The spatial imaginaries of Mujaddidī Sufis and political integration in the northwestern borderlands of colonial India

ABSTRACT

This article identifies two comparable teaching and learning lines of the reformist Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidīyya Sufi order in the Indo-Afghan borderlands in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It describes the strategies of social engagement of the mobile mullās of the Akhund Ghaffūr-Haddā Mullā line and those of the pīrs of the khānqah (Sufi lodge)-centered line of Khwājāh Usmān Dāmanī. The concurrent establishment of these two Sufi lines in the northwestern borderlands of colonial India was an important historical phenomenon inspired by a ‘reformed’ Mujaddidī practice and the two Sufi lines were comparable because of their roots in Mujaddidī reformism. I argue, however, that the two Sufi lines must also be differentiated because of the loci of their participation in and mediation of the day-to-day affairs of practising communities. Members of the Haddā Mullā’s line dispersed among the Pashtun borderland communities to enforce religious priorities from day to day, while members of Usmān Dāmanī’s line consciously confined their activities to the khānqah. The patterns of activity of the members of the two Mujaddidī lines suggest a new framework for understanding the relationship between Islam and politics in the Indo-Afghan borderlands: it was not the ideological approach to Islam, but the spatial imaginaries employed by the frontier Sufis which produced their respective political agendas and impact.

KEYWORDS:

• Islam
• Reformism
• Sufism
• frontier
• anti-Colonialism
• Afghanistan
• India
• Pakistan
• spatial history

Acknowledgments

This article was conceived in conversation with Dr Marta Dominguez Diaz, Senior Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University St Gallen, Switzerland, and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. The article benefited from comments by the anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Contemporary Religion, Robert Nichols, and participants of the St Petersburg Conference of Afghan Studies in 2017.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. A list of deputies of Hazrat Dāmanī: Hājī Gul Sāhib Afghāni Bājauri; Maulvī Sher Muhammad Sāhib Marhūm; Maulvī Ghulām Hassan Sāhib Marhūm; Miyān Fazal Ali Sāhib Marhūm; Hāfiz Muhammad Yar Sāhib; Mullā Qatar Akhundzadah Sāhib Sherani; Hājī Mahakmuddin Sāhib; Ata Muhammad Akhunzadah Sāhib; Mullā pīr Muhammad Akhunzadah; Mullā Ata Muhammad Sāhib Akhunzadah Marhūm; Mullā Dost Muhammad Kundi; Mullā Naseem Gul Akhunzadah Sāhib; Mullā Abdul Haq Akhunzadah Sāhib Harpal Marhūm; Miyān Mullā Muhammad Rasul Sāhib Paiwindah Marhūm; Mullā Abdul Jabbar Akhunzadah Sāhib Marhūm; Maulvī Abdul Ghaffar Sāhib Babar Salam Allah Talah; Khuda Yar Akhundzadah Babar Saknah Chodhwan Marhūm; Ghalib Ali Khan Hindustani Marhūm; Maulvī Fatah Muhammad Sāhib Istranah Marhūm; Ali Muhammad Sāhib Babar Marhūm; Amir Khan Sāhib Bābraskanah Khangarh, Salam Allah Tala; Faqir Abdullah Sāhib Marhūm Dera Wala.

2. Mullā Najmuddin in Haddā Sharif (d. 1901); the Sartor Faqir Saadullah Khan (1824–1914) from Buner who was involved in Swat politics; Mullā Atkar of Khost (active in 1888); Mullā Bābra in Bajaur (active in 1882); the Hazrat Abdul Wahab of Manki Sharif (d. 1904); Mullā Khalil (active in 1888) and the Hājī Sāhib Bedmani (d. 1883) in Mohmand; Wali Muhammad Khan in Tirah (d. 1887) and Sayyid Akbar (1793-1856), the ruler of Swat. (Quddusi 1966, 584-591)

3. The discussion presented in the following four paragraphs is based on research carried out between 2002 and 2005, which forms the basis for the chapter “Religious Authority and the Pakhtun Clans” in Haroon 2008. The argument which follows, that the activities of the mullās of the Haddā line imply the existence of a spatial imaginary which differentiates them from other reformist Mujaddidi pīrs, is new and has not been previously published.

4. These are archival government records, deposited in the Deputy Commissioner’s Office Peshawar according to year, often without page numbers.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sana Haroon

Sana Haroon is Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies in the Department of History at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA. CORRESPONDENCE: Department of History, University of Massachusetts, Boston, 100 Morrissey Blvd, Boston, MA 02125, USA.