Ali Mian Dissertation 2015
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Surviving Modernity: Ashraf ‘Alī Thānvī (1863-1943) and the Making of Muslim Orthodoxy in Colonial India by Ali Altaf Mian Graduate Program in Religion Duke University Date: _______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Ebrahim Moosa, Supervisor ___________________________ Carl Ernst ___________________________ Laura Lieber ___________________________ Leela Prasad ___________________________ Robyn Wiegman Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Program in Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2015 ABSTRACT Surviving Modernity: Ashraf ‘Alī Thānvī (1863-1943) and the Making of Muslim Orthodoxy in Colonial India by Ali Altaf Mian Graduate Program in Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Ebrahim Moosa, Supervisor ___________________________ Carl Ernst ___________________________ Laura Lieber ___________________________ Leela Prasad ___________________________ Robyn Wiegman An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Program in Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2015 Copyright by Ali Altaf Mian 2015 Abstract This dissertation examines the shape, substance, and staging of Muslim orthodoxy in British India, concentrating on how orthodox theologians survived colonial modernity by deploying sociological, discursive, psychic, and hermeneutical strategies. This dissertation is organized around Ashraf ‘Alī Thānvī (1863-1943), a leading Muslim theologian, mystic, and jurist of colonial India. Thānvī authored hundreds of original treatises, compiled texts, and works of commentary on doctrine and ritual, mystical experience, communal identity, and political theology. His collected letters, recorded conversations, and sermons were published within his lifetime and continue to instruct many contemporary South Asian Muslims. I closely read Thānvī’s texts and situate them within two frameworks: the history of Indo-Muslim thought and the socio-political history of colonial India. Thānvī’s hundreds of published treatises and sermons, continued citation within South Asian Islam, and widespread ṣūfī fellowship make him one of the most compelling case studies for analyzing some of the key thematic concerns of Muslim orthodoxy, such as religious knowledge, self-discipline, sublimation of desire, regulation of gender, and communalist politics. My analyses demonstrate how orthodox scholars proliferated their theological, legal, and mystical teachings in order to make tradition relevant and authoritative in the public and private lives of many South Asian Muslims. Orthodox Islam not only survived colonial modernity, but also thrived in its ideological and social contexts. iv For my mother and father, Nusrat and Altaf Mian v Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...iv Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………….ix Introduction: Behind the Scenes of Muslim Orthodoxy in Colonial India………………..1 Concepts and Methods…………………………………………………………….7 Scenes of Survival: Chapter Outline……………………………………………..14 1. The Performance of Life and Thought: A Brief Biography of Ashraf ‘Alī Thānvī…..19 The Formative Years…………………………………………………………..…21 The Deoband Years………………………………………………………………24 The Kanpur Years……………………………………………………………..…29 The Thana Bhawan Years………………………………………………………..46 The Final Years………………………………………………………………..…54 Ashraf ‘Alī Thānvī: Genres & Texts………………………………………….…56 2. The Production of Knowledge: Moral Responsibility and Gnostic Insight…………...76 The Epistemic Aura of Ashraf ‘Alī Thānvī………………………………...……77 Surviving Knowledge in Modernity………………………………..……………81 ‘Ilm-i dīn: The Bridge to the Prophetic Past………………..……………………85 The Polemics of Orthodoxy………………………………...……………………93 The Orthodox Domestication of Reason…………………..……………………100 Orthodox Refutations of Modern Knowing…………………….………………105 Thānvī’s Epistemology: Ma‘rifa and Taklīf……………………………………110 Conclusion………………………………………………………...……………114 3. The Script of Subjectivity: The Passionate Self and Rational Discipline……………117 vi Subjectivity in Transition: ‘Abd Al-Mājid Daryābādī………………………….122 Daryābādī’s Turn to Thānvī……………………………………………….……126 Thānvī’s Disciplined Subjectivity………………………………………………133 The Subject of Passion…………………………………………………….……140 Degrees of Intensity: ‘ishq and maḥabba………………………………………147 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...152 4. The Scene of Sublimation: Sensuality and Divinity…………………………………155 Dealing with Desire: Methodological Considerations………………………….158 Desire and Sublimation in South Asian Muslim Orthodoxy………………...…163 Constant Cravings of the Split Subject…………………………………..……..171 Married with Anxiety…………………………………………………………...179 Impersonal Attachments………………………………………………………..182 The Beardless Simulacrum……………………………………………………..188 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...191 5. The Drama of Domesticity: Ornamental Femininity and Essential Masculinity…….195 Muslim Women and Colonial Modernity………………………………………198 Thānvī on Domesticity……………………………………………………….…206 Heavenly Ornaments……………………………………………………………215 Ornamental Femininity…………………………………………………………220 Gender and Orthodox Structures of Authority………………………….………225 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...231 6. The Theater of Legalism: Equality and Difference………………………………….233 Muslim Women between Sacred Law and Colonial Governmentality………...236 vii The Successful Stratagem for the Helpless Wife……………………………….241 Contractual Limits: ṭalāq al-tafwīḍ…………………………………………..…245 Annulment Limits: tansīkh al-nikāḥ……………………………………………248 The Conjugal Economy of Religious Identity………………………………….254 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...260 7. The Spectacle of Communal Politics: Separatism and Nationalism…………………262 Orthodox Political Strategies…………………………………………………...264 Deobandī Historiography and Post-1857 Muslim Politics…………………..…268 Politics in Muslim Orthodoxy……………………………………..……………276 Thānvī’s Jurisprudence of Politics…………………………………………...…282 Debating Thānvī’s Politics in Post-Colonial South Asia………………….……288 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………...…291 Conclusion: The Power of Orthodoxy…………………………………...……………..293 Appendix I: Ashraf ‘Alī Thānvī—A Timeline…………………………………………301 Appendix II: Ashraf ‘Alī Thānvī’s Sermons (khuṭbāt)……………………………...….302 Appendix III: Ashraf ‘Alī Thānvī’s Recorded Conversations (malfūẓāt)…………..….307 Appendix IV: Ashraf ‘Alī Thānvī’s Ṣūfī Successors (khulafā’)……………………..…311 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………320 Biography…………………………………………………………………………….…341 viii Acknowledgements The subject of this study, Ashraf ‘Alī Thānvī, played a crucial role in my formative religious experiences. My intellectual romance with Thānvī was a gripping, solitary exposure to grace and tradition. The experience now enables me to appreciate Flannery O’Connor’s words of wisdom: “Our age not only does not have a very sharp eye for the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace, it no longer has much feeling for the nature of the violences which precede and follow them.” For better or for worse, I journeyed away from Thānvī. Journeying away, however, does not mean forgetting or disavowing. I have slowly learned to remember him and to avow him in creative and critical ways. The journey continues…and my paranoid and reparative modes of engagement with the Islamic tradition have become indebted to other ideological constructs and figures—other scenes of meaning and pleasure. Freud and Foucault, I must confess, have become indispensable resources for my thinking. Over the past decade or so, I have immersed myself in the critical study of religion, psychoanalysis, continental philosophy, women’s studies, and queer theory. I am grateful to my mentor and dissertation supervisor, Professor Ebrahim Moosa, for his patience with me as I ventured into disciplinary domains beyond religious studies. Professor Moosa is an exemplary teacher and a scholar extraordinaire (always cutting-edge, always already there). I especially thank him for the countless hours he spent with me reading classical Arabic texts. I also enjoyed our chapter meetings, which enriched me with valuable resources and newfound inspiration (āp ke andāz-i karam ke liye āp kā shukriya). I also benefited from studying with Professor Kalman P. Bland. His tutelage and wisdom transported me to the philosophical worlds of Philo, Maimonides, Ibn Rushd, ix Spinoza, and Kant. Professor Bland read my work with care and placed critical and historical questions on the horizon of my thinking. Thank you, Dr. Bland! I am also grateful to Professor Bruce B. Lawrence for generously sharing with me gems from his wide-ranging erudition. Professor Robyn Wiegman brought her razor-sharp insights to my project and asked me compelling meta-critical questions (thank you, robyn, for genersouly giving me your time, for teaching me feminist theory and queer theory, and for including me in trips to asheville, manchester, and norway). My thanks also go to Professor Laura Lieber, who gently taught me parts of the Talmud and provided incredibly helpful feedback on chapter drafts. I am grateful to Professor Carl Ernst for answering my questions with resourceful replies. For her encouraging presence, I thank Professor Leela Prasad. My other teachers all taught me valuable lessons. My heartfelt thanks go to Thomas Maloney, Susan M. Ryan, Matthew Biberman, Glynis Ridley, Bronwyn Williams, John McLeod, Toril Moi, Elizabeth Grosz, Valentin Mudimbe, Kenneth Surin, Antonio Viego, Ranjana