Alternative Kingdoms

Abstract

Abstract Now a town in contemporary Madhya Pradesh, the former princely state of Jaora is home to a collection of shrines known as Husain Tekri. Unlike most subcontinental Muslim memorial structures, the shrines are unaffiliated with Sufi lineages and sponsored by both Sunni and Shia communities. Unencumbered by accountability to Sufi lineages, Husain Tekri was—and remains—an ideal site for Jaora's nawabs to assert sovereignty. In the colonial period, the hybrid nature of Husain Tekri facilitated the development of a mutually beneficial exchange between members of Bombay's Khoja community and Jaora's nawabs and a mutually defensive exchange between Jaora's nawabs and the British authorities. In postindependence India, Husain Tekri's ongoing status as a waqf institution directly controlled by the nawab has allowed for continued royal sovereignty. Husain Tekri has thus perpetuated links between political and social domains in ways that historian Nicholas Dirks has argued were dismantled in the colonial era.