Introduction

Résumé 0

The study of the Islamic dimension of the History and Culture of South Asia has been rather neglected – particularly in France – as compared to the amount of scholarship devoted to Hindu and Buddhist India or even to South Asian tribal societies; and also as compared to studies of other parts of the Islamic world. The purpose of this volume is to draw the attention to the importance of this field and to acquaint the readers interested in South Asia or in the Islamic world with the present state of research on Islam and Society in India.This introduction has two parts. In the first part, as well as in the first paper by Jean Aubin, a few major facts have been stressed. Islam has been present in South Asia for more than a thousand years; and for more than six centuries (xiiith to xviiith) Muslim dynasties, mainly based in Delhi, were the paramount political power in the subcontinent: South Asia became an integral part of the Muslim world. Over these centuries a Muslim community made of immigrants, of converts and of their descendents was progressively formed. Muslims may be in a minority in the subcontinent: about 26 % of the population. They nevertheless make up the largest Muslim community in the world ; aroud 200 millions in 1975; that is to say that out of four Muslims in the world, one lives in South Asia; there are more South Asian Muslims than Arab Muslims or Indonesian Muslims. The Muslim population is unevenly distributed over the subcontinent: Pakistan and Bangladesh are the only two states with a Muslim majority and contain each about one third of the community; the remaining third is scattered as minorities mainly in India, but also in Nepal and Sri Lanka. Finally the political and cultural heritage of the Islamic period, even for the Hindu majority, should not be underestimated: it is in evidence in every field: from architecture to administrative techniques, from mystical writings to cooking recipes.The second part introduces and connects the twelve papers contained in this volume. They all concern a few themes connected to a central theme: Islam and Society. These themes may be summed up under the following questions: how did Muslim societies grow up in the subcontinent? How were these societies internally structured? What specifically Islamic institutions were built? Which types of Muslim leaders played specific rôles? What kind of religious and political ideologies did they produce to explain and legitimate their rôles in a predominently non-Muslim environment?The papers have been arranged into three sections. The five first papers present historical perspectives on medieval South Asia. The four papers of the second section are devoted to the study of various aspects of concrete Muslim societies, The third section studies the contempory political rôles of Islam and Muslims in Pakistan and India.In order to replace the papers in a wider perspective, I have set them against the historical background of the progressive discovery of Islamic India by Western Scholars.It should be recalled that India was the first Muslim country ever ruled by a Western colonial power starting from 1765. The British were thus in a position to get first hand knowledge not only of Islam in India, but of islamology in general. They availed themselves of this opportunity first in the field of Islamic Law which they administered from 1772 onward.They also did pioneering work on Indo-islamic history, particularly after 1840. The papers of Jean Aubin, Geneviève Bouchon and Peter Hardy in the first section of this volume show what has been since then the progress of this discipline.The next advance was in the field of ethnography. From the beginning of the xixth century, British administrators had been compiling descriptive accounts of the various provinces, which contain very often valuable ethnographic data on the Muslim society; but a real systematic ethnography started only from 1872-1874 with the instauration of decennial censuses accompanied by monographs and gazeteers. They provided the first realistic knowledge of South Asian Muslim societies. In spite of many biases (which have been corrected by later research) this colonial ethnography remains our main source on the subject. It gives detailed nomenclatures and statistics on the internal configuration of Muslim societies with their many cleavages between sects, ethnic groups, status groups, socio-economic strata... The paper of M. R. Tarafdar beautifully illustrates, in a historical perspective, the complexity of Muslim society in Bengal, with a very wide range of status from the upper strata of immigrants, ashrāf, to the low caste converts. Two other papers by Claude Markovits and Gerard Heuzé show the results of recent research, on an all-India basis, on two socio-economic groups: big businessmen and low status artisans now working in modernized industries. Finally John Argyle studies the diaspora of South Asian Muslims in East and South Africa, showing how traditional structures and cleavages have been preserved in the new environment.In the XXth century, the interest on South Asian Islam went in two directions. On the one hand, in the light of the growing Muslim separatism, more and more attention was given to the political rôle of the Muslim community. On the other hand – with the development of properly islamological studies – attention was progressively focussed on the rôles and thoughts of the Muslim religious specialists.Let us examine first this second pole of interest. The religious specialists who were studied fall into two classes: the Sufi mystics and the ‘ulāmā’ (experts in exoteric religious sciences). For both religious and political reasons, the interest was first concentrated on the Sufis: in order to bridge the ever widening gap between Hindus and Muslims, emphasis was put on their roles as peaceful missionnaries and as promovers of religious syncretism, at the popular level throughout the Middle Ages, and even at the higher levels during a brief period (xvth-xviith). Gradually these researches evolved in a distinct discipline devoted to the study of sufi orders in India. Simon Digby give here a remarkable synthesis of these researches, focussing on the most important Indian order, the Chishtiyya, in relation to the other orders.The ‘ulāmā.’ came to the foreground only in the modern period with the rise of reform movements. And they first attracted the attention of scholars for their social and political rôles which are now rather well known after the works of Peter Hardy, Francis Robinson and Barbara Metcalf. Research on thought in the field of traditional religious sciences somewhat lagged behind; but the field was first explored by Aziz Ahmad ; it is now the most promising subject of research : in addition to the work of Yohanan Friedmann, whose very stimulating article will be read below, we should mention, among many others, the work of Christian Troll.The political situation of South Asian Muslims in relation with the Hindu majority has been the main focus of research, not a surprising fact in view of the tragic events which led to the Partition of the subcontinent in 1947. Since there are many excellents studies of the British period and of the first two decades following the partition, we have selected for this volume papers dealing with the recent political trends. Akbar S. Ahmed and Mariam Abou Zahab study the interplay of religious and ethnical factors in Pakistan. Violette Graff analyzes the present political situation of Muslims in India in the light of the 1984 elections. More research would be needed on the rôles of Islam and Muslims in Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.At the end I want to thank our colleagues, informants and institutions in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nepal, as well as our Western colleagues and institutions. By facilitating our work in the field, by teaching at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences sociales, participating in Conferences organized here and inviting us in their countries, and by contributing articles for this volume they made possible the development of studies on South Asian Islam here. This volume, and particularly this introduction, is the result of this long collaboration which, we very much hope, will continue.