Strategies of Authority in Muslim South Asia in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Abstract

AbstractStarting from the position that authority is constantly a work in progress, this paper examines authority in Muslim South Asia at a time when Muslims felt the challenge of rule by another civilization. It examines the strategies in sustaining their authority: of religious leaders, of Unani hakims and of literary leaders. In all three areas there is a rejection of the Persianate Mughal past and an embracing of Arab models, of the Prophetic model, and in various ways a drawing on British models and British authority. The paper also looks at the strategies of the rulers noting, amongst other things, how the British drew heavily on Mughal models just as Indian Muslims were letting them go, and how, since independence, Muslim rulers have drawn on a mixture of Western, Arab and Prophetic sources. There is also a running discussion throughout the paper of the revolutionary shift towards rooting authority in society at large, and the development of techniques to do so.