THE SHAPING OF SUFI LEADERSHIP IN DELHI: THE NAQSHBANDIYYA MUJADDIDIYYA, 1750 TO 1920

This study is an historical investigation of the leadership of a line of Muslim religious teachers in India from the middle of the 18th to the early 20th century. It is concerned with understanding the development of that religious leadership during a period of profound social change. The investigation of religious leadership in the context of expanding British colonial rule is a method for the understanding of the nature of indigenous responses to externally imposed change. The selection of a line of Sufi shaikhs as the subject for the dissertation is linked both to the continuity of that form of leadership, and the widespread participation in the institutions of Sufism among Indian Muslims. The study investigates the variety of factors which emerged from the developing domination of Indian society by its British rulers as they impinged on the Muslim community of Delhi. It also examines in detail the institutional and ideological adaptations made by the religious leaders studied as they attempted to confront the changing environment around them. To do this, the study not only examines the abstract system of thought which is found in their particular tradition of islamic mysticism, but also analyzes a great deal of anecdotal and biographical material in order to detail the variations in use of that tradition over an extended period of time. This provides a detailed pattern which shows the connection between externally imposed social and political change, and the indigenous ideological and institutional response of Indian Muslims as they experienced that change. The study shows the extent of continuity in this particular form of religious leadership, while at the same time illustrating the constant rethinking and reformulating of the tradition itself and the institutional form which it took, as the representatives of that tradition responded to the needs which they and their followers felt. This shows both the similarities which this pattern of leadership has with more dramatic forms of social and religious movements, as well as the parallels in strategy which have been described for other Muslim leaders, political and religious, during the same time period