Pluralism and Plurality in Islamic Legal Scholarship The Modern Muslim World 11 Series Editorial Board Marcia Hermansen Martin Nguyen Hina Azam Joas Wagemakers Ussama Makdisi Advisory Editorial Board Talal Asad Tijana Krstic Khaled Abou El Fadl Ebrahim Moosa Amira Bennison Adam Sabra Islam Dayeh Armando Salvatore Marwa Elshakry Adam Talib Rana Hisham Issa This series will provide a platform for scholarly research on Islamic and Muslim thought, emerging from any geographical area and dated to any period from the 17th century until the present day. Pluralism and Plurality in Islamic Legal Scholarship The Case of the Fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīrīya Mouez Khalfaoui gp 2021 Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com 2021 Copyright © by Gorgias Press LLC All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2021 ܘ 1 ISBN 978-1-4632-4231-2 gp Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available at the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America TABLE OF CONTENTS Author’s Preface for the English Translation ............................ ix Introduction .............................................................................. 1 1. The Historical Context: South Asia in the Seventeenth Century ...................................................................... 2 2. Interfaith Relations in Seventeenth-Century South Asia ........................................................................... 6 3. Pluralism: More Than Just Tolerance ........................... 12 4. Corpus, Hypothesis and Research Method ................... 14 5. Aims and Methodology ................................................ 20 Chapter One. The Text of the Fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīrīya ................. 23 1. The Genre of the Fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīrīya .......................... 27 The Place of the FA in Hanafi Legal Scholarship ......... 32 2. The Fatwa Pact ............................................................ 41 Formalisation as a Tool of Reception and Reproduction ...................................................... 45 3. The Authors of the FA ................................................. 49 Sources....................................................................... 50 Authors ...................................................................... 51 Map 1: The geographical displacement of the authors of the FA ...................................................................... 56 4. Aurangzeb’s Relationship to the Authors of the FA ...... 58 Chapter Two. The FA and Minority Rights .............................. 65 1. Non-Muslim Minorities under Muslim Rule in the Premodern Era ......................................................... 67 2. Muslim Minorities in Non-Muslim Territories .............. 70 v vi PLURALISM AND PLURALITY IN ISLAMIC LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP 3. The Muslim Minority in South Asia during the Seventeenth Century According to the Fatāwā l- ʿĀlamgīrīya ............................................................... 72 Chapter Three. Together but Separate: The Concept of Border in the FA ......................................................................... 75 1. The Borders of the Mughal Empire in the Seventeenth Century .................................................................... 84 2. The Social or Symbolic Border ..................................... 86 Chapter Four. The Legal Status of Non-Muslims ...................... 91 1. The Concept of Dhimma .............................................. 91 2. The Legal Qualification of Non-Muslims ...................... 99 Chapter Five. The Spiritual Freedom of Non-Muslims ........... 107 1. Freedom of Conscience .............................................. 107 2. Historical Aspects of Conversion to Islam in Seventeenth-Century South Asia ............................ 113 3. The Debate on Apostasy ............................................ 117 4. The Status of Non-Muslim Religious Buildings ........... 123 5. Non-Muslim Religious Ceremonies ............................ 128 Chapter Six. The Individual Liberties of Non-Muslims ........... 135 1. Distinguishing Symbols ............................................. 141 Chapter Seven. The Personal Status of Non-Muslims ............. 147 1. Marriage and Divorce ................................................ 147 2. Marriage Between Non-Muslims ................................ 148 3. Marriage between Muslim Men and Dhimmi Women 150 4. The Institution of Marriage ........................................ 152 Chapter Eight. The Economic Factor ..................................... 155 1. The Non-Muslim Peasant ........................................... 156 2. The Non-Muslim Merchant ........................................ 158 3. City and Village, City Dwellers and Villagers ............. 159 4. Commercial Conventions ........................................... 162 5. Partnership between Muslims and Non-Muslims ........ 162 6. Total Partnership between Muslims and Non-Muslims .............................................................................. 163 7. Partial Partnership .................................................... 165 8. Professional Partnership ............................................ 165 9. The Profit .................................................................. 166 TABLE OF CONTENTS vii 10. The Economic Relationship Between the Muslim State and its Non-Muslim Subjects ......................... 168 11. The Capitation Tax (ǧizya) ....................................... 169 Aurangzeb’s Imposition of the Ǧizya ......................... 170 12. The Property and Land Tax (ḫarāǧ).......................... 178 13. The Farmāns of Aurangzeb....................................... 179 14. The Status of Lands According to the FA ................. 180 15. The Treatment of Non-Muslim Peasants ................... 182 16. The Madad-i-Maʿāš .................................................. 185 17. The Evolution of the Islamic Law on Land Tax (ḫarāǧ) ................................................................... 186 18. The Ḫarāǧ according to Baber Johansen’s Inter- pretation ................................................................ 188 19. The Ḫarāǧ According to the South Asian Jurists ....... 189 Chapter Nine. Civil and Political Relations ............................ 195 1. Civil Service .............................................................. 195 2. The Hierarchy of South Asian Society according to the FA .................................................................... 203 Conclusion ............................................................................ 215 1. Standards of Interreligious Relations according to the FA.......................................................................... 218 2. The Manifesto on Interreligious Relationships ........... 226 Bibliography ......................................................................... 233 Ancient Sources in Arabic ......................................... 233 Secondary Sources in Arabic..................................... 234 Sources in Urdu ........................................................ 235 Persian Sources in English Translation...................... 235 Sources in English, French and German .................... 235 Online Sources ......................................................... 249 AUTHOR’S PREFACE FOR THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION The French version of this book was published more than a dec- ade ago but has not lost its relevance. On the contrary, both the Fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīrīya and issues of pluralism and plurality in Mus- lim legal scholarship have acquired greater pertinence for our so- cieties today. With the English translation of this work, I am now happy to present the results of my research to the English-speak- ing audience. This translation has been made possible by the excellent work and cooperation of colleagues to whom I owe my profound thanks. Emilly Pollak’s translations of several parts of the book provided a sound draft, while Ben Niran thoroughly edited the final draft which Sina Nikolajew subsequently prepared for publication. The final manuscript has been shortened in several places and I added some significant new references. This study shows how we may study religious texts in rela- tion to their social, political and cultural contexts by focusing on Muslim-non-Muslim relations in seventeenth-century South Asia. By interpreting legal sources with the aid of social, historical, le- gal and literary analytical methods, it compares three Hanafi legal doctrines: the “original” theory which developed in Iraq during the formative period of Islamic law; the central Asian variant, which emerged between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, and the doctrines of the South Asian Branch of the Hanafi school, which evolved from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. These three legal corpuses are presented and compared on the basis of writings from the Fatāwā l-ʿĀlamgīrīya. ix x PLURALISM AND PLURALITY IN ISLAMIC LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP This study should appeal to specialists of Islamic law, Islamic studies, theology, South Asian studies, cultural studies and to cul- tural anthropologists and other interested readers. By addressing the central