Shi'a Islam in Colonial India

Interest in Shiism Islam has increased greatly in recent years although Shiism in the Indian subcontinent has remained largely underexplored. Focusing on the influential Shia minority of Lucknow and the United Provinces a region that was largely under Shia rule until 1856 this book traces the history of Indian Shiism through the colonial period toward Independence in 1947. Drawing on a range of new sources including religious writing polemical literature and clerical biography it assesses seminal developments including the growth of Shia religious activism madrasa education missionary activity ritual innovation and the politicization of the Shia community. As a consequence of these significant religious and social transformations a Shia sectarian identity developed that existed in separation from rather than in interaction with its Sunni counterparts. In this way the painful birth of modern sectarianism was initiated the consequences of which are very much alive in South Asia today. The book makes a significant contribution to the global history of Shiism and to understandings of inner-Islamic conflicts in the colonial and post-colonial worlds.