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Reformism and Orthodox Practice in Early Nineteenth-Century Muslim North India: Sayyid Ahmed Shaheed Reconsidered1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2011

SANA HAROON
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Abstract

This paper is a reconsideration of the career of the north-Indian Sayyid Ahmed Shaheed (1786–1831). I argue that Sayyid Ahmed used a Sufi devotional premise to understand and explain principles of orthodoxy. He also applied a concept of innate spiritual knowledge to reformed practice, suggesting that ordinary people, without scholarly training, could determine and apply the principles of orthodox practice of Islam for themselves and for others. His movement modified traditional seminary-centred teaching and leadership through the creation of a popular and easily transferrable system of practice rooted in the community and imprinted with the obligation to spread reformist teachings.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 177 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2011

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Footnotes

1

Thanks to Dr Avril Powell, Dr Sarah Ansari and Dr Robert Nichols for their detailed comments on drafts of this paper, to Professor Marcia Grant and Dr Nausheen Anwar and Yousuf Kerai for their comments at the FAS seminar series and finally to Mohsin Khwaja for helping me to find key texts. E-mail: [email protected]

References

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