About the Podcast:
- Were the Shi’as of colonial India at the periphery of the Shi’i religious universe, or did they develop an autonomous identity of their own?
- Why did some Shi’a ulamas in India preferred politically quietism when their counterparts in Iran were leading anti-colonial movements?
- What were the hopes and fears of the Shi’a community in the making of Pakistan?
In this episode of Thinking Islam, we explore the themes of Professor Justin Jones‘s landmark book Shi’a Islam in Colonial India: Religion, Community and Sectarianism. The conversation begins by challenging the geographical assumptions that have long placed Iran and the shrine cities of southern Iraq at the centre of the Shi’i religious universe, often relegating India to its periphery. Professor Jones recovers a different story, one in which the Shi’as of north India, having lost their state with the British annexation of Awadh in 1856, transformed themselves from an elite Muslim subculture into a self-organising community. We trace the emergence of a Hindustani Shi’ism through the founding of madrasas in Lucknow such as Madrasa Nazmia, Sultan al-Madaris, and Madrasat al-Waizin, the rise of Indian mujtahids like the Khandan-i-Ijtihad and Nasir Husain Kintori who provided autonomous religious leadership, and the gradual shift from Arabic and Persian towards Urdu as the language of religious communication.
We examine how the Shi’a came to articulate themselves as a distinct judagana qaum, an empowered religious community framed not as a mere firqa or maslak within Islam but as something equivalent in standing to Sikhism, Hinduism, or Christianity. The conversation explores the role of khatibs, zakirs, and waizin in shaping the public sphere, the issuing of progressive fatwas on women’s autonomy and dowry by mujtahids like Muhammad Ibrahim, and the strategic political quietism through which the Shi’a positioned themselves towards the British Raj. We delve into the fatwas of mujtahids urging Shi’as to keep aloof from the Khilafat Movement, a striking contrast to the radical anti-colonial activism of Shi’a scholars in Iran during the same period.
The discussion deepens as we turn to the Pakistan Movement, where prominent Shi’a figures held senior visible roles in the Muslim League while the Shi’a Political Conference voiced the fear that Pakistan would become a “Sunnistan.” Professor Jones traces the striking parallel between the Shi’a search for political space and Ambedkar’s untouchable movement, exploring how Ali Naqi Naqvi reimagined Imam Husain not merely as an embodiment of Shi’a suffering but as a universal figurehead for all of mankind, a bringer of equality and justice. We close with the contemporary decline of Indian mujtahids in the postcolonial period, the shifting ties with Najaf and Qom, and what this internationalisation has meant for a community whose intellectual roots once ran deep in the soil of Hindustan.
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Learn More About Our Guest:
Professor Justin Jones is Associate Professor in the Study of Religion at the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, and Fellow of Pembroke College. His research focuses on Islamic law, religious authority, and the social history of Muslim communities in modern South Asia, with particular attention to Shi’i religious thought, gender, and sectarian politics. He is one of the foremost voices on the history of Shi’ism in colonial and post-colonial India, and his work has shaped scholarly conversations on the relationship between Muslim minorities, the state, and the public sphere.
Read More of His Insights:
Jones, J. (2011) Shi’a Islam in Colonial India: Religion, Community and Sectarianism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jones, J. (2014) ‘Shi’ism, Humanity and Revolution in Twentieth-Century India: Selfhood and Politics in the Husainology of ‘Ali Naqi Naqvi’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 24(3), pp. 415–434.
Jones, J. (2017) “The Pakistan that is going to be Sunnistan”: Indian Shi’a Responses to the Pakistan Movement’, in Qasmi, A. U. and Robb, M. E. (eds.) Muslims against the Muslim League: Critiques of the Idea of Pakistan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 350–380.
Jones, J. (2019) ‘Khandan-i-Ijtihad: Genealogy, History, and Authority in a Household of ‘Ulama in Modern South Asia’, Modern Asian Studies, 54(4), pp. 1149–1191
