the
Khalaji sultans (1288-1321) do not seem to have been interested
in the shrine, the whole picture changed with the advent of the
Tughluq period (1321-98). It happened that in the late Khalaji
times the governor of Dipalpur, the future Sultan Ghiyath ad-
Din Tughluq, became one of the many local notables attracted to
the spiritual power and piety of Diwan <Ala' ad-Din Mauj Darya.13
He accordingly made frequent visits from Dipalpur, which was
the administrative capital of the central Punjab, to nearby Ajud-
han to pay respects to the diwan. On one such occasion, accord-
ing to the fourteenth-century chronicler Shams i Siraj cAfif, the
governor brought along his son and nephew, the future sul-
tans Muhammad bin Tughluq and Firoz Tughluq, and all three
were given a turban by Diwan cAla' ad-Din and told by him that
each was destined to rule Hindustan.14 Apart from rationalizing
11. £Ali Asghar Chishti, comp., Jawahir i faridi (Lahore, 1883-84), pp. 298-
300.
12. Diya' ad-Din Barani records that Baba Farid warned a certain sufi, who was
then leaving Ajudhan for Delhi, in the following words: "I give thee a bit of
advice, which it would be well for thee to observe. Have nothing to do with
maliks and amirs, and beware of their intimacy as dangerous; no darwesh ever
kept up such intimacy, but in the end found it disastrous." Tcirikh i firoz shahi,
abridged trans, in H. M. Elliot and Dowson, History of India as Told by Its
Own Historians (Allahabad, 1964), 3:144.
13. Ahmad Nabi Khan, "The Mausoleum of Shaikh cAla al-Din at Pakpattan
(Punjab): a Significant Example of the Tuqluq Style of Architecture," East and
West 24, nos. 3-4 (Sept.-Dec. 1974): 324-25.
14. Shams i Siraj £Afif, THrikh i ftroz shahi, ed. Maulavi Vilayat Husain (Cal-
cutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1891), pp. 27-28.
THE S H R I N E OF BABA F A R I D 339
the subsequent patronage of Baba Farid's shrine by the leading
Tughluq sultans, the story also weaves together the shrine's
dastar band! ceremony with succession to the royal throne in
Delhi, effectively merging the symbols of the shrine and of the
royal court.
Although hagiographic traditions refer to cAla' ad-Din's im-
mense piety and his refusal to consort with royalty,15 the re-
nowned world traveler Ibn Battuta, certainly an impartial au-
thority in this matter, wrote that Sultan Muhammad ibn Tughluq
had bestowed the city of Ajudhan on the shrine.16 This seems to
be the earliest reference to the court's alienation of local reve-
nues in favor of the shrine's support. Court patronage, however,
was also expressed in other ways. The hagiographic tradition has
it that Muhammad ibn Tughluq, who was also a disciple of Di-
wan cAla' ad-Din,17 expressed his desire to build a magnificent
tomb for the diwan, but the latter refused the offer, saying that if
a tomb were built at all, this could be done only after his death.18
Accordingly, soon after cAla' ad-Din's death in 1335, Sultan Mu-
hammad commissioned two engineers to construct what proved
to be one of the finest examples of Tughluq architecture in the
subcontinent.19 It is also the most imposing structure in the en-
tire shrine complex, dwarfing by far Baba Farid's own tomb.
Once begun, the Tughluq court's patronage of the shrine con-
tinued to grow as cAla' ad-Din's successors proved more pliable
to the court's will. In fact, his son and successor, Diwan Mucizz
ad-Din, was even called to Delhi by Muhammad ibn Tughluq,
placed in government service, and sent to Gujarat as deputy gov-
ernor.20 The diwan's brother, meanwhile, was appointed to the
office of Shaikh al-Islam of India.21 Never were the affairs of the
15. As Amir Khurd recorded, "In no way would he go anywhere except to the
door of the Jami1 mosque, and if kings would come, he would not budge from
his place." Siyar al-auliya', p. 194.
16. Ibn Battuta, Rehla of Ibn Batuta, trans, and ed. Mahdi Husain (Baroda,
1953), p. 20.
17. Siyar al-auliya', p. 196.
18. Jawahir i faridi, pp. 307-08.
19. Ibid. Siyar al-auliya', p. 196. For a discussion of the architectural aspects of
the magnificent tomb of cAla' al-Din Mauj Darya, see Ahmad Nabi Khan, "The
Mausoleum of Shaikh £Ala al-Din." The date of construction of the tomb
conies from an inscription on the tomb itself—Safar, 737, which corresponds
to Sept./Oct., A.D. 1336.
20. Siyar al-auliya', p. 196. See also Barani, Tarikh i ftroz shahi (Calcutta,
1862), pp. 347-48, 518.
21. Siyar al-auliya', p. 196.
340 A L T E R N A T I V E S TO ADAB
shrine more firmly welded to court interests. The shrine's lead-
ers were now under Delhi's control, and the shrine became even
more dependent economically upon court patronage. In Mucizz
ad-Din's brief successorship (1335-38), Muhammad ibn Tughluq
granted an endowment or mu'af in support of the shrine's public
kitchen.22 And Barani recorded that Sultan Firoz Tughluq (1351-
88) not only repaired the tomb of Baba Farid, but "granted robes
of honor to his descendants and confirmed them in possession of
their villages and lands."23
There was, however, a second and even more significant di-
mension of the shrine's institutionalization process, also clearly
evident in the early fourteenth century. This was its growing
popularity among the rural masses and its recognition even be-
yond the frontiers of India. In 1334, toward the end of cAla' ad-
Din's fifty-four-year term as diwan, Ibn Battuta visited the shrine
and later recalled, "We reached the city of Ajudhan, a small city
belonging to the pious Shaikh Farid-ud-din of Badaun [sic] whom
at Alexandria the holy and pious Shaikh Burhan-ud-din al-cAraj
had foretold that I would meet."24 The man whom the famous
traveler actually met was not Baba Farid, of course, but his grand-
son, Diwan cAla' ad-Din Mauj Darya. Nevertheless, the passage
shows that Baba Farid, the saint, was now clearly identified with
the physical shrine complex, and that his (its) fame had spread as
far as Egypt.
It was also at about this time that small memorial shrines to
Baba Farid began appearing, scattered throughout the coun-
tryside of the central Punjab, and that the baraka or spiritual
power and authority of Baba Farid became physically established
over the land in much the same way that political/administra-
tive authority was. As for the memorial shrines, what is signifi-
cant is that they were built not by the Tughluq sultans as were
the main structures of the Ajudhan complex, but by the com-
mon people themselves. Amir Khurd, a contemporary of cAla'
ad-Din Mauj Darya, recorded that the diwan had become so well
known that
in the countryside around Ajudhan, Dipalpur, and in the hills toward
Kashmir, the people out of love and belief have built structures and
22. Jawahir i faiidi, p. 308.
23. Barani, Tankh i firoz shahi (Calcutta, 1862), p. 543. Cited in H. A. Rose,
ed., Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab (Patiala, 1970), 1:495.
24. Ibn Battuta, Rehla, p. 20.
THE SHRINE OF BABA FARID 341
tombs in the name of his shrine [i.e., the shrine of Baba Farid] and they
go to these villages for alms and devotions.25
The appearance of these shrines shows that a certain tract of the
Punjab had become identified with Baba Farid's wilaya, or spir-
itual kingdom, which to his devotees was perceived as having
specific geographic boundaries that bordered the wilayas of other
saints. Thus we read in an early-sixteenth-century hagiography
that Baba, Farid's spiritual power protected a certain cAbd Allah
Rumi from highway robbers as he traveled southwest from
Ajudhan to Multan, for the saint had told the traveler that "from
here [Ajudhan] to such-and-such a village is in my charge, and
from such-and-such a reservoir is the frontier of Shaikh Baha'
ad-Din Zakariya [beyond which] is in his charge."26 This passage
clearly demonstrates how closely the notion of spiritual sov-
ereignty could parallel, in spatial terms, that of political sover-
eignty, and represents one of several ways in which the shrine of
Baba Farid fused religious and political categories of authority.
Who were the rural folk who frequented the main shrine
in Ajudhan and also the memorial shrines in the surrounding
countryside? It is well known that in the mid-thirteenth cen-
tury, Balban, in order to build a defensive bulwark against Mongol
incursions, pursued the policy of strengthening and populating
certain cities in the Punjab with large garrisons of Turkish ele-
ments.27 The effect of these measures was to augment consider-
ably the pattern of Muslim settlement in the urban centers of
the Punjab, including not only the soldiers but also thousands of
refugees fleeing before the advancing Mongols—artisans, mer-
chants, petty officials, and the like. Although Ajudhan was not
one of these garrisoned cities, the large size of its Jamic mosque,
originally constructed before Baba Farid's arrival and now part of
the shrine complex,28 attests to the presence of a substantial
Muslim population at that time.
Behind and beyond these urban centers of the western Punjab,
all of which were economically based on intensive cultivation of
food crops along the flood plains of the rivers, lay a vast tract
25. Siyar al-auliya', p. 193.
26. Siyar al-'arifin, p. 115.
27. Barani, Tankh i firoz shahi, in Elliot and Dowson, History of India, 3:107,
109. See also Briggs, Rise of the Mahommedan Power, 1:143—45. Garrisoned
cities included Lahore, Multan, Sirhind, Bhatinda, and Dipalpur.
28. Chaghatai, "Pakpattan and Shaikh Farid," pp. 134-35.
342
A L T E R N A T I V E S TO ADAB
of sparsely populated land, the ban country between the five
rivers. This area, though possessing excellent natural soils for ag-
riculture, was but little cultivated owing to the very scanty rain-
fall that has always characterized the western Punjab. The ban
country could and did, however, support an ecological system
less demanding of the land than peasant agriculture. This was a
type of pastoral nomadism based primarily on the herding of
goats and camels.29 Unlike the nomadism of Baluchistan or
Afghanistan, where pastoral tribes move between plains in the
wet winter season and the mountains in the dry season, the pas-
toralists of the western Punjab "moved only down to the riverain
[sic] in the hot dry months and returned to the ban and thai
after rains, never leaving the Punjab plains and covering at the
most a distance of less than one hundred miles."30 This pattern
placed the peoples of the ban country in a symbiotic relation-
ship with the settled peoples of the riverine area. The pastoral-
ists needed access to the rivers for their herds, which placed
them in a position of potential conflict with the riverine peoples,
but they were nevertheless dependent upon the agrarian-based
urban centers for trade. Moreover, and this is an important
theme to which I shall return shortly, they were also dependent
upon the riverine peoples for providing the rituals and belief
structures that made up their religious system.
The pastoralists to which I refer were primarily Jat groups that
had been moving up from Sind into the Multan area between the
seventh and eleventh centuries. The seventh-century Chinese
traveler Hsuan Tsang wrote of river groups in Sind who "give
themselves exclusively to tending cattle and from this derive
their livelihood," "have no masters," and possess "an unfeeling
temper" and a "hasty disposition."31 The eighth-century Chach
narna styled these groups "Jatts," located them in the wastes of
the Indus valley in Sind, and noted an absence among them of
social hierarchy.32 This evidence all points to the conclusion that
29. For an excellent discussion of the ecology of the western Punjab, see chap-
ter 1 of Emily Hodges' dissertation, in progress [University of California, Berke-
ley, Department of History).
30. Ibid., p. 22.
31. Cited in Irfan Habib, "Jatts of Punjab and Sind," in Harbans Singh and N. G.
Barrier, eds., Punjab Past and Present: Essays in Honour of Dr. Ganda Singh
(Patiala, 1976), p. 94.
32. See ibid.
THE S H R I N E OF BABA F A R I D 343
these Jat pastoralists, before their entry into the Punjab, had not
yet been integrated into Hindu society. Indeed, there is evidence
that in the eighth century, when Arabs replaced Brahrnans as
rulers of Sind, the new rulers merely continued the earlier prac-
tice of requiring the Jats to associate themselves with dogs—un-
clean to Muslims as well as to Hindus—and in this way to
affirm their lowly status.33
In the eleventh century, Jats were fighting Mahmud of Ghazni
in the Multan region, though their social standing was still mis-
erably low at that time, as al-BIruni referred to them as "cattle-
owners, low Sudra people."34 By the time of Baba Farid, however,
in the 1260s, we find the first mention of Jats occupying the Pun-
jab proper, specifically the Bet Jullundur and Bari doabs—i.e.,
the Sutlej-Beas ban and the Beas-Ravi ban.35 In describing the
success of Balban's governor of Lahore and Dipalpur in resisting
the Mongols, the historian Barani referred to the governor's cam-
paigns against the "Jats, the Khokhars, the Bhattis, the Minas,
the Mandahars, and other similar tribes."36 In 1519 and again in
1525 Babur described Jat pastoralist groups in the Sind Sagar
doab and Sialkot regions, giving us good descriptions of Jat rela-
tions with the dominant Rajput groups in the former region.37
The northward movement of Jat clans and their settlement in
the grazing tracts of the Punjab is thus well supported by con-
temporary evidence.
By the end of the sixteenth century, the Jats had multiplied
prodigiously and spread throughout the Punjab, as is vividly re-
flected in the A'ln i akban's statistics for the Lahore and Multan
33. Y. Friedmann, "A Contribution to the Early History of Islam in India," in
Myrian Rosen-Ayalon, ed., Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet (Jerusalem,
1977), p. 332.
34. Edward Sachau, ed., Alberuni's India (New Delhi, 1964), 1:401.
35. See map of Punjab, circa 1605. In our period the Beas River did not, as it
does now, end at the point where it joins the Sutlej. Rather, after joining the
Sutlej above Ferozepur it again split off from it in a southwesterly direction un-
til it joined the Chenab below Multan. In the 1790s the old Beas bed below
Ferozepur dried up, so that what had formerly been two doabs below Fero-
zepur, the Bet Jullundur and the Bari, now became one, the Bari Doab between
the Sutlej and the Ravi. See Herbert Wilhelmy, "The Shifting River: Studies in
the History of the Indus Valley," Universitas 10, no. 1 (1968): 53-68.
36. Barani, Tankh i fiioz shahl, in Elliot and Dowson, History of India as Told
by Its Own Historians, 3:109.
37. John Leyden and William Erskine, trans., Memoirs of Zehir-ed-Din
Muhammad Babur (London, 1921), 2:93-95, 102, 163-64.
 344 A L T E R N A T I V E S TO ADAB
PUNJAB circa 1605 ^
subas, compiled about 1595. For each paigana, Abu al-Fadl listed
the dominant zammdai caste, together with its assessed reve-
nue. If the number of zamindais listed by Abu al-Fadl as "Jat" is
added to that of other named castes listed as Jat by the British
ethnographers Ibbetson and Rose,38 it appears that of the total
186 Punjabi paiganas whose dominant zamindais are known,
fully 82, or nearly half, were controlled by Jat groups.39 Only in
the extreme western Punjab, in the Sind Sagar doab, where the
Janjua Rajputs and Ghakkars dominated, were the Jats conspic-
uously absent as zamindais. Thus from being the pastoralist
"low Sudras" described by al-Biruni in the eleventh century, the
Jats had clearly risen in social position, having become the domi-
nant agrarian caste in nearly half of the Punjab. This rise was oc-
casioned by a gradual transformation from nomadic pastoralism
to peasant agriculture which, though not complete in Abu al-
38. See Rose, ed., Glossary of the Tribes and Castes, vols. 2 and 3.
39. From Abu al-Fadl 'Allami, A'ln i Akbari, trans. H. S. Jarrett, 2d ed. (Cal-
cutta, 1949), 2:320-35 passim.
THE SHRINE OP BABA FARID 345
fadl's day, was sufficiently dramatic that by the 1650s, as today,
the very word "Jat" had become virtually synonymous with
peasant agriculturalist.40 The economic explanation for this
change, argued Irfan Habib, lay in the introduction of the Persian
wheel in the Punjab and its extensive use by Babur's time both in
the riverine lands and in the tracts between the riverine area and
the grazing zone (ban], thereby making much of the arid west-
ern Punjab's naturally rich soil capable of supporting the cultiva-
tion of food crops.41
All of this discussion of the Jats—their migration north from
Sind to Punjab, their rise in social status from low Sudras to
zamindais, and their gradual transformation from pastoralists to
farmers—would be irrelevant were it not that yet another impor-
tant change accompanied those already mentioned: many of
them also converted to Islam. Moreover, of those Jat and Rajput
groups that became Muslim in the medieval period, the vast ma-
jority of them claim to have been converted either by Baba Farid
or by his contemporary, Baha' al-Haqq Zakariya (d. 1263), whose
tomb is in Multan city. Table 1 lists some of the Punjabi Muslim
clans that traditionally claim Baba Farid as the agent of their
conversion. But as Mohammad Habib noted, converting non-
Muslims was not a function of the early shaikhs of the Chishti
order, Baba Farid included;42 and the earliest primary sources on
Baba Farid make no mention of his having converted anyone. In-
deed, it is probable that many if not most of these clans, in the
course of their northward migrations up the rivers of the Punjab,
had not yet reached the Ajudhan area during Baba Farid's lifetime.
On the other hand, we need not, because of these hagiographic
and chronological problems, dismiss outright the claims of the
40. Dabistan i madhahib (Calcutta, 1809), p.-276. The author of this work
wrote that in Punjabi "Jat" meant "villager" (dihistaru, rusta'i).
41. Habib, "Jatts," p. 98. See also idem, "Presidential Address," Indian History
Congress Proceedings (1969), pp. 153-54. In describing the Persian wheel as
an ingenious irrigation device, which he had apparently never seen before,
Babur specifically mentioned the Bet Jullundur and Bari Doabs ("Lahore,
Dipalpur, Sirhind, and the neighbouring districts"), where it was prevalent;
Memoirs of. . . Babur, vol. 2, pp. 296-97. In 1832 Captain Wade, who led the
earliest English expedition down the Sutlej valley, noted the remains of an ex-
tensive irrigation system based on the Persian wheel. See F. Mackeson, "Jour-
nal of Captain Wade," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 6 (1837): 181,
187-88, 194.
42. Mohammad Habib, "Shaikh Nasirrudin Mahmud Chiragh-i Delhi as a
Great Historical Personality," Islamic Culture (April 1946): 140.
346 A L T E R N A T I V E S TO ADAB THE S H R I N E OF BABA FARID 347

Table 1 the riverine region and on to the ban country, there were several
Some Clans Claiming to Have Been Converted by Baba Farid nonreligious ways in which the shrine patronized the clans and
thus integrated them into its wide orbit of social and political in-
Clan Source
fluence, paving the way for the Jats' gradual integration into its
Bhatti Jawahir i faridi, 323 ritual and religious structure. In Clifford Geertz's terms, the
Chhlna Rose, Glossary, 1, 168 shrine provided the tribes with a tiny "theater-state" of their
DhudhI Jawahir i faridi, 323 own/4 that is, it displayed throughout the ceremonies and cele-
Dogar Rawaj i cAmm, 1860s brations that marked its liturgical calendar the pageantry of both
Gondal Rose, Glossary, I , 302 the court of God and the court of Delhi, albeit on a microcosmic
Gondal Ibid. scale. The shrine thus gave clan leaders and their followers not
Hans Jawahir i faridi, 323 only access to Islam, but the honor of participating in the re-
Jo'iya Rose, Glossary, 1, 412 flected splendor of the Sultanate or Mughal courts without actu-
Khokhar Jawahir i faridi, 323 ally being directly subservient to the authorities in Delhi.
Siyal Rose, Glossary, 2, 417 As an intermediary institution in both a religious and a politi-
Tiwana Sir cUmar Hayat Khan cal sense, the shrine of Baba Farid was itself patronized by Delhi.
Wattu Rose, Glossary, 2, 491 We have seen how, since the third dlwan, the Delhi court lav-
Kharral Oral tradition ished the revenues of towns and villages in support of the shrine
Ara'in Oral tradition and its attendants. No major ruler passed by the area without
showing deference to its spiritual power. For instance, in Octo-
ber 1398 Timur, amidst his plundering of northern India, took
the time to visit the shrine.45 Likewise, Akbar, in March 1571,
clans. If one were to hypothesize that the agent of the clans' con- opened his sixteenth regnal year in Pakpattan, where he im-
version, instead of Baba Farid himself, was the shrine of Baba plored strength at Baba Farid's shrine.46 And in 1629 Shah Jahan
Farid as a highly complex religious and social institution, a num- issued a faiman indicating precisely what his and his predeces-
ber of problems fade away. Baba Farid resided in Ajudhan only sors' policy was vis-a-vis the shrine:
sixteen or twenty-four years,43 which is a very short time span for The sacred town of Pak Pattan with all its dependencies is by old agree-
the many eponymous clan founders or maliks who are claimed to ment held in grant from the preceding emperors for the "Langar" ex-
have met him actually to have been there. The shrine, on the penses of the shrine of the revered saint Baba Shekh Fureed Shukur
other hand, has been there all along, sustaining the powerful Gunj by Shekh Mohammad, Sujjadah Nahseen of the shrine, a descen-
baraka of the saint through its line of diwans. The identification dant of the Baba, and the proceeds thereof are applied to his own main-
tenance and to that of the Durveshes and Khadims attached thereto, as
of the shrine with the spirit of Baba Farid has been so thorough, well as to the feed of Travellers and the repair and adornment of the
in fact, that by the sixteenth century the very name of the city building. Continue the whole "Muhal" [i.e., pargana] in endowment to
containing the shrine, Ajudhan, became known as Pakpattan the shrine.47
("the holy ferry"), in honor of Baba Farid's memory. Under these
circumstances it would hardly be surprising that the clans, in 44. Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and
reconstructing the story of their own conversion to Islam, should Indonesia (Chicago, 1971), p. 38.
45. Emperor Timur, Malfuzat i tunuri, abridged trans, in Elliot and Dowson,
recall the name of the saint himself and not that of any particu- eds., History of India, 3:421. Like any other of Baba Farid's millions of de-
lar dlwan. votees, Timur implored the saint's intercession with God for the attainment of
Moreover, throughout the period when Jat groups moved up worldly concerns—in his case, victory in battle. With or without Baba Farid's
help, Timur's prayers were certainly answered.
46. Abu al-Fadl 'Allami, Akbarnama, trans. H. Beveridge (Delhi, n.d.),
2:525-26.
43. Siyar al-auliya', p. 63. 47. West Pakistan Board of Revenue, Lahore. File 131/6/24/24.
348 A L T E R N A T I V E S TO ADAB
In return for this royal patronage, the diwans of Pakpattan per-
formed several functions for the Mughal government. Above all,
on certain tracts of land they received the government's share of
all crops on which revenue was levied in kind, whereas the tax
on cash crops such as cotton, indigo, or tobacco had to be paid in
cash and went straight to revenue officials without passing the
diwan.48 It was therefore in the diwan's interest as a de facto
chaudhri, first, that agriculture be expanded at the expense of
pastoralism, for the diwan derived no cattle tax from the ban
clans, and secondly, that food crops be sown instead of cash
crops. Although there is no corroborating evidence to this effect,
these circumstances suggest that the diwans might have been
promoters of peasant agriculture, and might explain the Jawahir
i faridi's seeming approval of peasant agriculture as a way of life
for the shrine's dependent clans.49
As the Delhi court patronized the shrine, so also the shrine
patronized the agricultural clans, in some ways even mimicking
the symbols of the larger court. For example the very word for
"shrine" used in the subcontinent, "dargah," is also the word for
a royal court. More significantly, the special title of Baba Farid's
chief successor, a personage who at other shrines was designated
simply sajjada nishin ("one who sits on the prayer carpet"), at
Pakpattan was and is "diwan," a term taken directly from the
lexicon of Indo-Islamic royal courts, and possibly alluding to the
man's revenue-collecting function mentioned above. Similarly,
the dastar band! ceremony, tying on a turban symbolically be-
stowing legitimate authority on someone, has obvious parallels
with a coronation ceremony. Thus in the hagiographic literature
reconstructing the story of Baba Farid's sending off the Siyal
chief to settle and populate the Chenab-Ravi area, he gave the
chief a frock and a turban,50 thus combining a specifically sufi
symbol of authority (the frock) with a symbol conferring au-
thority in both courtly and sufi contexts (the turban).
48. Punjab District Gazetteers, vol. 18-A. Montgomery District, 1933 (Lahore,
1935), p. 38.
49. In enumerating the shrine's murid clans, the Jawahir i faridi records: "so
these clans—Adhank, Valank, and Sipan—are all farmers in Pakpattan, and are
descendants of the aforesaid Makh, and are commonly known as Bughutis,
Daks, and Sapan. The Baritis are originally Jats. . . . They live in Pakpattan and
practice agriculture. Then there are the Jakh, whose descendants are called
Jhakarwalis. The Dikan, Dahkan, Sipan, Baritis and Bughutis are all farmers."
Jawahir i Faridi, p. 397.
50. Ibid., p. 324.
THE S H R I N E OF BABA P A R I D 349
The clans' attachments to the shrine were far more than
merely symbolic, however. The darweshes and khadims (i.e.,
"servants") mentioned in Shah Jahan's farman as receiving royal
support comprised the many hundreds of lineal descendants of
Baba Farid living in the Pakpattan region.51 So numerous were
these descendants that they literally formed a separate zamindar
caste in the area, the "Chishti" caste, possessing both economic
privileges and ritual status vis-a-vis the local clans. An 1897
British Assessment Report for this area described the Chishtis as
"a semi-religious Mussalman tribe" having "considerable local
influence," who "are not working agriculturalists, but depend
for cultivation entirely on tenants."52 It is probable that the
Chishtis enjoyed the same sort of proprietary rights in relation
to their tenant clients from a very early date.
More interesting is the well-documented fact that the clans
swore allegiance not to Baba Farid but to his family—i.e.,
the Chishti caste of Pakpattan. Our early-seventeenth-century
source, the Jawahir i faridi, states the matter quite clearly: "The
Khokhars, Bhattis, Dhudhis, and Hans are found in the environs
of Pakpattan, and all the clans take baica with this family and
have become mitrfds."53 Elsewhere the same source mentions
that "these clans serve the progeny of Baba Farid."54 Now, baica
means a compact of allegiance, which in early sufism meant
spiritual allegiance only, but which among the unlettered Jat
clans carried political as well as ethical obligations. In fact, one
passage of the Jawahir i faridi suggests that even military obliga-
tions were involved in the taking of baica:
And in these environs [Pakpattan] the Khokhars, Dhudhis, Jo'iyas,
Bhattis, Wattus, and other groups who became Muslim from the time
of Baba Farid, until now are busy in prayer and fasting [i.e., they con-
form to the outward observances of Muslim law). For they are the pos-
sessors of dignity in the environs of Pakpattan. They can place ten
thousand cavalry and foot soldiers in his [Baba Farid's] service, and
have complete faith in Baba Farid and his descendants, and are their
murids.55
51. It was on account of this vast proliferation of descendants that even in the
seventeenth century Baba Farid himself was called "the Second Adam." G. A.
Storey, Persian Literature, a Bio-bibliographical Survey (London, 1927-71),
2:986.
52. Patrick J. Pagan, Assessment Report for Pakpattan Tahsil (Lahore, 1896),
p. 50.
53. Jawahir i faridi, p. 323.
54. Ibid., p. 396. Emphasis added.
55. Ibid., pp. 397-98.
350 ALTERNATIVES TO ADAB
The above account having been written during Jahangir's
reign, when the Mughals enjoyed effective authority in the Pun-
jab, we do not hear that the diwan's Jat murids were actually
called upon to do battle in service of the shrine. In the mid-
eighteenth century, however, Mughal decline had allowed vari-
ous local powers to assert their independence and to expand
their holdings at their neighbors' expense. Thus in 1757 Diwan
cAbd as-Subhan (1752-66) gathered an army of his Jat munds,
attacked the raja of Bikaner, and thereby expanded the shrine's
territorial holdings for the first time to the east of the Sutlej.56
Then, however, he had to face the expanding Sikh power to the
north, in particular the Nakkai mithl headed by Hira Singh. Sup-
ported mainly by his Wattu murids,57 the diwan successfully de-
fended a Sikh attack on Pakpattan around 1776 in which Hira
Singh was killed, and then pursued the retreating Sikhs with
four thousand cavalry, killing a great number of them.58 In 1810
the shrine's extensive holdings were seized by Ranjit Singh, and
the diwans of Pakpattan, their brief period of political indepen-
dence now at an end, reverted to their former status of political
intermediaries.59
What bound the clans to the shrine even more powerfully than
economic or political ties were the ties of kinship and intermar-
riage established between dependent Jat and Rajput groups and
the diwan's family. The significant point here is that the latter
groups gave their daughters to the diwans and their immediate
family, whereas Chishti daughters were evidently kept within
the caste. In traditional Indian kinship terms, client-patron rela-
tions among castes are often structured by the direction of bride-
giving, the bride-giving groups normally being clients of the
bride-receiving group. In fact, the kinship relations of the diwan
and the clans immediately call to mind those of the Mughal
court and its subordinate Rajput clans, except that in the case of
the diwans religious as well as political patronage was involved.
The Jawahix i faridi not only lists the clans that, as of 1623,
56. Montgomery District Gazetteei (1933), p. 38.
57. Ibid., p. 35.
58. Syad Muhammad Latif, History of the Punjab (Lahore, n.d.), p. 312.
59. To be sure, it was under much worse terms than under the Mughals. Ranjit
Singh allowed the diwan and his retainers only Rs. 1,000 a year for their main-
tenance, derived from the town duties of Pakpattan, in addition to a fourth
share of four small villages nearby. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 6
(1837): 193.
THE SHRINE OP BABA PARID 351
had entered into a bride-giving relationship with the diwan and
his family, but even names the groom and the bride's father in
such alliances. Accordingly, we find that of the thirteen mar-
riage alliances between the Khokhars and the shrine, seven of
the Khokhar brides were daughters of clan maliks, or chiefs.
And on the other side of the contract, we find that of these same
thirteen alliances, three brides went to the diwans themselves
and six went to sons of various diwans. The earliest instance of
this Khokhar- diwan connection was that of a Khokhar bride
given to a son of Diwan Ahmad Shah, who was diwan of the
shrine from 1452 to 1474.60 Similar data exist for other groups,
namely the Bhattis, Hans, and Dhudhis. Of five exchanges in-
volving the Bhattis, two brides were daughters of Bhatti chiefs
and three grooms were sons of diwans, the earliest alliance
dating back to the late 1400s.61 Of four alliances mentioned be-
tween the diwan's family and the Hans and Dhudhi tribes, one
involved a chief's daughter and two others involved granddaugh-
ters, and on the other side one alliance involved a diwan and the
other three, sons of diwans.62
Paralleling these economic, political, and kinship ties be-
tween the shrine and its neighboring clans, the latter gradually
became integrated into the shrine's ritual functionings, to the
point that they eventually came to define themselves in reli-
gious terms the same way the shrine so defined itself—in Mus-
lim terms. As argued above, it seems reasonable to discount the
clans' claims that their eponymous founder or some other early
migrant from Sind or Rajasthan actually met Baba Farid and was
converted to Islam by his suasion. The evidence presented below
further indicates that at no time, whether in Baba Farid's day or
later, were the tribal murids of the shrine converted to Islam en
bloc. On the contrary, the conversion process seems to have been
remarkably slow.
In his discussion of conversion to Islam in Iran, Professor
Richard Bulliet has suggested an objective index for measuring
the overall rate of change from any given religion toward Islam
in a specified region—namely, the frequency with which Mus-
lim given names were bestowed on males. Observing that "the
naming of children is an act of free choice such as most individu-
60. Jawahiii faridi, pp. 323-324.
61. Ibid., p. 324.
62. Ibid.
352 ALTERNATIVES TO ADAB THE SHRINE OF BABA PARID 353

als do not often have in their lifetime," Bulliet notes that in se- Table 2
lecting names, Changes in Names of Males of the Siyal Clan, circa 1217 to 1862
one overriding motivation in many instances is the specific desire ei-
ther to display group membership in a name, or to conceal group mem- Number of Percent
bership. Unless there is some peculiar reason for doing so, parents are Total Punjabi Number of of Muslim
Gener- names secular Muslim names
generally loath to burden their children with names that will cause ation Year recorded names names to total
them to be ostracized. In other words, naming for many parents is an
act that reflects, usually unconsciously, their view of the society around 1 ca. 1217 1 1 0 0
them at that particular point in time.63 2 ca. 1250 3 3 0 0
According to both the shrine's hagiographic accounts64 and 3 ca. 1283 13 13 0 0
the earliest known history of the clan/5 the Siyals of Jhang Dis- 4 ca. 1316 11 11 0 0
trict were introduced to Islam by Baba Farid himself, who con- 5 ca. 1349 9 9 0 0
verted Ray Siyal, the clan's founder. After this event, according 6 ca. 1382 15 15 0 0
to these accounts, all Siyals presumably, were Muslim. A very 7 ca. 1415 39 35 4 10.25
different picture emerges, however, if—as I have done in table 8 ca. 1448 27 20 7 25.19
2—one applies Bulliet's methodology to the fourteen genealogi- 9 Mai Khan 51 45 6 11.76
cal charts of prominent Siyal families given in the Tfirikh i jhang (d. 1481)
siyal. These charts record twenty generations of leading Siyals 10 ca. 1514 51 38 13 25.49
from Ray Siyal to the time of the book's composition in 1862. 11 ca. 1547 53 41 13 24.52
Knowing, as we do, the dates of the Siyal chiefs in the ninth and 12 ca. 1580 61 42 18 29.50
seventeenth generations, we can estimate the approximate date 13 ca. 1613 51 31 20 39.21
of each generation by using the rale-of-thurnb of three genera- 14 ca. 1646 34 15 19 55.88
tions per century. This would place Ray Siyal's life in the early 15 ca. 1679 12 5 7 58.33
thirteenth century, not far, in fact, from Baba Farid's lifetime. 16 ca. 1712 22 4 18 81.81
As the table indicates, however, all masculine given names 17 Walidad Khan 12 3 9 75.00
through the sixth generation remained Punjabi secular names; it (d. 1749-50)
was only in the early fifteenth century that specifically Muslim 18 ca. 1782 8 3 5 62.00
names began appearing at all. Gradually, between then and the 19 ca. 1815 10 0 10 100.00
early seventeenth century, the incidence of Muslim given names 20 1862 8 0 8 100.00
edged up from 10.24 percent of the total to 39.21 percent, not SOURCE: Maulawi Nur Muhammad, TZrikh i jhang siyal, (Meerut, 1862) pp. 15-28.
achieving parity with Punjabi secular names until about the
middle of that century. It was not until the early eighteenth cen-
tury that Muslim names became clearly preponderant (81.81 The whole conversion process thus involved a period from the
percent). After that time our data become skewed because of the sixth to the nineteenth generation, or from the late fourteenth to
shrinking data base, but nonetheless indicate a total disappear- the early nineteenth centuries.
ance of Punjabi secular names by the early nineteenth century. If these data on the Siyals are at all indicative of the conver-
sion pattern for the other clans that had taken bai'a with Baba
63. Richard W. Bulliet, "Conversion to Islam and the Emergence of Muslim So- Farid's shrine, or for that matter with any other shrine, then we
ciety in Iran," in N. Levtzion, ed., Conversion to Islam (New York, 1979), may conclude that religious conversion among Punjabi clans
p. 43.
64. Jawahir i faridi, pp. 324, 397. was very slow indeed—not only slow, but probably unconscious
65. Maulawi Nur Muhammad, Tarikh i jhang siyal (Meerat, 1862), pp. 4-7. as well. This was, after all, a period long before either British

354 ALTERNATIVES TO ADAB
census officials or zealous reformers began urging Indians to
place themselves into sharply differentiated religious categories.
Accordingly, murids of Baba Farid's shrine probably saw them-
selves less in terms of adherents of the Book and more in terms
of clients and sponsors of a theater-shrine that displayed the
wondrous baiaka of its saint through its pageantry, festivals, and
ceremonies. As Miles Irving wrote in 1911,
To the ordinary Montgomery cattle-thief who comes once a year to
Pakpattan to obtain remission for the enormities of the past twelve
months, Baba Farid is the mediator by whose merits he obtains forgive-
ness, assurance of which he obtains through the presence in the flesh of
the descendant of the saint.66
Contemptible as this form of Islam may have been to nine-
teenth- and twentieth-century reformers, the shrine in the
medieval period had managed gradually to give the clans an iden-
tity which, to their own satisfaction at least, was Islamic. In both
the Sultanate and Mughal periods a long tradition of economic,
political, and social patronage by the diwans had absorbed into
the shrine's orbit of ritual influence groups which, as former pas-
toralists who had only recently achieved a settled way of life,
had not formerly been integrated into anything approaching ur-
ban culture. It was the shrine's historical function to incorporate
local systems of culture into a larger cultural system, to connect
rustic clans politically with Delhi and religiously with Islam.
This process, however, did not involve for newly incorporated
groups a change from a Hindu to a Muslim identity, for at the
time of the clans' first contact with Baba Farid's shrine these
groups had not yet become integrated into the Hindu ritual or
social structure. Although the precise nature of the Jats' pre-
Muslini religion is as yet unclear, they seem to have had a deep-
rooted tradition of social egalitarianism. Hence their rise in sta-
tus from low Sudras to agrarian zamindars could more easily find
ideological/ritual expression in Islam than within the highly
stratified Hindu social system via the process of "Sanskriti-
zation."67
66. Miles Irving, "The Shrine of Baba Farid Shakarganj at Pakpattan/' Journal
of the Panjab Historical Society 1 (1911-12): 73. It was, of course, Irving's
imperial-administrative viewpoint that caused him to judge most clans of the
ban country as "cattle-thieves" and their actions as "enormities."
67. In fact, it is just this dynamic, as Irfan Habib has suggested, that lay behind
the attraction of other Jat tribes, in another part of the Punjab, to the equally
egalitarian creed of Sikhism. See Habib, "Jatts," pp. 99-100.
THE S H R I N E OF BABA FARID 355
Conclusion
Although I have argued that the shrine of Baba Farid inte-
grated local systems of culture into a larger one, the shrine none-
theless remained a local manifestation of that larger culture.
The Chishti brotherhood of sufls, of which Baba Farid w,as him-
self one of the most renowned spokesmen, was historically the
first great order of sufls in the Indo-Muslim capital of Delhi.
This meant that the tombs of these sufls—e.g., that of Mu'in
ad-Din Chishti at Ajmer, that of Nizam ad-Din Auliya' at Delhi,
and that of Baba Farid at Pakpattan—became the first Muslim
holy places within India. As such, they assumed immense im-
portance, for it meant that South Asian Muslims were no longer
compelled to look exclusively to the Middle East for spiritual in-
spiration.68 Shrines like that of Baba Farid made a universal cul-
ture system available to local groups, enabling such groups to
transcend their local microcosms.
In carrying out this role there evolved a distinctive adab of
the shrines, just as medieval Indo-Muslim culture had evolved
an equally distinctive adab of the court, i.e., a highly elaborated
code of etiquette and pageantry that both dazzled and integrated
into its structure the subjects of the kingdom. At Pakpattan this
adab comprised the whole set of rituals and symbols that be-
came institutionalized almost immediately after Baba Farid's
death and that served progressively to assimilate various groups
into its social and religious structure. Consider, for example, the
symbolic power of the turban. Precisely because the shrine of
Baba Farid assimilated people religiously as well as politically
and socially, the tying of the turban (dastar bandl] possessed a
great symbolic repertoire: it defined relations of kinship between
the shrine and subordinate clans, it symbolically conferred legit-
imacy on actual rulers in Delhi, and it conferred spiritual disci-
pleship at the shrine itself. Another aspect of the shrine's adab
was its carefully defined formula for achieving religious tran-
scendence, namely, the practice of passing through its Gate of
Paradise (bihishti darwaza], enabling all who did so to ritually
enter paradise.
Yet the adab of the shrine, like that of the court of Delhi, also
68. We find, for example, early hagiographic manuals declaring that a certain
number of pilgrimages to certain sufi shrines in India would be equivalent in
moral value to a single pilgrimage to Mecca.
356 ALTERNATIVES TO ADAB

established and sustained a hierarchic principle: in descending 15

rank there was the diwan, the diwan's family, the khalifas and
shrine functionaries, the Chishti caste, the clan leaders, and the
cpmmon Jat agriculturalists. Indeed, it appears that a highly Malangs of the Punjab:
elaborated code of conduct, or adab, was absolutely necessary Intoxication or Adab as
for an institution that at one level integrated peoples and at an- the Path to God?
other placed them in a graded hierarchy.

KATHERINE EWING

Sufi manuals such as Suhrawardi's Kitab adab al-muridin em-

phasize the importance of adab (proper conduct) for the spiritual
development of the sufi. Suhrawardi grounds his system of sufi
practice on the assumption that one's actions affect (and also re-
flect) the state of one's spiritual development and that initial
concentration on external behavior will actually lead to internal
spiritual development. In Suhrawardi's manual the term adab
(rules of conduct) is used in at least three important ways, to re-
fer to three levels of meaning, but in each case, there is a pro-
gression from outer (zahir] action to inner (batin] state.
At the most general exoteric level, he contrasts the adab of
people of religion with the adab of the sufi. The latter are not
rules of behavior, but a prescription concerning the relationship
between outer and inner: "preserving the heart, observing the
secret, and being the same both secretly and outwardly."1 The
sufi, however, must also carry out an essential component of
the adab of the religious man: the su/i"must first be meticulous
in his obedience to the shari'a (Islamic law) before he can pursue
the tariqa (the sufi path) in his quest for communion with God.
1. A Sufi Rule for Novices: Kitab Adab al-Muridin of Abu al-Najib al-
Suhiawaidi, abridged trans, and intro. by Menahem Milson (Cambridge: 1975),
p. 37.
358 ALTERNATIVES TO ADAB
At the next level, within the sufi order itself, adab is contrasted
with ahwal (inner states) and al-haqiqa (the reality), adab being
the proper focus for the novice.2 The novice is to perfect his in-
teraction with his companions before moving to a more direct
concern with his internal states. Finally, at the most esoteric
level, each station along the sufi path has its own adab. The sufi
is to practice these adab "until the actions reach into the heart."3
At each level, physical, external actions become transformed
into spiritual, internal states.
Not all sufis, however, accept this premise about the path to
God. There are orders of snfis, such as qalandars,* who violate
the premise at the most general level by ignoring or even deliber-
ately disobeying the shari'a. In this paper I shall examine one
such group, the malangs of the Punjab, in order to discover
whether, in the rejection of the shari'a, the notion of adab, with
its stress on the perfection of the external man, is also lost.
Most major and many small shrines in the Punjab serve as
homes for mendicants, many of whom wander from shrine to
shrine throughout the Punjab and the rest of Pakistan. In the
Punjab, these religious mendicants are known as "qalandais"
or, more commonly, "malangs." The two terms are somewhat
loosely used by Punjabis to refer to any wandering mendicant, as
the explanations given by Ibbetson suggest:
Malang, a non-descript sect said to be the followers of one Jaman
Jatti, who in turn was a follower of Zinda Shah Madar, so that the Ma-
langs are commonly looked on as a branch of the Madaris. But the term
is generally applied in a more general way to any unattached religious
beggar, who drinks bhang or smokes charas in excess, wears nothing
but a loin cloth, and keeps fire always near him. The Malangs are said
to wear their hair very long, or matted and tied into a knot behind.5
Qalandari, the kalender of the Arabian Nights, is properly a holy
Muhammadan ascetic who abandons the world and wanders about
with shaven head and beard. But the word is generally used in the Pun-
jab for a monkey-man. Some of them have a sort of pretence to a reli-
gious character; but their ostensible occupation is leading about bears,
monkeys, and other performing animals.6
2. Ibid., p. 35.
3. Ibid., p. 43.
4. See J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, 1973 ed. (New York:
1973), pp. 264—69, for an explanation of Qalandari, Malamati, the distinction
between them, and their relationship to other sufis.
5. Sir Denzil Ibbetson, A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and
North-West Frontier Province (Lahore: 1914), 3:57.
6. Ibid., p. 257.
MALANGS OF THE P U N J A B 359
I shall use the term "malang" as it appears to be most frequently
used by malangs themselves, at least when they were speaking
to me.7 They used the term to refer to certain religious mendi-
cants who live at shrines, but did not limit it to the residents at
any one shrine.
The malangs are seen in an extremely unflattering light by
ordinary people and by ba sharc sufi piis (i.e., those who follow
the shari'a). Many people identify malangs in terms of the mis-
deeds of some of their number, labeling them criminals, thieves,
or—at best—beggars. The piis, in their condemnations of them,
tend to focus on their "dirty" habits such as drug-taking and
failure to follow the shari'a. The malangs, however, are a co-
hesive, if fluid, community with a well-defined world view of
their own. They have as little patience for what they see as the
misdeeds and corruption of "worldly" people as the latter have
for them.
The malang considers his life to be regulated and guided by
hukm (commands, orders). His explanation for his actions and
general life style is: "hukm hai" ("It is an order."). These orders
come either directly from God or from a dead saint who requires
the service (khidma) of the malang. Thus the malang does not
see himself acting in a particular way because of established
rules of conduct. Rather, every action is said to involve a direct
infusion of the sacred into everyday life, of direct communica-
tion with God or a saint. According to the malangs, direct com-
munication with God and the structuring of one's entire life
around this direct contact, making no move on one's own, are
what make one a genuine malang.
In the early stages of their lives as malangs, many men pass
their time traveling from one shrine to another, spending any-
where from a few days to months at any one shrine. The malang
does not decide when and where to go; he acts at the command
of God, or of his pli, the spiritual guide and teacher. At each
shrine he performs service for the saint or saints buried there.
While engaged in traveling from shrine to shrine, following the
will of God, the malang may receive an order from a dead pli in
the form of a dream. The dead pu orders the malang to search
7. The information about malangs presented in this paper is based on data
gathered during field work conducted in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1975-77. This
field work was funded by a grant from the American Institute of Pakistan
Studies.
360 A L T E R N A T I V E S TO ADAB
out his shrine and to devote himself in service to the shrine. In
many cases, the shrine, perhaps only a grave, has long been
neglected. Once the malang arrives, it is his duty to keep the
shrine clean, light oil lamps, and accept the offerings of neigh-
bors. If no proper shrine has been erected, he may be ordered by
the pli to collect funds and build one.
To allow the orders of God to structure one's life, the malang
must completely abandon the social and material world of ordi-
nary men. He thus becomes utterly exterior vis-a-vis the social
world in order to enter the inner, spiritual world.
The most explicit feature that distinguishes the malang from
a pli attached to one of the four regular sufi orders present in the
Lahore area8 is a difference of opinion-and practice with respect
to adherence to the shari'a. The shari'a is the canon law of Is-
lam, God's commandments relating to the activities of men, and
includes regulations concerning both ritual duties and juridical
procedure.9 The shari'a thus regulates the external life of man.
The ba shaic ("with the shari'a"} sufi pirs maintain that obe-
dience to the shari'a is the first necessary step on the sufi path
to ultimate reality.10 Tariqa (the mystical path), which develops
the inner man, can be practiced only by one who already follows
the shari'a. The shari'a, if perfectly obeyed by humans, imposes
divine order upon the world of men. There is great stress in Is-
lam upon the community, and the shari'a structures that com-
munity by prescribing rules for most social and private situa-
tions. The shari'a thus defines the orthodox community of
Muslims and regulates worldly activity.
The malang considers himself in opposition to ordinary men
and their concern for the external world. Because ordinary men
are involved in the external world, they must, in order to demon-
strate their submission to God, follow the shari'a, which regu-
lates the external, visible aspects of daily life. Central among
those areas of life that the shari'a regulates are relations be-
tween men and women and economic relations among men. The
8. These orders are the Naqshbandiyya, Suhrawardiyya, Chistiyya, and
Qadiriyya.
9. See H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Kramers, eds., Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam
(Leiden: 1974), pp. 524-29.
10. See Annernarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill:
1975), pp. 16, 98, for discussion of the shari'a as the first of three grades in the
sufi path.
MALANGS OF THE P U N J A B 361
malang, in contrast, is concerned only with the interior life.
Having rejected the external world, he need not worry about or
adhere to the shari'a. He does not see it as being relevant to him.
His relationship to God need not be mediated by external rules.
Implied in the disagreement between ba shai' pus and ma-
langs over the importance of the shari'a for the sufi is a dif-
ference in assumptions about the nature of the body and the re-
lationships among the body (jism), lower soul (nafs), and spirit
(iuh}. According to orthodox sufis, the body and lower soul must
be purified before any attempt can be made to develop the spirit
and maintain the link between the spirit and God. Failure to fol-
low the sharica is indulgence of the lower soul, which as a result
remains firmly attached to the body and clouds the "mirror" of
the spirit. The outer world must be ordered according to God's
laws before any contact with the sacred is possible. The pli lives
in this outer world among ordinary men. He marries and has
children. Thus, he passes back and forth between inner and
outer in the social world. His body must be purified through the
prescriptions of the shari'a so that he can make these transitions
from the everyday social world in which he is enmeshed to the
inner spiritual world, which he reaches through sufi discipline
and meditation.
The malang, in contrast, avoids all transitions. He focuses on
his inner life and ignores the zahii. He seeks to live perpetually
in contact with the sacred. Because he does not pass in and out of
the social world, his body does not become polluted. In the ex-
treme case of the malang whose spirit is perfectly in tune with
God, his spirit is so powerful that it actually purifies the body,
and thus not even bodily wastes are polluting. He can therefore
ignore his body altogether.
Sexuality is a central symbol in the expression of the relation-
ship between malangs and ordinary men and, implicitly, be-
tween men and God. The ordinary man has two aspects, outer
and inner, which are expressed in several ways. The outer aspect
is the visible, the action of man in the world. The inner aspect is
the invisible, the relationship of the interior man to God. The
ordinary man also moves between two realms in the exterior so-
cial world. These realms are the public and the private, the world
of the street and the world of the home. In Pakistan, as in most
Muslim societies, women ideally are secluded in the home.
Strange men must remain totally excluded from this interior of
362 ALTERNATIVES TO ADAB
the home, the zanana, the women's world. A curtain (parda)
shields the women from all contact with these outside men. Tra-
ditionally, the ideal was that women need not enter the street at
all, but rather spend their entire lives inside. When it was neces-
sary to violate this ideal, it was done by creating a portable inside
space: formerly, the enclosed palanquin, now, the burqa (veil).
The men in a family had access to their own women but to no
others. They thus moved between the interior world of the za-
nana and the exterior world of the street.
Malangs, in contrast to ordinary men, strive to eliminate this
duality, this movement between exterior and interior, in their
lives. The first step in doing this is to put themselves totally out-
side the normal social world. This position is symbolized in sev-
eral ways, most literally in the fact that malangs do not live in
houses. They never pass between the public and private spheres:
they remain on the streets, outside. Hence they never have con-
tact with women, who ideally never move outside to the street.
Of course, in the actual social world malangs often encounter
women who, in fact, do leave their homes or answer the door
when malangs come begging for alms. The utter incompatibility
of the world of the malang and the world of woman, however, is
expressed in the vow of celibacy that the malang takes. The
malang must never encounter a woman in the private sphere of
the home. He cannot marry.
In placing himself totally outside the social world, the ma-
lang's position becomes analogous to and yet totally in opposi-
tion to that of the woman. An analogy emerges in the symbolic
system, that quite explicitly equates the malang with woman.
Directly stated, the analogy implies that God is to malang as
man is to woman. Just as woman is married to man and subser-
vient to him, the malang considers himself to be betrothed to
God and is, of course, subservient to him. At death, the sufl
achieves his life goal: marriage with God. The word in Urdu for
the death anniversary of a saint, which is celebrated at his shrine,
is curs. This means, literally, "marriage, nuptials: a marriage
feast; a religious ceremony celebrating the union of the soul of a
deceased pir or saint with the Supreme Spirit."11
11. John T. Platts, A Dictionary of Uidu, Classical Hindi, and English (Lon-
don: 1960), p. 760.
MALANGS OP THE PUNJAB
363
This betrothal to God implies that a sufi is the bride of God,
just as woman is the bride of her husband. Among the malangs,
this feminine role is represented by the wearing of feminine or-
naments, especially bangles and rings and, in some cases, of fem-
inine clothing.
The betrothal is the explicit reason that malangs give for their
asceticism. As several malangs expressed it, their sexuality is
bound to God. This binding is symbolized in the iron bangle. It
is perhaps of significance that a woman, upon the death of her
husband, breaks her glass bangles. The iron bangle of the ma-
lang cannot be broken: his tie to God will never be severed. By
putting himself totally outside the social world, by becoming
"like a woman" in his marriage with God, the malang puts him-
self totally "inside" the spiritual world, the House of God. His
lower soul has no opportunity for independent action, and his
spirit is thus open to hear the orders of God.
The malang receives these orders in a state of intoxication.
One activity that most Pakistanis consider to be in violation of
the shari'a and which is regularly engaged in by malangs is the
smoking of hashish (charas) and drinking of bhang. Flagrant use
of charas marks the malang as being outside respectable society
and also clearly sets him apart from the ba shaic pus. The ma-
langs I spoke with made no effort to hide their use of hashish and
marijuana, but spoke with contempt of the ordinary man's use
of alcohol. As one put it, "Alcohol works on the outside—it
makes a man violent and blinds his senses. Charas works in the
inside. It makes him peaceful and opens up his spirit to God. So
a malang should avoid alcohol as he should avoid women. Alco-
hol will cut him off from God, but charas brings him close to
God. That is why we malangs use it."
The use of hashish helps to reinforce the idea that the external
world, the outer man, is completely irrelevant and should be ig-
nored. Once in a hashish-induced state of intoxication (nasha),
the malang enters into communion with God and receives His
commands. The pirs who follow the sharl'a do so in order to
bring the nafs (lower soul) under control and to make it work for
the rah (spirit) rather than against it. The malangs also see the
nafs as a problem, but instead of dealing with it by training it to
act in traditional patterns, they strive to bring it under control by
eliminating its autonomy. The malang attempts to eliminate in-
364 A L T E R N A T I V E S TO ADAB
dependent action in the world. He binds his soul to the orders of
God and of his pir, and in his state of intoxication, loses touch
with his body altogether.
On the basis of the orders of his pir, the malang dons a par-
ticular color of dress and bangle and wears his hair in a specified
way. His adoption of this dress marks him distinctively as a
malang vis-a-vis "ordinary" people. The details of style and
color also identify him as a particular kind of malang, associated
with a specific shrine and spiritual ancestor. In the Lahore area,
for instance, the followers of Zinda Shah Madar, whose shrine is
in Makanpur, near Kanpur in U.P., constitute a brotherhood of
malangs. Most malangs do not belong to the four major sufi or-
ders present in Pakistan, but they do operate within the sufi
tradition, generally associating themselves with Lai Shahbaz
Qalandar, a thirteenth-century saint whose shrine is in Sind,
south of the Punjab. Those who identify themselves with the
major orders distinguish themselves from ba sharcpirs by desig-
nating "qalandari" as their sub-order. The major meeting place
for malangs from all over Pakistan is the shrine of Lai Shahbaz
Qalandar. Most malangs talk of having made a pilgrimage there
or of waiting to receive an order to make such a pilgrimage at
some point in their lives. For many malangs in Lahore, this was
the only shrine outside of the Lahore area that they claimed to
have visited.12 The malangs believe that their lines of spiritual
descent can be traced back to Lai Shahbaz Qalandar, whom they
see as the spiritual and physical focus of their order. This focus
transcends the split into distinct orders.
The reliance on spiritually transmitted orders from God and
from pus, both living and deceased, and thus the apparently ex-
clusive dyadic relationship between the malang and the pir, does
not preclude the existence of a fluid but clearly organized com-
munity structure among the malangs. In practice, the orders be-
come rules of conduct, orders to reenact traditional patterns
of action.
The community of malangs is closer to the idea of a sufi
brotherhood as it exists in the Middle East than is the organiza-
tion of ba sharcpirs. Among the latter the stress is on the dyadic
relationships between a pir and his followers. There is little em-
12. For a description of the malangs at the shrine of Lai Shahbaz Qalandar, see
Peter Mayne, Saints of Sind (London: 1956), pp. 46-70.
MALANGS OF THE P U N J A B
365
phasis on any regular, frequent interaction among pus or fol-
lowers of the same sufi order. The malangs, in contrast, are en-
gaged in a community in which interaction with fellow malangs
is frequent and regular. Concern with the j>fr-follower relation-
ship is shown in the differentiation within the malang commu-
nity on the basis of the sufi order into which the malang was
initiated by his pir, but most activities are not strictly organized
along these lines.
A primary focus of malang activity is the cuis celebration. The
malang's most clearly articulated rules of conduct pertain to the
planning of and participation in the curs. Nevertheless, this ac-
tivity, despite its regular occurrence and traditional ritual, is
talked of in terms of obeying the orders of one's pir and perform-
ing services for him. The malang is guided at each step in the
preparations by the commands and instructions that he receives
in dreams and visions. The curs is an annual celebration held at
the shrine in honor of the saint on the anniversary of his death. It
commemorates the "marriage" of the saint with God, which oc-
curred when he died. Sponsoring and attending curs celebrations
is an important activity of the malang and occupies much of his
time. The etiquette concerning the sponsoring of and atten-
dance at an curs involves rules governing invitations to the curs
and the ritual surrounding these invitations, and rules for atten-
dance at the curs, i.e., whether such attendance is obligatory. At
the <urs itself, there are rules governing greeting rituals upon ar-
rival, seating and sleeping arrangements, and the provision of
food and drugs to guests.
The caretaker of the shrine that is sponsoring an cuis receives
a dream sent by the saint whose shrine he tends. The dream
specifies the names of the other saints whom the deceased saint
washes to be represented at the curs. The caretaker then sends a
messenger to each of the shrines he has dreamed of, in order to
issue invitations to the cuis. The invitations consist of three col-
ored threads, black, green, and red. The green thread is intended
for the saint buried at the shrine, the red thread is for the main
caretaker of the shrine, and the black thread is for any malangs
associated with the shrine. The caretaker acts as representative
for both the dead saint and the other malangs and ties a knot in
the thread, meaning that he has accepted the invitation.
As the date of the curs approaches, the malangs associated
with the shrine will begin soliciting donations in the neighbor-
366 A L T E R N A T I V E S TO ADAB
hood or throughout the city, depending on the size of the shrine.
Though malangs have the reputation of being beggars, they them-
selves stress that they are not beggars in the ordinary sense. They
assert that, unlike ordinary beggars, they never go individually
from house to house simply demanding food and money for
themselves. Instead, they rely on the blessing of God for their
daily needs, performing service for the pir whose shrine they
tend. At the time of the annual curs for each shrine, however, a
band of six or seven malangs will go from house to house to ask
for donations for the curs. They dance and sing as they go, and
one of the procession will carry a flag. The malang thus, in the-
ory at least, clearly distinguishes himself from the ordinary beg-
gar who, though he may imitate the malang in dress and other
details of appearance, does not act like a malang. The ordinary
beggar pretends to be a man of God to benefit himself: begging is
not done as a service to a saint in obedience to an order, but
rather to fill his stomach.
Much of the money collected for the curs goes to provide food
and drugs for the expected guests. Ba sharc pus who are care-
takers of small shrines, when asked whether malangs attend the
annual cuis at their shrines, usually replied that no malangs
come because hashish is not distributed at the ciirs. At those
shrines on the malang "circuit," the caretaker is expected to pro-
vide his guests with hashish for the duration of their two- to
four-day stay.
At the major shrines, where all types of people attend the cuis,
the distinction between the malangs and others is spatially rep-
resented. The area surrounding the shrine is divided into three
sections, based upon the activities permitted in each. During the
cuis, the ceremonies involving the caretaker of the shrine (or
government officials, if the shrine has been taken over by the
Auqaf Department of the government) take place in the inner
shrine, a small room enclosing the grave. In this inner shrine,
only prayers in honor of the Prophet and the reading of the
Qur'an are permitted. The symbolically central rituals of the cuis,
such as the washing of the grave and the changing of the cover-
ing sheet, take place here.
Immediately surrounding this inner shrine is the diwan
khana, the second space. The threshold of this space marks the
point at which shoes must be removed, no shoes being permitted
in the diwan khana. Dance and music are not permitted in this
space, either, these practices being against the shaifa. In this
MALANGS OF THE P U N J A B 367
space, the caretaker receives the caretakers of other shrines, es-
pecially those of his own sufi order, and other socially important
followers.
In the space outside the diwan khana, musicians sing qawwali
and the malangs gather, though at some shrines the space set
aside for "respectable" qawwali is separated from the open space
where the malangs establish themselves. The malangs thus oc-
cupy a space that is indicative of their place outside of society.
Though some isolated malangs can be seen, most settle in
clusters that are marked by a campfire and some kind of tent to
protect them from the sun. These clusters are usually organized
around a pu who is of higher status than the malangs surround-
ing him. The malangs I spoke with asserted that all malangs are
equal, are brothers. To prove this point, one malang stated the
following:
At the cuis, when all the malangs come, the places where they sit de-
pend on where the people organizing the cuis tell them to sit. There is
no classification in this, whether a big malang or an aged one will sit.
Malangs are all malangs, equal, except if one is a pli.
Even in this statement, the malang referred to "big" malangs, a
category mentioned repeatedly by informants.
At the cuis the distinction between "big" and "little" malang
is clearly marked by the deference shown toward "big" malangs.
In the area set aside for them, malangs cluster in groups of ten or
twenty. Each group has its own fire, even in the daytime, and
many are protected from the sun by a tent or a cloth stretched
across rough poles. In each cluster, one or two big malangs may
even be seated on a string cot, if one has been set up. His fol-
lowers and other hangers-on sit on the ground around him. One
malang described to me what is happening in this situation:
Some people at the shrines on curs days are real malangs, but many
others also dance when the malangs are sitting in front of the fire.
These people are called "little malangs." They are students [chela] of
the malangs, and they dance to please the spirit (iuh] of the big seated
malangs. They hope that if the seated malang is pleased, they can be-
come real malangs. The students serve the malangs and obey all the
orders of the seated malangs. For example, they keep the fire going,
make hashish cigarettes for them, fill the huqqa [pipe] and bring food
from the langai [food distributed at the cuis\.
The difference between a big malang and a little malang
is largely a matter of age and experience. The big malang has
power and authority, at least over those currently living at his
368 A L T E R N A T I V E S TO ADAB
own shrine, and often over malangs who have formerly lived
and worked with him. The status of a malang is also determined
by the importance of the shrine at which he lives. When I asked
a malang living at a small neighborhood shrine if he and his
companions knew the malangs at Miyan Mir, a major shrine in
Lahore, he replied: "We know the malangs at Miyan Mir, but
they wouldn't know us because we are very small. The malangs
at big shrines get more respect."
Most malangs, in addition to distinguishing big and little ma-
langs, also draw an absolute line between the pir and the ma-
lang. This distinction is based on descent. Anyone can become a.
malang, but only a descendant of the Prophet can become a pir.
A pir can become a malang, i.e., he can reject the material
world, but even then he is expected to marry and have children
in order to perpetuate the saintly line. Respect is always shown
to a pir.
Even while the pir is a malang, he will get the same respect a pir gets.
He will sit on a bed. When turbans and "shares" [i.e., of drugs and food]
are being passed out at the curs, the hosts will always ask first if there is
any pir. They are more important than an ordinary malang and will get
their shares first.
The examples above reflect a definite structure marking rela-
tive status in the community of malangs. At the annual round of
curs ceremonies, this structure is ritually enacted, beginning
with the invitations. The caretaker is given a separate invitation
that distinguishes him from the rest of the malangs. He acts on
behalf of the malangs when he accepts the invitations. At the
curs the caretakers, pirs, and other big malangs are honored
by receiving turbans and first shares in the distribution of food
and drugs. They are served by little malangs and dictate when
there will be singing and dancing. At the "home" shrine, the big
malang who has disciples under him has absolute authority over
them. He can control their contact with outsiders and beat them
when he is displeased, as I discovered when I attempted to talk
with a little malang while a big malang was nearby. Despite the
theoretical emphasis among malangs on the absence of concern
for the worldly self and its pride, considered to be a manifesta-
tion of the lower soul, in practice failure to observe precedence
and proper etiquette can lead to insult and retaliatory measures.
If the caretaker is not present when a messenger arrives with
an invitation for an curs, the messenger will not wait or ask to
MALANGS OF THE P U N J A B 369
see anyone else. When the caretaker then discovers that some-
one came to invite him to an curs in his absence, he will give
some kind of sacrifice, either a pot of food or some sweets, in the
name of the saint whose curs is to be held, because the saint is
believed to be angry that his invitation was not received.
Having received an invitation to attend an curs, the malangs
will travel to the shrine in a small group, carrying their flag,
dancing, and beating a drum along the way. They do not ap-
proach the shrine directly, but stop several yards from the shrine
area and continue to dance until the caretaker of the shrine or
"someone big" comes personally to receive them. If this eti-
quette is not followed, the visiting malangs are insulted and will
return home. According to some informants, a malang will re-
taliate with black magic (jadu) against the gaddinishin who in-
sulted him. As one informant who is not a malang himself but
who had grown up near a shrine tended by a malang described it:
If the gaddinishin doesn't come to attend a guest malang, he will re-
turn home and become an enemy. He will make a bundle of needles,
glass, blades, and such things. Through jadu he sends it through the
air. It makes a sound as it flies through the air, but only big people can
see it. When a big person who knows jadu sees it flying, he will stop
the bundle, open it and destroy it. If he sends it back, it will hit the
sender.
Most malangs deny the existence of such retaliatory mea-
sures, stressing instead the malang's nonviolence and lack of
worldly concerns. But Christians and Muslims who have lived
in close contact with the malangs report the occurrence of such
practices and the malang's extreme concern with precedence
and ritualized etiquette, which the malangs report in its positive
aspects.
Concern about status and precedence appear to be contrary to
the basic premises according to which the malangs locate them-
selves in the social and spiritual worlds. The malangs focus on
giving up not only worldly possessions but also independent
action, relying instead on the inner experience of God in a state
of intoxication and on God's orders as the stimulus for action.
These concerns, however, are not associated, except at the most
abstract level, with an assumption of the equality of all men or
even of all malangs. The concept of hukm, order, is linked with
that of khidma, service. The malang performs services for the
saint from whom he receives an order. The saint, already de-
370 A L T E R N A T I V E S TO ADAB MALANGS OF THE P U N J A B 371
ceased, is closer to God than is the malang and forms part of a malangs, respectively. The sufi performs services as part of the
hierarchy of mediators between the ordinary man and God. The adab so that he can perfect his external behavior. At the height
idea of service, which in itself implies an asymmetrical relation- of his spiritual development he will not give up the shari'a and
ship between the servant and the one served, is extended to rela- adab. On the contrary, these actions will have become so auto-
tions among the living malangs. One can thus observe within matic that "God may remove the sense of burden arising from
the malang community itself a hierarchy of relationships rein- the legal duties from him whose heart becomes pure but not the
forced by etiquette and ritual. This type of hierarchy is implied obligations themselves, because the human qualities do not
even in Suhrawardi's manual of adab for sufis and appears to be cease in anyone."13 The "little" malang performs services for his
a logically inevitable consequence of a system founded upon the elders so that they may ignore the external world altogether.
premise that some men can come closer to God than can others. These services are not part of any adab and they are not an ex-
Basic differences in the conceptual systems of the malangs tension of the shari'a. They are actions that need to be performed
and the ba shai'pirs (as represented in Suhrawardi's manual) can in order to maintain the channel of spiritual communication be-
be derived from differences in an initial premise from which tween God and man, via the dead saints and their shrines.
other differences can be explained. Both systems assume that
13. A Sufi Rule, p. 31.
there are outer and inner worlds and both share basic ideas about
the constitution of the person, but they differ about the relation-
ship between the outer and the inner. The ba sharc pii remains
within the external world and perfects his outer self (his body
and his lower soul) so that there is a congruence between outer
and inner; God's blessing then can penetrate through the body
and lower soul and make contact with his inner spirit. The
malang rejects the outer world entirely. He leaves the social
world and, in a state of drugged intoxication, loses contact with
his body as well.
The pir thus begins from a position of activity in the world.
Through traditional codes of conduct that regulate this activity,
the shari'a and sufi adab, he learns to control his life. In this
context of regulated activity, inner spiritual development is pos-
sible. The malang, once he has abandoned the external world,
begins from a position of inertia and inaction, the state of nasha,
In this condition he receives the orders which become the moti-
vating force of all his actions. His lower soul and body are bound
to God and, though he appears to be acting in the external world,
he is not really acting at all, but merely allowing God or a dead
saint to act through him. Hence, in theory, neither the shari'a
nor any adab are necessary. In practice, the malangs form a hier-
archically structured community based on hukm and khidma,
orders and service. Service to both the shrines and to living pus
and malangs in effect become the rules of conduct, which come
close to adab as they are prescribed by Suhrawardi. But these
rules of conduct mean quite different things to ba shaic sufis and
 Glossary of Selected Terms

cabd — slave, servant; as in "cAbd Allah/' servant of God.

dbra — honor, character, reputation, dignity.
cada (pi. cadat) — customary usages or systems of social behavior
regarding such matters as manners, friendship, earning a living,
traveling.
adib — a man of letters; teacher of manners.
cadl — rectitude, honesty, justice.

ahkam — see hukm.

ahl as-sunna wa al-jamaca — that majority of Muslims which ac-
cepts the authority of the whole first generation of Muslims and
the validity of the historical community ("people of custom and
community").
ahwal — see hal,
akhlaq — see khulq.
calim (pi. 'ulama') — learned man; in particular, one learned in Islamic
legal and religious studies.
caql — reason, reasoning, intelligence.

caql i mcfad — wisdom concerning the hereafter.

caql i ma cash — wisdom concerning living in this world.

ashiaf — gentility among Indian Muslims, including those who trace

their lineage to the Prophet, his Companions, or to the Mughal or
Pathan (historic) ruling classes.

bai'a — the act of promising allegiance or obedience; initiation as a

disciple of a saint or religious guide.
baiadan — kinship group claiming descent from a common ancestor.
baiaka — blessing, holiness; spiritual power inherent in a saint.
basmala — invocation formula representing the words "in the name
of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate" (bi ism allah).
bid'a — actions in disagreement with the practice established by Mu-
hammad's example or the example of the early Muslim community.
bihisht — Paradise.
374 GLOSSARY
chilla — retreat of forty days during which sufis remain in seclusion,
fast, and engage in devotional practices.
damn — conscience; heart, mind; the recesses of the heart.
daigah — literally "court"; the seat of spiritual authority represented
by sufi shrines or tombs.
dais i nizamiyya — curriculum developed at Farangi Mahall.
darwesh — dervish; sv.fi.
dastan — tale, story.
dastai band! — ceremony of presenting the turban of a sufi to his
successor.
dhabh — slaughter, sacrifice of an animal.
dhiki — recollection of God, often through the repetition of specified
formulae.
dindan — piety; constancy in religion.
diwan — revenue official; in a derived sense, the head of the shrine of
Baba Farid in Pakpattan.
dozakh — Hell.
duca' — nonritual, personal prayer.
dudh bakhshana — obtaining forgiveness from one's mother for her
giving of milk, in order to facilitate her passing into death.
duiud — praise, blessing.
fadila (pi. fada'il) — virtues that must be cultivated in order that man
may reach his full moral development; merits.
fa'l — taking omens.
faqlh — scholar of Islamic law; jurist.
faqii (pi. fuqaid') — religious mendicant; sufi.
faid — religious duty according to Islamic law.
faimdn — written command issued by the court and bearing the royal
seal.
fasiq — person not meeting the legal requirements of righteousness;
one who is godless, sinful, dissolute.
fdtiha — opening suia of the Qur'an.
fatwa (pi. fatdwd) — formal legal opinion issued by a qualified mufti.
fiidaus — Paradise.
fttra — original state of the soul, at which time it is characterized by
purity.
futuh (pi. futuhdt) — alms; donations for support given to sufis.
GLOSSARY 375
gaddi — throne, seat of authority at a daigah.
ghusl — major ritual ablution, e.g., washing of the whole body.
guhai — jewels.
hadlth — reported words, deeds, and occasions of tacit approval by the
Prophet Muhammad, based on the authority of a chain of reliable
transmitters.
hal (pi. ahwdl) — state of spiritual intoxication, considered to be a gift
from God.
hamdala — formula for expression of praise to God (al-hamd li-alldh,
lit., praise is God's).
haqiqi — eternal, real.
hikma — wisdom, a virtue of the rational faculty.
' hilm — moderation, tranquility in the face of passion.
hukm (pi. ahkam) — regulation, order, rule.
'ibada (pi. cibadat) — ritual duties, including ablutions, prayer, alms-
giving, fasting, pilgrimage, reading the Qur'an, and recollection of
God.
ihsan — beneficence, charity, doing good deeds.
ijma' — see usul al ftqh.
ijtihad — independent judgment concerning a legal or theological
question, based on the interpretation and application of the four
sources of the law (Qur'an, hadlth, qiyas, and ijma').
ikhtiyai — choice, election, preference.
cilm (pi. culum) — knowledge, scholastic science, scholarly discipline;
insight.
imam — founder of one of the major law schools; leader of prayer.
Iman — faith, knowledge and belief in the existence of God.
insan — human being.
cishq — intense, compelling, passionate love.
istifta' — the act of asking for a fatwa from a qualified mufti.
istighfai — seeking forgiveness.
istiqama — being upright, governing the passions, and strengthening
the soul.
jagiiddi — the holder of the revenue rights over a piece of land, under
the Mughal system of government.
jahil — uncivilized, barbarous person who arrogantly does evil deeds
(lying, fornicating, murdering, and the like).
376 GLOSSARY GLOSSARY 377

jama'a khana — small sufi hospice especially for sufis of the Chish- malfuzat — the sayings of a sufi pir, collected and recorded by one of
tiyya Order. his disciples.
janaza — funeral procession. mandub — category of actions deemed recommended in Islamic law.
janna — Paradise. mansabdar — the holder of a civil or military appointment, or both,
jism — body. graded according to a decimal ranking system, within the Mughal
imperial service.
josh — intoxication.
maqam — a station on the sufi Path attained through the sufi's own
kafti — unbeliever. efforts.
kaiama — miracle, considered a divine grace, performed by a sufi. ma'rifa — mystic or esoteric knowledge, as opposed to cilm, which is
normally considered exoteric or revealed knowledge.
kashf— lifting (of the veils) which signifies a vision of God or a real-
ization of Him as real beyond doubt. mast — intoxication.
kashish — attraction. maulawi — title applied to scholars of the Islamic religious sciences;
literally, "my tutor or lord."
khalifa — successor, representative.
mazai — shrine or tomb of a saint.
khanaqah — sufi hospice where a pli teaches his disciples.
mizaj — disposition, temperament.
khanazad — offspring of one kinship group.
mucaf — endowment for the support of an institution or for the pay-
khandan — family, kinship group. ment of a pension.
khatib — speaker, preacher; a reader of the prayers in the mosque. mucamala (pi. mu'amalat) — social obligations, mundane business.
khiiqa — the patched frock worn by sufis, often passed from a pir to mufti — one qualified to give an opinion on a point of Islamic law.
his successor to symbolize the latter's legitimate succession.
muhtasib — officer in Muslim cities entrusted with overseeing the
khulq (pi. akhlaq] — conduct and disposition, together making up public morals, including fair dealing in the markets.
one's ethics and morality.
mujahada — inner struggle.
khushi — happiness.
mujtahid — one qualified to undertake the effort to form an opinion,
kuraba — clan. in Islamic jurisprudence, as to a rule of law.
munazara — academic disputation or debate.
laga'o — attraction.
langai khana — public kitchen at a sufi shrine. munshi — author or scribe.
muqallid — one who adheres to a certain school of law.
madad i ma'ash — right to the land revenue from reserved villages for muiaqqac — patched frock of the sufi.
a religious or scholarly purpose. mund — aspirant or novice on the su/f Path, who undertakes complete
mahabba — love. obedience to his shaikh upon initiation into his order.
mahdi — a spiritual personage who will appear on the last day and es- murshid — spiritual guide who acts as instructor for his disciples; pir.
tablish Islam over all unrighteous forces,- among Shi'as, this person- murtadd i tanqa — one who deserts the sufi Path.
age is the hidden imam.
mahfil — a musical session. nafi wa ithbat — negation and affirmation; this is the structure of the
majazi — transitory. Muslim basic profession of faith (shahada), la Hah ilia allah, in
which the first half is a negation, "there is no god," and the second
makruh — category of actions deemed reprehensible.
half is an affirmation, "but God."
raaktab — school.
nafs — the lower or "animal" faculty of the human soul, as opposed to
malaka — habit or skill; an acquired faculty made more permanent as the "angelic" faculty, rah; the nafs in its varying states is respon-
a result of constant practice and repetition.
378 GLOSSARY GLOSSARY 379
sible for man's interactions with his physical world and for some of shaia'it — conditions, prerequisites.
his mental and emotional activities.
shari'a — Islamic law; the totality of the exoteric revelation of Islam.
namaz — the five daily ritual prayers; salat. sharif — noble.
nasl — lineage group. shi'r — poetry.
nazar — sight, glance; powers of sight. shukr — gratitude.
nigah — glance; power of sight. sufl — follower of a mystic path.
pli — teacher of the sufl Path; shaikh. sunna — "the trodden path"; the normative practice of the Prophet
and the early community, embodied in the hadlth literature, en-
pli-bha'i— spiritual brother; fellow initiates of the same pli, joined for all Muslims in contrast to bidca, innovation; in a more re-
stricted sense, one of the five categories of actions in Islamic law,
qada' — judgment, decision, sentence; decision made by a qadi. those deemed meritorious or recommended (mandub),
qadi — a qualified judge in the Muslim system of law (shari'a). sunna allah — the wont of God, referring particularly to past occa-
qawwali — devotional singing at the shrine, or in commemoration of sions of divine punishment.
a saint. sunna an-nabl— Muhammad's normative behavior, including his re-
qiyama — Day of Resurrection and Judgment. corded words, actions, and occasions of tacit approval.
qutb — the north pole, a center around which anything revolves;
hence, the title given the chief of an invisible hierarchy of all the ta'bir — interpretation of dreams.
mystics of any age. tadhkira — collection of biographical accounts, compiled from both
written and oral accounts.
lahma — (God's) grace. tahdhib al-akhlaq — purification, training in morals and behavior.
Ia'js —a person of high rank or authority; headman, chief.
takhaUus — pen name.
msul — the Prophet Muhammad; a prophet or messenger. talammudh — apprenticeship.
liyada — self-training, self-disciplinary or religious exercises. ta'lim — education.
lujuliyya — virility, maturity, manhood. tamiz — discernment, discrimination.
sabi — steadfastness, patience. taqwa — piety, fear of God that compels adherence to the require-
ments of the law.
sahaba — Companions of the Prophet Muhammad.
tanqa — system of doctrine or training associated with, and transmit-
sajjada nishin — the successor to the leadership of a khanaqah or a ted by, particular sufis or schools of sufis.
daigah (lit., "one who sits on the prayer carpet").
tasdiq — affirming the truth of God's existence and judgment, and
salat — Islamic ritual prayer, to be performed five times daily. bearing witness to it.
samac — sufl music sessions whose object is the inducing of states of ta'thii al-batin — the process of purification of one's inner self, and
ecstasy. the acquisition of good habits.
saqar — Hell. tathqil al-qalb — purification of the heart.
shafaqa — affection, sympathy, kindliness. ta'widh — amulet.
shagird — student; apprentice; novice. tazkiya al-qalb — purification of the heart.
shaikh — an elder, a head, a saint; a descendant of Muhammad's tumandar — Balochi tribal chief.
companions.
shajaca — bravery. culama' — see calim.
380 GLOSSARY
czirs
— celebration of the death anniversary of a saint (lit., "marriage," Index
referring to the desired union with God).
usul al-flqh — the foundations of Islamic law, including the Qur'an,
the sunna of the Prophet embodied in the hadlth literature, ijraa1 or
consensus, and qiyas or analogical reasoning.
wajd — ecstasy, particularly that experienced in states of mystical
intoxication.
waqt — mystical moment during which a suft experiences unusual 'Abd al-eAziz of Delhi, Shah, 170n62
states of ecstasy. 'Abd al-Baqi, 154, 182
'Abd al-Bari of Farangi Mahall, 153-54,
wazlfa — daily worship and prayer. 154n7, 156, 158, 159, 160, 162, 163,
wilaya — area over which a saint has spiritual (and sometimes tem- 164, 175, 178-81; on imitation of
Prophet, 165; onpfr, 167—68; in public
poral) authority; politically, an administrative unit. life, 171, 176-78, 182-83; venerating
wild (pi. aurad) — phrase-patterned devotion; litany or "collect" pecu- graves, 168-69
'Abd al-Haqq of Rudauli, Shah, 156nl2,
liar to a particular order of sufls. 168
wudu — ritual ablution to rid one of minor impurities. cAbd al-Hayy of Parangi Mahall, 170n62,
174; work of, 154n6, 155, 162, 163, 176
'Abd al-Karim Khan, 319, 322-23
zamindar — landholder, applied loosely to the possessor of various in- 'Abd Allah Ansari, Khwaja, 153
terests in land and land revenue, during the periods of Mughal and 'Abd Allah Shah Ghazi of Karachi, 202
'Abd al-Majid, 176
British rule in India. <Abd al-Wahhab, 159; on wealth, 173-74
zanana — women's apartments or those areas in which they remain 'Abdal-Wali, 159, 161, 171n66
cAbd an-Nabi Ahmad Nagri, Qadi, 128
secluded from the gaze of men outside the family. cAbdar-Rabb, 175
'Abd ar-Razzak (d. 1889-90), 159, 161
'Abd ar-Razzaq of Bansa, Sayyid (d. 1723-
24), 36, 152, 155, 163, 169, 171, 175,
175n87, 182-83; and government, 176;
imitating Prophet, 165-66; poverty of,
172, 174, 175; shrine of, 155, 156,
156nl3, 158, 168
'Abd as-Subhan, Diwan, 350
Abdul Wahid, Shaikh, 280
Abu al-Fadl, on Akbar, 8, 263, 278
Abu al-Kalam Azad, 136
Abu an-Najib as-Suhrawardi, 70
Abu Hafs 'Umar as-Suhrawardi, 68, 357-
58, 370
AbuHanifa, 117, 129, 136, 137-38, 139,
149
Abu Isma'il 'Abdullah al-Ansari, 69-87
Abu Talib Muhammad b 'All, 64nl4, 68
Abu Yusuf, 136, 149
Abu Yusuf Ya'qub b Ibrahim al-Kufi, 63
Adah (pi. adab), 60; definition and con-
notations of, 2-4, 29, 38-40, 65-66,
125-26, 146, 246-47, 292, 357-58; al-
mufti, 127-49; of Mughal elite, 279-
81; and paideia, 27-28; of shrines,
355-56; sufi, 66-69, 70-87
'Adat, 57, 65
Adib, 126
Afghans, 257
'Afif, Shams i Siraj: on Baba Farid's
shrine, 338-39; on Hroz Shah, 7
Age. See Filial duties; Old age
Ahli Hadith, 170
Ahmad, M. B., 141, 141n78
Ahmad 'Abd al-Haqq, 168
Ahmad al-'Alawi, Shaikh, 241-42
Ahmad b. Hanbal, 131, 137
Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid, 293n7, 304,
313; on women, 306
Aitchison Chiefs College, 235
Ajudhan, 340. See also Pakpattan
Akbar, Emperor, 8, 153, 255, 267, 347;
quasi-divine powers of, 263, 278 n35
Akbar Shah H, 294
Akbar Shah Khan Najibabadi, 128
Akhlaq. See Khtilq
Akhlaq i na$in, 306-7
'Ala' ad-Din, 153
cAla' ad-Din Mauj Darya of Pakpattan,
Shaikh, 338-39, 340
'Alamgiri, Fatawa i, 128, 129, 144
Alcoholic drinks, 7-8, 363
Aligarh, Khwajas of, 180
AHgarh College, 180, 304
'Atim (pi. 'tt/amfl'), 126
Alia Rakha, 326
Allah, 215, 220; compared to light, 248,
249. See also Dhiki
Allah Bakhsh, Khwaja, 227, 236-37
All-India Muslim League, 156, 157, 158,
176
Altaf ar-Rahman Qidwa'i, 160-61, 169,
174, 175
Amulfamza, Tale of, 291
Amir Hasan Sijzl, 336
Amir Khan, governor of Kabul, 288
Amir Khan, musician, 323
Amir Khurd, 339nl5
Amir Khusrau, 114, 337
Amir Timur, 121, 347, 347n45
'Ammar al-Bidlisi, 70
Anagrams, 71n41, 74, 74n53
Anawati, Georges, 29
Angels, 201, 201n6
382
Anger, 189, 190, 191; of musicians, 319,
323, 324-25
Anjuman i Khuddam i Haramain, 158,
179
Anjuman i Khuddam i Ka'ba, 157, 177
Anwar al-Haqq, Maulana, 156, 157, 159,
168, 182
Apostasy, 73-74, 74n50. See also In-
fidelity; fahil
Apprenticeship, 134, 136. See also Ganda
bandhan-, Pir
'Aql, 10, 56, 188, 298-99; al-Ghazzali on,
46; Miskawaih on, 44; Nadhir Ahmad
on, 312; popular theory of, 198-200,
198n2
Arabian Nights, 292
Arcot and Rampur, Nawwab of, 175
Asceticism, 5, 30, 33; Miskawaih on, 45;
Prophet on Christian, 31, 31n30; sufi,
48
Aschemosyne, 29
Ashraf, K. M., 122-23
Audience, musical, 319-24, 326
Augustine, Saint, 32
Auiad. See Wild
Aurangzeb, Emperor 'Alamgir, 153, 264,
266, 283, 288-89; and Bhimsen and
kin, 272, 274, 275; Bhimsen describing,
278-279; mentioned, 14, 129, 258. See
also Deccan campaigns
Authority, 8-9, 221, 348; in Christen-
dom, 33-34; in Farangi-Mahall family,
179-80; Islamic, 34-35, 124-25,
142-43, 333; mufti citing, 138, 147,
149, 151; Mughal elite, 256-62; of saj-
jada nishin, 223-25, 229-39
Ayyub Ansari, 153
Azam, Prince, 284
Baba Fand. See Farid ad-Din Ganj i
Shakar, Shaikh
Babur, 345, 345n41
Badr ad-Din Sulaiman of Pakpattan, 337
Baha' ad-Din Zakariya, Shaikh, 341
Baha' al-Haqq Zakariya (d. 1263), 345
Bahadur Nahar (Meo], 120
Bahr al-'Ulum, <Abd al-'Ali, 154, 155,
161-62, 168; interests of, 164; schol-
arly poverty of, 163—64
Bahr al-'Ulum faction, 175-76, 179
al-Bahr ai-Ra'iq, 147,148, 149
Bai'a, 242-43, 349
Baloch tribes, 226
Bande 'All Khan, 323-24, 327
Barani, Diya' ad-Din, 13, 92, 105, 106,
343; on Baba Farid, 338nl2, 340; on
Firoz Shah, 7, political theory of, 120;
on slaves, 117
Basil, Saint, 31
INDEX
Bazm i Sufiya i Hind, 156, 170, 171a66,
179
Bellah, Robert, 36
Benedict, Saint, 30, 31
Bernier, Franc.ois, 265nll
Bhagwandas (Dianat Ray], 272-73, 275
Bhang, 363. See also Hashish
Bhimsen, 13-14, 268nl4, 270-89
Bichitr, 13
Bid'a, 73
Bijapur, 271
Biographies of Farangi Mahalli men, 158,
159-60, 159nl8, 182
Birth, 198-99
Blruni, al-, 343
Book awards, 292-94, 296
British East India Company, 290-91
British influence, 14-15, 304-5, 312. See
also Colonialism; Education, Western;
Modernization
British law, 229-31, 230nl3, 234
Bulliet, Richard, 351-52
Bundu Khan, 327
Burhan-ud-din al-'Araj, Shaikh, 340
Business practices, 117
Chisti movement, 173, 224n3, 226-27,
327, 335, 345, 349; adherents men-
tioned, 6, 105, 164; shrines, 156nl2,
222-39, 336-41, 355; and Yusuf
Gada's work, 92, 120-21. See also
Mu'in ad-Din Chisti, Shah
Christianity, 312n34; contrasted to Islam,
5, 30-31, 33; and Hellenistic mores,
29-30,- Julian on, 27; and the past, 12
College of Fort William, 291-92
Colonialism, 194-95, 229-31, 239-40;
and education, 292; noncooperation
with, 157, 173-76, 177-78; and
shari'a, 141-43; and shrines of Baba
Farid, 234-35. See also British
influence; Education, Western;
Modernization
Color in sufi dress, 75, 75n58. See also
Race, color, and ethnic group in Mughal
empire
Conon, martyr, 29
Conveisio morum, 30-31, 30.n25
Creation of man, 198, 200
Crisis and disorder: adab in time of,
17-18; under Aurangzeb, 284, 286-89;
Yusuf Gada on, 101. See also
Modernization
Cuvier, Georges, 36z>45
Dalpat Ra'o Bundela, Raja of Datia, 271,
275, 278, 281-89
INDEX
Dar al-'Ulum Deoband, 128, 129, 164,
170, 184-88
Daigha, 8, 221-22, 348. See also Saints;
Tombs; 'Uzs
Dars i nizamiyya, 154-55
Dastar bandi. See Turban
Daud Khan Qureshi, 273-74
Death, 199-202, 210
Deccan campaigns, 270-71, 273-74, 277,
284-87
Defoe, Daniel, 301
Delhi College, 291, 292
Democracy, 19
Deobandi movement, 128, 129, 164, 170,
184-88
Deputy's role, 282-84
Dhaima, 144-45
Dhat, 267-68
Dhiki, 48, 247
Dhu al-Faqar Khan, 284, 285, 288
Dianat Ray. See Bhagwandas
Discrimination by mufti, 132, 148. See
also Race, color, and ethnic group in
Mughal empire
Disorderly times. See Crisis and disorder
Divorce, 139. See also Marriage
Dress: 'Abd ar-Razzaq on, 172; of ma-
langs, 362-63, 364; of musicians, 325;
sufi, 74-78
Eating, 6; sufi adab of, 81-83; Yusuf
Gada on, 104-5
Education, musical, 316-18. See also
Ustad
Education, Muslim, 226, 236, 239, 291;
curriculum of, 114, 134-36, 154-55; of
diwan, 234-36; Farangi Mahalli, 162-
63, 169-70, 171; of kayastha boys,
272nl9; Nadhir Ahmad on, 310-11.
See also Dars i nizamiyya; Education,
spiritual; 'Ilm
Education, spiritual, 10, 57-59, 241-51;
al-Ghazzali on, 48-52; Ibn Khaldun on,
52-56; Jalali, 214n21; Jamali, 214n21;
Miskawaih on, 44; music as, 326-27;
Thanawi on, 188-90, 247. See also Ap-
prenticeship; Education, Muslim; Pii;
Shaikh
Education, Western, 23-24, 290-94
Education of women, 291, 307-8; Nadhir
Ahmad on, 300, 302-3, 306; Thanawi
on, 192, 194, 307
Epitaphs, 31
Eschatology: popular, 201, 205-6, 211; of
Yusuf Gada, 103, 105-7. See also Judg-
ment of dead persons
Escheat, 262, 264
Ethics: 'Aql o Shifui on, 298-99; popular
383
theory of afterlife and, 207-8; Thanawi
on, 189
Eunuchs. See Slaves
Fadi Allah ibn Ruzbihan Isfahan!, 13,
13al4
Faith, Ibn Khaldun on, 55-56. See also
Apostasy; Infidelity
Fakhr ad-Din of Delhi, Shah, 226-27
Fakhr i Mudabbir, 91-92
Family, 304. See also Kinship;
Motherhood
Faqlh, 126
Faqiis, 216
Farabi, al-, 63
Farangi Mahall family, 34, 152-83
Farid ad-Din Ganj i Shakar, Shaikh, 7,
223, 335-37, 338nl2, 345-56; descen-
dants of, 223-24, 230, 337-38, 349,
349n51; shrine of, at Pakpattan, 222-
24, 228-36, 230nl4, 336-41, 346-56
Fatawa, 129-30, 143, 150; validity of,
131-32, 138, 148-49
Father, 251. See also Parental duties
Fatiha, 204-5
Fayyad Khan, 328
Fealty. See Bafa
Fei, Hsiao-Tung, 26^8
Feminization, 216-18, 362-63
Filial duties, 113-14. See also Old age
Fiqh, 150, 188-89
Fires: of Hell, 206, 209nl6; of malangs,
358, 367. See also Hot vs. cold
attributes
Firoz Jang,. Ghazi ad-Din Khan Bahadur,
260-62, 288
Firoz Tughluq, 339, 340
Fort William, College of, 291-92
Four dervishes, Tale of the, 291
Freudian psychology, 199n2, 250
Frocks in Sufism. See Dress: sufi
Functionalism, 25-26
Funeral rites, 200-201, 205
al-Fusul al-imdadiyya, 147
Ganda bandhan, 317-18. See also
Apprenticeship
Gandhi, Mahatma, 157, 179-80
Geertz, Clifford, 347
Gellner, Ernst, 32, 333
Gesu Daraz, Sayyid Muhammad, 12,
97-98, 98n9
Ghazzali, Imam Abu Hamid al-, 42,
46-52, 59, 164, 181; autobiography of,
32-33; on Hasan al-Basri, 31; on ritual
duties, 10; mentioned, 64
Ghiyath ad-Din Tughluq Sultan, 338-39
Ghosts. See Spirits of the dead
384
Ghulam Qadir Khan Khakwani, 237
Ghulam Qutb ad-Din of Pakpattan, 233,
234-35
Gilchrist, John, 292
Golconda, 271
Goldsmith, Oliver, 291
Government: Baba Farid on, 338 n 12;
Barani on, 120, 338nl2; and education,
293-94; Farangi Mahallis and, 157,
172-76, 182; Hellenistic, 26, 26iw7-8;
M. Iqbal on, 232nl7; mufti and, 140-
42; Mughal, 255-62, 268-69, 286-89;
and religious authority, 7—8, 221,
227-40; and shrines, 225-39, 338-40,
341, 347-50; Yusuf Gada on, 118-20.
See also Political organizations; Princes
Graves. See Tombs
Gray, Hannah H., 33n38
Greeting. See Salam
Gregory Nazianen, 27
Grunebaum, Gustave E. von, 125
Habib, Irian, 345, 354a67
Habib, Mohammad, 345
liadith, 150; mufti and, 132-33, 146
Hafiz, Mulla, 153
Hafiz of Shiraz, 245
Haidar, Malik al-hilama' Mulla of Farangi
Mahall, 154
Hali, Altaf Husain, 293, 293n7, 311fl31
Hamid Qalandar, 103
Hamirsen, 276, 281, 285, 286
Hashish, 363, 366
tfavn al-qudsi, 149
Heart, 47, 50, 55, 198, 241; Bhimsen on,
276
Heaven: gate ceremony, 338, 355; popular
theory of, 201-2, 206-10, 214, 217-
19; Yusuf Gada on, 103
Hell: popular theory of, 201-2, 206,
209^16; Yusuf Gada on, 104, 110
Hellenistic culture, 23-24. See also
Paideia
Hierarchy, 125, 192-93, 356; Christian
vs. Islamic, 34; malangi, 364-71. See
also Authority
Hilm, 45
Hinduism: and Barani, 120; compared to
Islam, 9, 15, 144-45. See also Indo-
Muslim culture
Hindu lyrics, 324, 328
Hindus, 195; and Farangi Mahallis, 171,
176; in Mughal empire, 256, 257-58,
271, 274j in music, 316, 317; and
Nunaris, 197; Yusuf Gada and, 105,
121, 122-23
Hira Singh, 350
History: Muslim attitude to, 12, 35, 152,
INDEX
160; al-Sakhawi on, 163^24. See also
Traditionalism
Hodgson, Marshall G. S., 125
Holy war. See Jihad
Hospitality, 83. See also Salam
Hot vs. cold attributes, 200, 204, 209,
209nl6, 211-13, 219. See also Fires
Hsuan Tsang, 342
Hujwm, Abu al-Hasan 'All b TJthman al-
Jullabi al-, 68, 242; on waqt, 81n82
tfufan, 359, 363-64, 369-71
Humanism: of Hellenistic culture, 24; of
Renaissance, 33n38
Human nature, 10, 56; al-Ghazzali on, 46;
Miskawaih on, 43. See also Ideal per-
son; Nafs
Humility, 243—46; vs. blessed imperti-
nence, 249; of musicians, 326
Huns, 206, 209-10
Ibadat, 57; al-Ghazzali on, 48-49
Ibbetson, Sir Denzil, 358
Ibn 'Abd Rabbih, 63
Ibn Abi ad-Dunya, 62
Ibn 'Abidin, 127
Ibn al-Muqaffa', 'Abd Allah, 63, 63 M
Ibn'Arabi, 164, 178,249
Ibn Battuta, 339, 340
Ibn Hasan, 141, 141n77
Ibn Khaldun, 37, 42, 52-56, 59
Ibn Miskawaih, 'Abd Allah, 42-45, 51, 63
Ibn Qutaiba, 'Abd Allah b Muslim, 63,
63n5
Ibn Sa'ud, 158, 170, 171, 180
Ideal person: Deobandi, 186-88, 190;
Farangi Mahalli, 178, 181-82; al-
Ghazzali on, 47, 59; Hellenistic view
of, 28-29; Islamic view of, 2, 12, 33, 41,
143-44, 219; Miskawaih on, 44-45.
See also Virtues
Ijtihad, 132-33
Illness: Yusuf Gada on, 106-8
'Ibn (pi. 'ulurn), 39-40, 291, 292; Yusuf
Gada on, 114-15. See also Knowledge
Imam, 40
Imdad Allah, Hajji, 173
'Inaya Allah, Maulana, 166, 179; biogra-
phies by, 158, 159, 162-63, 174, 175
Indian National Congress, 157, 180
Indo-Muslim culture, 13-14, 122-23,
315. See also Hinduism
Infidelity, 139. See also Apostasy
Inheritance, Mughal, 262, 264. See also
Succession to positions of religious
authority
Intercession, 17. See also Miracles; Saints
Iqbal, Muhammad, 232nl7, 249, 314
Iranis, 257, 258
INDEX 385
Irrigation by Persian wheel, 345, 345Ml Khatii caste, 256
Irving, Miles, 354 Khazana al-muftin, 149
'Ishq, 215-16, 314 Khilafat movement, 157-58, 170 171
Islam, 40 176-77, 179-80
Islam: popularization of, 333-34; schools Khulq, 66
of thought within, 15-16, 41-42, Kinship, 158, 210-14; Mughal, 260, 262,
60-61, 125-26, 161, 171; spread of, 281. See also Family; Parental duties
335, 341-47, 351-56. See also Local Knowledge, 58-59; al-Ghazzali on, 50-
vs. Koranic Islam; Modernization; 51; Ibn Khaldun on, 55; of mufti, 137.
Schools of law; Sufism See also clha-, Unity of knowing, doing,
Isma'il Shahid, Maulana, 7 and being
Izutsu, T, 41 Koran. See Qur'an
Jabre, Farid, 51 Labor. See Livelihood, means of
Jadu, 369 Lai Shahbaz Qalandar, 324, 364
Jagiis, 265-66, 268 Langazs, 224n6
Jahangir, Emperor, 13, 263, 287 Languages of instruction, 290-91
Jahangirabad, Rajas and Rani of, 175, 180 Letter symbolism, 71n41, 74, 74fl53
Jahangir Muhammad Khan, Nawwab of Lewis, C. S., 35
Bhopal, 294 Libanius of Antioch, 26-27
Jahil, 41. See also Vices Livelihood, means of: Farangi Mahalli
Jahiz, 66 attitude to, 162, 171-75; male and fe-
Jai Singh, 273 male roles in, 212, 217; of mufti, 140,
Jalali orders, 214u21 141, 149; of musicians, 317; Yusuf
Jamali orders, 214n21 Gada on, 115-17. See also Wealth vs.
Jamal Miyan, 158 poverty
Jam'iyya as-Sufiya, 177 Local vs. Koranic Islam, 15, 149, 222,
Jam'-iyya i 'Ulama' i Hind, 158, 177 225-27, 230-31, 333-34; and shrine of
Jaswant Singh, Maharaja, 274 Baba Farid, 333, 347, 354-56
Jat tribes, 342-54, 348n49, 354n67 Lucknow, 153, 155, 158
Jihad, 121, 187; greater, 10; lesser, 176
Jilani, Shah 'Abd al-Qadir, 213-14
Jism, 198-200, 198n2 Madrasa i 'Aliya Nizamiyya, 154, 154n7,
John Chrysostom, 30 169, 175, 179; finances of, 163-64, 172,
Judgment Day. See Eschatology 180
Judgment of dead persons, 201-2 Madrasa i Hanafiyya, 179
Julian, Emperor, 27 Madrasa i Qadima, 176
Junaid: on adab of music, 85; on waqt, Magic, 369
81n82 Mahbub 'Alam, Khwaja, 242-43
Jungian psychology, 250 Mahbub 'AH, Shah, 249
Mahdi, 205, 205nlO, 210
Mahfil, 320-21. See also Music
Kaika'us b Iskandar b Qabus b Wushmgir, Mahmud of Ghazni, 343
63^10, 306-7 Majlis Mu'yad al-Islam, 157, 176
Kakar, Sudhir, 1 Malaka, 53-55
Kalam, 42 Malangs, 16-17, 216, 358-71
Kalidasa, 291-92 Malik, Imam, 137
Kalyar Sharif, 168 Mans.abdaii corps. See Mughal empire
Kashf: al-Ghazzali on, 51; Ibn Khaldun elites
on, 53 Marathas, 271, 287, 288
Kayastha caste, 256, 270, 271, 271 n!9, Ma'rifa, 51
275 Marriage: Christian church and, 33-34;
Kempson, Matthew, 301 endogamous, 158, 211; Jat-Chisti, 350-
Khadim Ahmad Farangi Mahalli, 127 51; metaphoric, 190-91, 215-18,
KhanazadI ethos, 13-14, 262-67, 263n6, 362-63; Mughal, 264, 265nll, 282;
268fll4, 289 Thanawi on, 193-94; Yusuf Gada on,
Kharraz, 81a82 110-12. See also Divorce; Sexuality;
Khatm shaiif, 201 Women
386
Marrou, Henri Irenee, 23-24
Maududi, Abu al-A'la', 136
Mawardi, al-, 63
Maynard, H. J., 238
Meat not eaten in heaven, 208
Meditation, 247-49
Messiah, See Mahdi
Metrocles, 28
Mihr 'Ali Shah, Sayyid, 249
Mihr 'All Shah of Golra, PIr, 232
Milk, 205, 205nlO, 210, 212, 217
Mir 'Abd al-MaTsud, 273
Miracles, 73. See also Intercession; Saints
Miyan Hamid of Pakpattan, 238-39
Miyan Mahmud, 237-39
Miyan Mir, 368
Miyan Muhammad Musa, 237-38
Modernization, 5, 20, 34, 36, 182-83; and
personality 246; reform movements
and, 184-85, 187, 194-95. See also
British influence
Mohanis of Mohan, 180
Mongols, 121-22
Motherhood, 211-13, 251
Mu'ala Khan ki Sara, 167
Mu'azzam, Prince, 273
Mufti, 6-7, 143-45; adab of, 127-40; de-
fined, 126; governmental role of,
140-42, 174
Mughal elite ethos. See Khanazadi ethos
Mughal empire elites, 255-69. See also
Bhimsen
Mughal empire's decline, 5, 227, 286-89,
350
Muhammad, Prophet. See Prophet
Muhammad
Muhammad'Ali, 156, 180
Muhammad ibn Tughluq, 338, 339, 340
Muhammad Ja'far Bobakani, Makhdum,
128, 129
Muhammad Mujir, 99
Muhammad Shah, 324
Muhammad Yusuf, Mufti, 174
Muhibb Allah of Allahabad, Shah,
156nl2, 164, 171
Muhtasibs, 141
Mu'in ad-Din Chisti, Shah: shrine of, at
Ajmere, 156, 168, 355
Muir, Sir William, 292-93
Mu'izz ad-Din, Diwan of Pakpattan, 339,
340
Mulk Sura, 201
Mulla Hasan (d. 1209/1794-95), 154, 155
Mulla Mubin, 155
Mulla Sa'Id of Farangi Mahall, 159
Multaqat, al-, 147
Mu'min, Hakim Muhammad Khan, 295
Muqallid, 133-34
Murad Bakhsh Shahbaz, 283
INDEX
Murshid, 241-50. See also Ph; Shaikh,
Ustad
Music: adab of, 14, 316-29; as healing
art, 1, 199-200; as spiritual discipline,
12, 323; sufi adab of, 84-86. See also
Mahfil
Mu'tazili school, 63
Mystical Islam, 15-16,42, 164-66,
169-71, 171n66, 241-43, 247-50. See
also Kashf, Ma'zifa-, Meditation; Waqt
Nadhir Ahmad, Deputy, 10, 14-15, 19-
20, 299-306, 308-14
Nadwa al-'Ulama', 177
Nafs, 10, 19, 56, 361, 363; Deobandi the-
ory of, 187-88, 189; al-Ghazzali on, 46,
47; Miskawaih on, 43; popular theory
of, 198-200, 198n2, 207
Nahr al-frfiq, an-, 147, 148
Najm ad-Din al-Kubra, 70
Namdar Khan, 280
Names of children, 351-53
Nasha, 363, 370
Nasir ad-Din Khan, musician, 323
Nasir ad-Din Mahmud, Shaikh, 6, 94, 97
Neknihad Khan, 261-62
Nizam ad-Din Auliya', Shah, 173, 324,
336; tomb of, 355
Nizam ad-Din, Maulawi Sayyid (fl. 1873),
296-99
Nizam ad-Din of Lucknow, Mulla, 153,
155, 161, 169, 174; shrine of, 155-56,
156nl2, 168
Nizam al-Mulk, 63
Nu'man. See Abu Hanifa
Nunari brotherhood, 197
Nurjahan Begum, 305
Nur Muhammad Maharwi, Khwaja,
226-27
O'Brien, Major Aubrey, 334
Old age, 247; Yusuf Gada on, 105, 106,
108-10. See also Filial duties
Pachomius, 31
Padiyah Nayak, 266flll
Paideia, 5, 25-30, 31, 32
Pakpattan, 168, 335, 346. See also Farid
ad-Din Ganj i Shakar, Shaikh: shrine of,
at Pakpattan
Parental duties, 112. See also Family
Pathan tribes, 226
Persianate culture. See Indo-Muslim
culture
Petrarch, 33, 33n38
Pilgrimage, 16, 355n68; of malangs,
INDEX
359-60, 364. See also Travel, sufi
adab of
Pii, I , 72-73, 213-14, 224;'Abd al-Bari
on, 167-68; malangi, 364-65, 368;
Thanawi on, 188; Yusuf Gada on, 109.
See also Apprenticeship; Muishid;
Shaikh, Ustad
Pir Muhammad, Shah, 'ms of, 161
Plutarch, 291
Political organizations, 157-58, 176-77,
179-80
Political system. See Government
Popularity: Df 'Aql o shu'uz, 297, 299; of
Baba Farid's shrine, 340-41; of Bihishti
zewaz, 186; of Nadhir Ahmad's books,
300, 314; of Tuhfa i nascfih, 91-92, 98
Prayer rugs, 78, 79, 250
Princes: dilemma of, 13; ideal, 7-8, 279,
287; "Mirrors for," 63-64, 91-92;
Mughal, 258; Prophet on, 173
Prophet Muhammad: birthday of, 166-
67, 192; on Christian monks, 31n30; as
exemplar, 1-2, 36, 64, 67, 164-66, 190;
on salam, 81; on scholars and princes,
173; tomb of, 170, 170n62; on waqt,
81n82
Punjabi tribes, 341-46
Qadl Ghasi of Allahabad, 164
Qadi Jagan of Gujarat, 129
Qalandars, 358. See also Malangs
Qalb, 46
Qamar ad-Din Khan Bahadur, 261
Qidwa'is of Gadia and Barangaon, 180
Qurtn, 333; quoted, 199, 200, 204-5,
220, 312; respect for, 177-78
Qureshi, Ishtiaq H., 141, 141n76
Qushairi, Abu al-Qasim 'Abd al-Karim
al-, 64, 68
Qutb, 8
Qutb ad-Din of Oudh, Mulla, 153, 164
Race, color, and ethnic group hi Mughal
empire, 255-56, 257-58, 263, 265,
265nl 1,271, 271nl9, 284
Raghunandas, 272, 273
Rahat, Mirza Muhmud Beg, 294-95
Rahma, 52
Rahma Khan of RohiUkhand, Hafiz, 173
Rajaram, King, 284
Rajputs, 257, 267
Ramchand, 285
Rampur, Nawwab of, 154n7, 173
Ranjit Singh, 350
Ravi Shankar, 326
Ray Siyal, 352
Reform movements, 18-19, 186-87, 192,
387
226-27, 231-33, 240, 334; Nadhir
Ahmad on, 310-11. See also Chisti
movement; Deobandi movement;
Khilafat movement
Regionalism. See Local vs. Koranic Islam;
Wilayas
Religious sphere, 6, 15, 87, 195, 221,
312-14. See also Asceticism; Secular
sphere
Revenue: Mughal, 260; of shrines, 224,
236-37, 336, 339-40, 348
Richards, John, 7-8, 733 7
Rogers, Carl, 251
Rosenthal, Franz, 125
Ruh: al-Ghazzali on, 46; popular theory
of, 198-200, 198a2
Rumi, Maulana Jalal ad-Din, 15, 172, 173;
and Farangi Mahall family, 164; on
muzid, 245; and Shams i Tabriz, 11-12;
on women, 191
Sabi, 45
Sada suhagan, 216
Sa'di, 110, 114, 114M6, 291
Sadiq 'Ali Khan, 323
Sadlq Hasan, Nawwab of Bhopal, 170n62
Sahl-i Tustari, 71-72
Saints, 334, 334n2, 369-70; as exemplars,
1-2, 32; Farangi Mahalli, 159; venera-
tion of, 168-69, 192, 202, 328-29. See
also Miracles; Princes; Spirits of the
dead; Tombs; 'Lfrs
Sajjada nishin: authority of, 223-26,
228-31; role of, 233-34; succession to,
228, 233
Sakhawi, al-, 163^24
Sakhi Sarwar, shrine of, 226n8
Salam, 80-81, 80n81
Salar Jang of Hyderabad, 175
Saran, P., 141
Sarbuland Khan, 280
Sarcophagi. See Tombs
Sarraj, Abu Nasr 'Abd Allah b 'Ah as-, 64,
68; on waqt, 81n82
Sayyid Muhammad, Diwan, 231, 233, 238
Sayyid Shah Yusuf, 98
Schools of law, 133-34, 138. See also Abu
Hanifa; Ahmad b. Hanbal; Malik,
Imam; Shafi'i, Imam
Schuon, Frithof, 241, 247
Scientists, 36n45
Sects. See Islam: schools of thought
within; Schools of law
Secular sphere, 360-62; Ibn Khaldun on,
54,- Islamic view of, 31-32, 60. See also
Asceticism; Religious sphere
Sexuality, 211, 216, 361-63; Christian
view of, 30; after death, 206, 209-10;

388
$vfi view of, 85. See also Feminization;
Marriage
Shafi'i, Imam, 137
Shafi of Farangi Mahall, Maulana, 169,
177, 179
Shah Jahan, 258, 278, 287; on shrine of
Baba Farid, 347
Shah Kazim, Qalandar, 1; 'urs of, 168
Shah Mina, shrine of, 168
Shah Tawakkul, 249
Shaikh, 11-12. See also Muishid; Pa-,
Ustad
Shaikhzadas, 257
Shams arUlama, 174, 176
Shams i Tabriz, 11-12
Shari'a, 60, 125-26, 145, 171u66,
370-71; malangs and, 358, 360-61;
under colonial rule, 142
Shaukat All, 156, 180
Sherwanis of Aligarh, 180
Shibli |d. 334/945), 81n82
Shibli Nu'mani, 173
Shivaji, King, 273, 274, 278
Shrines. See Daigah; Saints; Tombs; 'Uis
Shyam Das, 272, 275
Sibgha Allah Shahid, 155, 160, 162
Sikandar Begum, Nawwab, 305
Sikhism, 354n67
Simeon Stylites, 34
Singhasan Battisi, 291
as-Sirajiyya, 148
Slavery compared to Mughal imperial ser-
vice, 264-67, 276-77
Slaves: as mufti, 132; Mughal, 269, 282-
83; trade in, 117-18
Spirits of the dead, 202-5
Subhkaran Bundala, raja of Datia, 275
Succession to positions of religious au-
thority: at Baba Farid's shrine, 337-39,
337n9; Farangi Mahalli, 161-62
Sufi, 126
Suflsm, 60, 327; adab of, 66-69, 70-87,
357-58, 370-71; al-Ghazzali on, 48;
Ibn Khaldun on, 52; malangs in, 360-
61, 364-65; Thanawi on, 188; Yusuf
Gada and, 109
Suhrawardi. See Abu an-Najib as-
Suhrawardi; Abu Haf s 'Umar as-
Suhrawardi
Sukhraj, 281
Sulaiman, Khwaja, 236; shrine of, at
Taunsa Sharif, 222, 226-27, 236-39
Sulami(d. 412/1021), 68
Sultan 'Alam, 324
Sunna, 64-65
Symbolism, 250-51; in meditation,
247-49. See also Hot vs. cold at-
tributes; Letter symbolism
INDEX INDEX 389
Wall Allah, Shah, 157, 160, 162, 170, 182, seclusion of, 361-62; seeking fatwa,
at-Tabyin, 149 226; on spiritual education, 10-11, 155 139; Thanawi on, 190-94, 307-8. See
Tariqa, 125-26 Waqt, 81, 81n82, 84
Tasdiq, Ibn Khaldun on, 55 also Education of women; Feminiza-
Warfare: Christian church and, 33-34; tion; Marriage; Motherhood; Sexuality
Tawakkul Shah of Ambala, Hadrat, 242 Wool, 71^41, 74, 74n52
Mughal empire and, 257, 259, 260-62.
Ta'vndh, 336-37 See also Crisis and disorder; Deccan
Thanawi, Maulana Muhammad Ashraf
<Ali, 186, 188-94, 314, 334; on British, campaigns; Jihad
Wealth vs. poverty: Farangi Mahalli atti- Ya Sin Sharif, 199-200
14; on humility, 246; on muiid, tudes to, 163-64, 172, 173-75; Yusuf Yusuf Gada, 5-6, 91-123
243-45, 249; on Nadhir Ahmad, 308,
Gada on, 102, 112-13. See also Liveli-
309; on women, 307-8 hood, means of; Revenue
Tombs: of Baba Farid and descendants, Wilayas, 8, 341
339; Hellenistic, 28-29; malangs serv- Zafar Jang Kokaltash, Khan Jahan
Wine, 7-8, 363 Bahadur, 266-67
ing, 359-60; of Prophet, 170, 170n62; Wild |pl. auiad], 247, 248-49 Zafar Khan, Ustad, 318
of saints, 168-69, 170, 355. See also Women, 19, 186-95; Akhlaq i nasin on, az-Zahiriyya, 147
Daigha-, Epitaphs; 'Uis 306-7; books for, 293, 297, 300-306; Zeb an-nisa' Begum, 305
Traditionalism: Hellenistic, 24; Muslim, in death, 200; at funerals, 201; as mufti, Zinda Shah Madar, 358, 364
35-37, 169-70, 185. See also History 132,- Nadhir Ahmad on, 302-6, 308-9; Zufar, 149
Translations, 291-92 Qabus nama on, 306-7; Rumi on, 191;
Travel, $ufi adab of, 86-87. See also
Pilgrimage
Turanis, 257, 260
Turban: sufi, 76-77, 78; ceremony of,
348, 355
'Ulama. See 'Alim
'Ulum. See'Jin
Unity in Islamic thought, 3-4, 71
Unity of knowing, doing, and being,
9-11, 40-41, 58-59, 357, 370-71; An-
sari on, 72, 87; al-Ghazzali on, 46-52;
Ibn Khaldun on, 52-56; Thanawi on,
188—90. See also Asceticism; Religious
sphere; Secular sphere
Universality: of adab, 4; of authority, 9,
142; of Islamic ideal, 219, 370. See also
Local vs. Koranic Islam; Religious
sphere; Secular sphere
'Uis, 17, 190-91, 215, 362; of Baba Farid,
337-38; Farangi Mahallis at, 155-56,
157, 168-69; malangs at, 365-69. See
also Prophet Muhammad: birthday of
Ustad, 316-18, 328. See also Muishid;
Pii; Shaikh
Venacular education, 290-92
Veyne, P., 26n7
Vices, 49. See also Jahil
Victoria, Queen, 304, 305
Vilayat Khan, 321, 328n23
Virtues: al-Ghazzali on, 49; Hellenistic,
31; Islamic, 41, 58, 247-48; Miskawaih Designer: Laurie Anderson
on, 43, 45; of women, 302-3. See also Compositor: G&S Typesetters, Inc.
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