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SHI{ITES and SUNNITES After Iran, the Indian Subcontinent Is Home to the Second Largest Shi{Ite Population.1 Post-Mughal Centres

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SHI{ITES and SUNNITES After Iran, the Indian Subcontinent Is Home to the Second Largest Shi{Ite Population.1 Post-Mughal Centres EXCURSUS SHI{ITES AND SUNNITES After Iran, the Indian subcontinent is home to the second largest Shi{ite population.1 Post-Mughal centres of Muslim power—Bengal, Awadh and Haydarabad—were Shia. They produced one of the fi nest examples of composite culture, fusing and synthesising not only the cultural and religious traits of Shi{ism and Sunnism but also generally those between Hinduism and Islam. For its part, Sunni thought and institutions made a greater effort to compromise with Shi{ite Islam here than elsewhere, partly owing to the long history of Persian infl uences on the courtly culture even before the times of the Mughals. Similar to the Sunnis, Shi{ite groups are heterogeneous. There are several Shi{ite forms of cultural articulation that settled in South Asia, disseminated their ideas and established networks of social and political relations.2 After the death of the Prophet of Islam, Muslims split into groups of Kharijites, Shi{ites, and Sunnis over the issue of legitimate succes- sion: whether it should be the outstanding merits in the cause of Islam (sabiqa) or close kinship ties with the Prophet’s family (nasab). {Ali’s supporters insisted that only a member of the family can legitimately claim the mantle of the caliphate and thus established the institution of the Imamate. Imams are considered innocent and impeccable (ma{sum), endowed with spiritual and profane knowledge. Descendants from {Ali’s marriage with the Prophet’s daughter Fatima came to be called the fi ver, sevener or twelver Shia. Different branches emerged out of complicated disputes over the succession of the leaders of Shi{ite communities, the Imams: fi rst, there are the fi vers who after the fi rst four Imams accept Zaid ibn {Ali 1 Shi{ites represent approx. 10% of world’s Muslims. Today almost 15% of Paki- stani Muslims are Shi{ites; in Afghanistan they form about 15%, in India 3% and in Bangladesh close to 1% of the population. 2 For an early overview see J.N. Hollister: The Shixa of India, London 1953. See also Yann Richard: Shixite Islam, Polity, Ideology and Creed, Oxford: Blackwell 1995, transl. by Antonia Nevill; Heinz Halm: Shixism, transl. by Janet Watson, new Material translated by Marian Hill, Columbia Univ. Press 2004 (2); Moojan Memon: An Introduction to Shi{i Islam; The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi{ism, New Haven: Yale University Press 1985. 112 excursus (died 740) as their fi fth Imam, rather than his brother Muhammad al-Baqir (died 743). Close to some ideas of Mu{taziliyya these Zaidis do not believe in the Imam’s infallibility and in the principle of nasab. Different contesting groups evolved within the fi ver, some of them even succeeded in establishing an Imamate in Yemen. A little more diverse were the followers of the sixth Imam, Ja{far al- Sadiq (702–765). According to these Ismailis, the eldest son—Ismail— was to inherit the right to rule. Thus Ismailis are often called Seveners, after Ismail, the seventh Imam. They established the Ismaili dynasty of Fatimids in Egypt, and subsequently branched out in different, mainly trading communities some of them extremely active under the spiritual guidance of the Agha Khan (see below). In contrast, those who accept the fi rst twelve Imams believe that Ja{far al-Sadiq preferred his younger son Musa al-Kazim (died 799), who continued the tradition until the twelfth Imam vanished in 872 (ghaiba) only to reappear at the ‘end of times’ as the Mahdi, a faith rejected by Sunnis. Since the doctrine of occultation, Twelver Shi{ites have been negotiating on the hidden Imam’s representatives. It was only Ruh Allah Khumaini’s idea of Wilayat-e faqih, guardianship of the Islamic jurist, that de-eschatologised Shi{ite discourse. He followed Muhammad Husain Naini’s (died 1936) call for the ulama’s political power: if ulama were ruling the state according to shari{a, there was no need for Mahdi. Thus man was re-endowed with political power. Social revolution came to replace eschatological salvation. In the cultural fabric and the Islamic sacralisation of South Asia, the Shia played an important role, particularly the Ismailis (7er Shia) who fl ed the Sunnite-dominated areas to fi nd refuge along the river Indus. Their missionaries (du{at) from Yemen and Egypt are said to have been responsible for converting parts of North Indian business communities and numerous low-caste Hindus to Islam, especially in Sind and western India in the ninth century.3 When the Ismaili rul- ing elite established the Fatimide caliphate in Cairo (910 to 1171), the entanglement between commercial interests and religious activities grew stronger due to their benefi tting from the Indian trade along the Red Sea route.4 Multan became a major Ismaili centre; coins were 3 See Dominique-Sila Khan: Conversions and Shifting Identities. Ramdev Pir and the Ismailis in Rajasthan, Manohar: Centre de Science Humaines 1997. 4 André Wink: AL-HIND, I, p. 216; Farhad Daftary: A Short History of the Ismaxilis. Traditions of a Muslim Community, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 1998, p. 66..
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