http://www.dawn.com/weekly/books/books10.htm
Reviewed by Dr Tariq Rahman
The colonial era in India is remarkable for creating a kind of intellectual unease and ferment among the intelligentsia. The religious intelligentsia responded by several movements of reforming Islam so as to bring the Muslims back to an affirmation of faith. Among these movements scholars have written about the Ahl-i-Hadith (or Wahabis as they were called), the Barelvis, the Deobandis, the Tablighis and others.
Strangely and unaccountably not much had been written about the Ulema of Farangi Mahall. It was Farangi Mahall, after all, which had created and then disseminated the ‘Dars-i-Nizami’ which is taught in the madressahs - and madressahs of almost all schools of thought - in the whole of South Asia even now.
The book consists of eight chapters and a glossary as well as an index. The chapters were published as articles in scholarly journals and have been reproduced here. The thematic unity is provided by the focal point - the ulema of Farangi Mahall.
Farangi Mahall was a European merchant’s house in Lucknow. It was granted to Mulla Qutb al-Din in 1695 by Aurangzeb. The family of Islamic scholars which lived in Farangi Mahall gained fame when Mulla Nizam al-din (d. 1740) standardized the curriculum adding books on the rational disciplines (maqulat). These were grammar, logic, philosophy, rhetoric, mathematics, astronomy, theology, etc.
The transmitted disciplines (manqulat) were the exegesis of the Quran, (tafsir) the Apostolic traditions (hadith) and jurisprudence (fiqh). This was a new emphasis, as the author points out by comparing the new curriculum with the older ones, which existed at that time.The reason for this new emphasis, argues Robinson, is because the state needed administrators and the rational disciplines were required to train them. While this may be true, it should be pointed out that there were Arabic and Persian schools in India during the 1850s when the British took a census of them. The Arabic ones were fewer in number than the Persian ones precisely because the former were theological seminaries.
What one wonders is whether, even with emphasis on the maqulat, the madressahs were seen as seminaries for theologians or vocational colleges? And if this came to happen with the arrival of the British what exactly were the changes in the category the British called Persian and Arabic schools in the 1850s? This is a question Robinson does not address.
The author has given a good introduction to the religious and social conditions of the Muslims of India and then introduced the role of the ulema of Farangi Mahall. He then concentrates his attention to the way the ulema lived and conducted themselves. Most of them, we learn, wrote on Islamic subjects and taught. They were also given to charity and other good deeds. For instance, Abdul Ali Bahr al-ulum, a famous Farangi Mahalli, spent Rs960 (out of Rs1000) of his grant to support some 600 students. They did not look to the British government for titles or financial support. Instead, they simply made use of whatever funds were offered by the community of its own free will.
The Farangi Mahallis did not involve themselves in public activities unless they were religious or, in some way, associated with religion. Maulana Abdul Bari, who created the Anjuman-i-Khuddam-i-Kaaba and was prominent in the Khilafat movement, always said that he was in these activities to support and strengthen Islam. He also insisted that Islamic norms of behaviour, such as not smoking during the month of fasting, be observed.
There was, however, a branch of the family which did accept favours from the British government. This was led by Abdul Hamid and Abdul Majid who supported the government. The family had branched off in 1810 as a result of a quarrel but the larger branch, which is the subject of this book, symbolized the family tradition of scholarship, piety and independence.
The Farangi Mahallis were not averse to the teaching of modern subjects. They were among the first of the ulema to teach English too. However, as Robinson points out, the students only ‘had a smattering of English, knew some mathematics and geography’ but were hardly as good in these subjects as the students of government institutions.
The author traces out the social and intellectual history of the Farangi Mahalli family in the 20th century in Lucknow, their home, and elsewhere. At the beginning of the century the family’s prestige was at its height. The members of the extended family - twenty to thirty ulema at one time - lived close to each other.
Not all were ulema. Indeed, there were physicians (hakims), poets, publishers, government servants and others who lived amidst the ulema as part of the Farangi Mahalli family. The family is now spread out not only in India and Pakistan but also in western countries. They are also active in university teaching which, in a sense, is a continuation of the family tradition of scholarship though, of course, in its secular manifestation.
Chapter 8 compares the curricula taught in the madressahs of Mughal, Safawid (Iranian) and Ottoman (Turkish) empires. The chapter gives valuable information about shared features and differences in the three empires. The continuities appear to be more which means that there was a certain uniformity of perceptions about knowledge - if not knowledge itself - in the Muslim world before the colonial intervention when knowledge systems moved further apart.
Indeed, if Robinson is right that the rational sciences were abandoned in response to colonial conquest, the theory that colonialism prevented the development of Muslim science finds support. However, as mentioned earlier in this review, this important question needs further probing.
Unfortunately, Robinson does not make that point nor does he give any detailed analysis of the observation that the rational sciences were abandoned. I should also point out that the ‘rational’ sciences were not empirical, or positivistic, disciplines even at the height of the pre-colonial Muslim civilizations. Western modern knowledge, on the other hand, was based upon empiricism and its research methodology was positivistic in the nineteenth century. In short, one doubts whether Muslim societies would have developed modern science even if the colonial intervention had not occurred.
Francis Robinson, being an accomplished scholar, has used the primary sources, including interviews of the living Farangi Mahallis, for this book. He has spent time working on the documents of the Farangi Mahalli family in Lucknow, Karachi and other places. He is also very knowledgeable about the religious movements of the period.
Somewhat surprisingly, he has omitted an important scholarly study of the Barelvis (Usha Sanyal’s biography of Ahmad Riza Khan of Bareilly published in 1996 by OUP Delhi) and paid little attention to the relationship of the Farangi Mahallis with the other sub-sects, movements and schools of religious thought in India. Moreover, some chapters contain repetitions which often mar articles published separately and then put together as a book.
On the whole, however, the book is a scholarly work which fills a large gap in existing knowledge. It will be referred to by all serious researchers writing on Islam, Islamic education and the cultural role of a family of Islamic scholars.
The Ulama of Farangi Mahall and Islamic Culture in South Asia
By Francis Robinson
Ferozsons (Pvt) Ltd, 60 Shahrah-i-Quaid-i-Azam, Lahore.
Tel: (042) 630 1196-8
277 Peshawar Road, Rawalpindi.
Tel: (051) 556 3503.
Mehran Heights, Main Clifton Road, Karachi
Tel: (021) 583 0467
UAN 111-62-62-62
ISBN 969-0-01764-0
267pp. Rs395