Pakistan Journal of Historical Studies

Abstract:

Two trends in the interpretation of jihad were evident in India between 1831 and 1920. This article focuses on the defeat of Sayyid Ahmad of Rae Bareilly (1786–1831) against the Sikhs, and comes up to the 1920s when there were anti-colonial mass movements in India. I argue that jihad was interpreted in markedly heterodox ways during this period so that the conventional conditions governing its conduct were deviated from: one, that it was to be ordered only by a Muslim ruler; two, that it was to be announced after the breaking of such treaties of peace as may have existed; three, that it was against an armed enemy force and not against unarmed or non-combatant civilians. In a sense, these interpretations of jihad undermined clerical authority and introduced a new trend of dislocating such authority. This undermining of conventional ways of approaching the hermeneutics of jihad manifests itself in progressive Muslims and in the radical Islamists of the contemporary period. This period of South Asian history is important as a study of the changes in the hermeneutics of jihad.