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Islam, Muslim society and Politics in the Indian Subcontinent, 1850-1980: Context (HIH3103)

Module aims

This module examines changes in the religious life and society of Indian Muslims, from the period following the decline of Muslim rule, through the era of colonial rule, and into the post-colonial context. Focusing upon Muslim society in a few key cities in the subcontinent, especially Delhi, Lahore and Lucknow, the course traces Muslim responses to the Uprising of 1857, and then their numerous attempts to adjust to the new context of colonial modernity. Particular emphasis is given to the notion of Muslim 'separatism,' the idea that Indian Muslims came increasingly to define themselves as a distinct and united religious community, through a combination of religious revivalism and the expediencies of colonial politics. This story of separatism is traced through its genesis in the 'Aligarh movement' until the partition of the subcontinent in 1947. At the same time, this course traces religious change through a focus on religious reform movements such as that of Deoband and the Tablighi-Jama'at, and shifts in Muslim intellectual thought, such as those associated with literary circles in Delhi and, a little later, poets and essayists such as Muhammad Iqbal. This paves the way for a discussion of the political forms of Islam which emerged in the 1940s, coming into their own in Pakistan and, in particular, through the 'Islamisation' projects of the 1970s-1980s.

ILO: Module-specific skills

• 1. Ability to evaluate the different complex themes in the history of Muslim politics, life and society in colonial and post-colonial South Asia
• 2. Ability to make a close specialist evaluation of the key developments within the history of Muslim responses to social, economic and political change in one context, developed through independent study and seminar work

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

• 3. Ability to analyse the key developments within a particular historical environment
• 4. Ability to focus on and comprehend complex issues
• 5. Ability to understand and deploy historical terminology in a comprehensible manner
• 6. Ability to follow the complex reasoning inherent in the discourse of the period

ILO: Personal and key skills

• 7. Independent and autonomous study and group work, including presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
• 8. Ability to digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
• 9. Ability to present complex arguments orally

Syllabus plan

The course will be structured around the following seminars, all of which will be structured around a selection of primary sources, together with some core suggested secondary reading.

1) Introductory session: Islam in the Indian subcontinent
2) 'Twilight of the Mughals'? Muslim life and society in mid-nineteenth century north India
3) The Uprising of 1857 - Muslim roles and perspectives
4) Islamic jihad and the 'Wahhabi' movement
5) Renewal and renaissance: Urdu literature and Muslim cultural life after the British conquest
6) Loyalty and rebellion: relations between Muslims and the British after 1857
7) Withdrawal and renewal: the Deobandi movement in Islam
8) From confrontation to accommodation: the reforms of Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the Muslim-British alliance
9) The Aligarh movement - an introduction
10) Muslim women in Islamic reform
11) The origins of Muslim 'separatism': an introduction
12) The birth of pan-Islam in the Indian subcontinent
13) Understanding the Khilafat movement, 1919-1924
14) Muslims and the Indian National Congress in the era of Indian nationalism
15) Origins of the partition of India? Muhammad Iqbal and Rehmat Ali
16) The rebirth of the All India Muslim League, 1937-1947
17) The high politics of partition
18) Muslim contestations on the eve of partition
19) 'Political Islam': Abul Ala Mawdudi and the Jama'at-i-Islami
20) A shifting relationship: Islam and the state in Pakistan
21) Islam and ethnicity in Pakistan, 1947-1971
22) 'Islamising' Pakistan, 1971-1988

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Peter Hardy, The Muslims of British India (Cambridge, 1972)
Mushirul Hasan ed., India's partition: process, strategy and mobilisation (New Delhi, 1993) and Legacy of a divided nation: India's Muslims since independence (Delhi, 2000)
Zoya Hasan ed., Forging identities: gender, community and the state (Delhi, 1994)
Ayesha Jalal, Self and sovereignty: individual and community in South Asian Islam since 1850 (London, 2000)
David Lelyveld, Aligarh's first generation: Muslim solidarity in British India (Princeton, 1978)
Iftikhar Haider Malik, Islam, nationalism and the West: issues of identity in Pakistan (Basingstoke, 1999)
Barbara Daly Metcalf, Islamic revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900 (Princeton, 1982)
Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Mawdudi and the making of Islamic revivalism (New York, 1996)
Francis Robinson, Islam and Muslim history in South Asia (Oxford, 2000).
Farzana Shaikh, Community and consensus in Islam: Muslim representation in colonial India (Cambridge, 1989)

Module has an active ELE page?

No

Available as distance learning?

No

Last revision date

25/08/09

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