Sufis, Sultans And Feudal Orders
Edited by Mansura Haidar
Published by: Manohar Books, New Delhi. Year: 2004. Pages: 497. Price: Rs. 995

There is some charm about commemoration volumes that is not present in other research books. They provide insights into a wider range of issues than can be generally included in a volume by a single author.

Sufis, Sultans And Feudal Orders is one such book that pays tributes to Nurul Hassan, eminent academician and former Indian ambassador to the Soviet Union.

This diverse collection of essays is edited by Mansura Haidar from the Aligarh Muslim University. The book contains 28 essays written by historians and scholars, and is divided into four sections that are based on four broad themes.

The first section is broadly titled ‘Sufis’ though it does not exactly deal with Sufism as a system of philosophy or as a particular understanding of Islam. The first essay by N.R Farooqi traces the origins of Islam, through the agency of traders and Sufis, along the Malabar Coast in south India in the 9th and the 10th centuries. It also deals with travel writings about India by Ibn Battuta in the 14th century and Ziauddin Ma’bari of the 16th century, author of the Tuhfat al-Mujahidin, a chronicle of the Portuguese invasions and the local resistance movements. This historical piece of writing provides valuable insights into local forms of Sufism in medieval Malabar. Marc Gaborieu’s essay on the jihad movement of Sayyid Ahmed Barelwi, highlights the interesting uses of the concept of jihad in 19th and 20th century colonial India by examining Sayyid Ahmed’s effort to establish a proto-state by confronting the Sikhs and the British.

J.S.Grewal’s article on the poetry of Punjabi Sufi saints, such as Baba Farid and Hazrat Shah Hussain, critically examines medieval Sufism from a gendered perspective, looking at such interesting themes as gender reversal and redefinition of notions of normative masculinity and femininity in a patriarchal society. Iqtidar Hussain Siddiqi’s essay looks into the life and teachings of the 16th century Indian Sufi theologian, Shaikh Abdul Haq Muhaddith of Delhi, focussing particularly on his missionary role and his approach to Hinduism.

The second section is titled ‘Sultans’ and the essays included here look into various aspects of elite politics of medieval India. While most of these essays are simple historical accounts, they manage to capture the reader’s attention with hitherto little-known facts.

Raza Naqvi’s essay looks into the economic policies of the Delhi Sultanate during the reign of Allauddin Khilji. The price control measures adopted by the state give us interesting insights into the socio-economic structure of that period. Ishtiyaq Ahmed Zilli’s article throws new light on the Sayyed Sultans, who ruled Delhi in the early fifteenth century, and their relations with Timur, and Mansura Haidar’s essay extends this by taking a closer look at the life of Timur, engaging with his autobiography and the travel writings of Ibni Arab Shah that refer in detail to Timur.

The third section is titled ‘Feudal Orders’. The essays in this section deal with the feudal system in medieval India and the various popular struggles against feudal oppression. The section begins with Azra Alavi’s essay on the uprising against the British in 1816 in Bareilly. This essay examines the complex web of social and economic factors behind the revolt and the process of popular mobilisation against the colonial order. Fatima Zehra Bilgrami’s article gives a detailed account of an administrative state manual of the early 18th century, the Hidayat ul-Qawa’id , authored by Hidayatullah Bihari. The manual details the methodologies and strategies of the state administrative practices of that period and gives an image of an economically well-organised society. Z.U.Malik looks into the regional historiographies of the 18th century through a case study of the Tuhfah-i Tazah, a historical manuscript on the city of Benaras, authored by Maulawi Khairuddin. This treatise details the various social and political changes the occurred in the town in this period as it came under British rule. M.S.Ahluwalia’s case study looks at the structure of the feudal system in early medieval Rajasthan, seeing how caste and economic factors were closely intertwined in reinforcing structures of hierarchy and oppression.

The final section contains essays on a wide range of themes, from medieval irrigation systems and their role in state-building initiatives to Islamic revival in contemporary Central Asia.

While some of the essays included in this volume do shed light on various aspects of medieval Indian society, some essays are clearly short on facts and analysis, and, taken as a whole, the book does not have a single overarching focus, which clearly limits its appeal, usefulness and scholarly contribution.

(The writer is a Bangalore-based Human Rights activist and an independent research scholar. He may be reached at vijaysai79@gmail.com)

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