SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Shari'at and Muslim community in colonial Punjab, 1865-85

In this paper it is argued that concerns for the government appointment of qazis, officers for the administration of Muslim law, and the greater application of shari’at critically shaped Muslim community formation in later nineteenth century Punjab. Between 1865 and 1885, Punjabi Muslim elites attested the necessity of qazis being appointed by government and Muslim law being administered in the colonial judicial system. With the support of G. W. Leitner, registrar of the Punjab University College, Muslim parties used the emergent associations of Punjab civil society, including the Anjuman-i-Punjab (Lahore) and Anjuman-i-Islam (Lahore), to assert the indispensability of religious law. In doing so, they challenged the Anglo-Indian decision to prioritise customary law in the Punjab and advanced the religious group as the basic social unit of Punjab society. Muslim campaigns against qazi abolition across India met with partial success when in 1880 the Indian government resolved that provincial administrations might begin reappointing qazis where demand existed; ensuing requests for the appointment of qazis in the Punjab testify to the importance of religious law among the province’s Muslim population. In Punjab public spaces, the relevance of Islam was proclaimed, challenging the professed Anglo-Indian distinction between private and public, religious and secular spheres. Demands for qazi appointment and the administration of shari‘at problematise well-rehearsed arguments about the relationship between family, community, state and religion in colonial Punjab. Only through an enquiry into the two decades after 1865 may later political campaigns for the application of shari’at - and assertions of Islam as a public religion - be understood.