Le mahdi oublié de l'Inde britannique : Sayyid Ahmad Barelwî (1786-1831), ses disciples, ses adversaires

Leaving aside Indian and Pakistani nationalist interpretations, this paper reinstates the millenarian dimension of the career of Sayyid Ahmad Barelwî (1786-1831). This Naqshbandi Sufi, who was successively a soldier and a religious reformer, launched ajihâdin 1826 against the Sikhs and the British presence in India : he mysteriously disappeared in a battle, and his disciples awaited his reappearance as a mahdi for more than half of a century. Sayyid Ahmad's messianic career is reinterpreted here in four steps. It is shown how the political and social context facilitated the development of millenarian ideas. Then the religious thought of this period is examinated during a time when eschatological preoccupations were important. In a third step, the posthumous career of Sayyid Ahmad as a mahdi is reconstitued through colonial sources. Finally, a study of Persian documents written before the death of Sayyid Ahmad corrects the colonial view, but also proves that, in his lifetime, Sayyid Ahmad was already considered by his disciples as a mahdi « of the middle of the ages », akin in many ways to the mujaddidas conceived by the Naqshbandis