Remembrances of Rashīd: life-histories as lessons in the Dēōband movement

Abstract

The tazkira, a long-established genre of life-history writing in South Asian literature, was increasingly used over the course of the twentieth century to document the lives and achievements of ‘ulamā (‘learned men’, or scholars of religion). This article explores a foundational work within this genre: ‘Ashīq Ilahī Mīrutī's Tazkira't al-Rashīd (first published in 1908–1910), a life-history of the Dēōbandī scholar and Sūfī shāykh Rashīd Ahmad Gangōhī. It argues that such life-histories of ‘ulamā were written not merely as historical records but as ‘lessons’ to their readers. This article illustrates how the tazkira appropriated Gangōhī's life and teachings to provide an indispensable repository of Dēōbandī understanding on issues such as tarīqah (the Sūfī path), sharī‘ah (religious law), pīrī-murīdī (the master-disciple relationship), religious and social conduct, and relations with the state. The article thus makes a case for understanding the tazkira as an important vehicle for informing and shaping the religious behaviour of a Muslim public, which was employed ultimately by both the Dēōbandī and other Islamic revivalist movements.

This precious and irreplaceable devout witness of the thirteenth century, who made his appearance in the hallowed and blessed town of Gangoh, became the religious forebear for hundreds of thousands of Muslims, the leader and teacher of hundreds of ‘ulamā, and the leading light of India, a learned authority and spiritual guide… May this humble biography (tazkira) of Hazrat [Gangōhī] acquire blessings from God and may it be the means through which I may attain salvation… this humble servant [the author] has striven to compile this work as a memorial for his beloved shāykh.¹

After the death of the Sūfī shāykh and founder of the Dēōband movement Rashīd Ahmad Gangōhī (1829–1905), the elders of the dar-al-‘ulūm (religious school) at Deoband approached his disciple ‘Ashīq Ilahi Mīrutī (1880–1941).² Three of Gangōhī's khalīfas (appointed successors)—Khalīl Ahmad Sahāranpūrī, Mahmūd al-Hasan, and ‘Abd al-Rahīm Rā’īpūrī—had decided that an authoritative life-history of their late master was needed. And they had identified Mīrutī—a close affiliate of Gangōhī's silsila (Sūfī lineage) who had pledged bay‘a (oath of allegiance) to Gangōhī at the age of 17—as the right figure to undertake the task. As Mīrutī writes in his account, he agonised over the heavy burden of producing a life-history of his shāykh, describing himself as an ‘unworthy servant’ (nang khādim, bandah) and often declaring himself worthless or inadequate (nā-kārah, nā-chīz) to the task. Nevertheless, he undertook it out of duty to Gangōhī's tarīqah (Sūfī order), and his deceased shāykh's appearances to him in dreams offered him guidance as he did so.³

Tazkira't al-Rashīd, the final product of Mīrutī's labours, was published in Meerut in 1908–1910, in two volumes and hundreds of pages. This comprehensive work combined an array of sources: the author's own recollections; tales and testimonies gathered from Gangōhī's associates within his Sūfī order; Gangōhī's written correspondence (maktūbāt) with his followers and other shāykhs; his legal opinions (fatāwa);⁴ and his sayings as recalled by his disciples (malfūzāt).⁵ With the support of Deoband's elders, the text was also destined for a wide audience among the reading public: the first edition came with a mission statement that copies of the work would be distributed without cost to those who could not afford it, and with requests to readers to spread the message ‘across the whole world’ and ‘for all times’.⁶

As a tazkira (lit: ‘remembrance/memorial’), Mīrutī's work was placed in a well-established genre of hagiographical life-writing in South Asian Muslim literature. The tazkira as an Islamic biographical genre traced back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries onwards, and was initially used primarily to narrate posthumous memorials for Muslim nobles and poets, but the genre became particularly notable as a form of hagiographical writing which preserved the lives of Sūfī saints.⁷ In more recent times, the tazkira has been expanded beyond these traditional subjects to others, and in particular, to the ‘ulamā. Honorific life-histories of key learned individuals or collectives became a prevalent, widely available sub-genre of Urdu biographical writing in India in the twentieth century, especially around its middle decades, and have been central to how the ‘ulamā have been interpreted and remembered since.⁸

The work discussed in this article, Tazkira't al-Rashīd, was one of the first and most influential of these modern ‘ulamā-biographies. In a sense, it stands as one of the clearest ‘bridging’ texts between the more traditional Sūfī tazkira and the plethora of later ‘ulamā-biographies that arose out of the enhanced efforts of the ‘ulamā to reach out to a public readership during the colonial period. Focusing upon this single work, this article seeks to understand the importance of such a tazkira within this project of Islamic renewal, arguing that life-histories played a critical role within the Dēōbandī reformist movement in its attempts to cultivate rightful conduct among the Muslim public.

Life-histories and lessons in dēōbandīyyat

While the investment in writing ‘ulamā life-histories is not exclusive to any particular reformist school, it has been especially pronounced within the Dēōband movement.⁹ As was shown above, the elders of Deoband invested great effort in ensuring the production of an authoritative tazkira of Gangōhī, assigning the task to a trusted disciple and carefully supervising its publication. Indeed, while most academic studies of the Dēōband movement have emphasised its contributions to the religious sciences (Hadīth, fiqh, and tasawwūf, for example), more recognition needs to be given to the energy its scholars invested in the writing of biography, and how the life-histories of shāykhs have been appropriated as literary vehicles of Dēōbandī pietism. Well-known life-histories of the movement's founders and scions have abounded within the Dēōband movement since Mīrutī's study of Rashīd Ahmad Gangōhī, including subsequent remembrances of Khalīl Ahmad Sahāranpūrī, Mahmūd al-Hasan, Ashraf ‘Alī Thānawī, Husāyn Ahmad Madanī, and Muhammad Zakarīyya Kāndhlawī.¹⁰ Like the tazkira discussed in this article, these later biographies were also most often written by close relatives or disciples of their subjects, often very senior figures within the Dēōband movement, and their production received the institutional support of Dēōbandī networks.¹¹ Dēōbandī elders have thus carefully safeguarded the life-histories of Islam's great spiritual guides, just as they have safeguarded the sciences of religion.

Why should Dēōbandī scholars in particular have invested so much energy in producing life-histories? The reason, this article argues, is that that life-histories have been understood within the Dēōband movement not simply as biographical or autobiographical records, but as crucial lessons in the particular brand of shāykh-centred piety that has come to be known as dēōbandīyyat. We can see this, for instance, in the teachings of Tāqī ‘Usmānī, one of the most influential contemporary figures of the Dēōband movement. ‘Usmānī has promoted the life-histories of key shāykhs as themselves sources of moral excellence (ihsān) for their readers. Indeed, he has even proposed that the biographies of founding Dēōbandīs should be incorporated into madrasa teaching, with ‘teachers and students… meet[ing] together even once a week to study the sayings and lives of the great elders of the religion… to yield their benefits’.¹²

In line with Tāqī ‘Usmānī's claims noted above, Mīrutī's early contribution to this literary tradition was clearly intended to be not simply a historical account of Gangōhī's life but an instructive text that might cultivate a similar kind of moral excellence within its readers. In his final chapter, Mīrutī reflects that, while Gangōhī ‘during his lifetime attracted people towards him through his knowledge’, the dissemination of his wisdom following his death must happen through his ‘bāqīyāt-i-sālihāt’, or his ‘enduring good works’.¹³ These bāqīyāt-i-sālihāt, according to Mīrutī, include Gangōhī's risālē (writings), fatāwa (legal opinions), and sayings to followers; his descendants and disciples; and finally, his tazkira, which Mīrutī hopes ‘will be named and understood as one of these bāqīyāt-i-sālihāt’ itself.¹⁴ Mīrutī thus claimed Gangōhī's life to be co-extensive with the life-history that preserved it, positioning the tazkira itself as one of Gangōhī's ‘enduring good works’.

To explore the fundamental importance accorded to life-writing within the Dēōband movement, we can look to some of the existing scholarship on the tazkira literary tradition. Tazkiras have long been understood as more than just historical records. In a sense, they are participatory religious texts that instigate pious engagement from the reader. As Hermansen and Lawrence have argued, tazkiras comprise ‘memorative communications’, or attempts to embed their readers within the religious worlds and traditions inhabited by the historical personalities recorded within.¹⁵ This article extends this conceptualisation further by interpreting tazkiras as not merely participatory religious texts but as instructive ones, striving to guide their readers to perform their own good deeds by emulating the lives of the subjects of these works. Exploring just one of these tazkiras, this article shows how its author used the tazkira format to expound the specific constructions of Dēōbandī pietism, with detailed commentaries on interpretations of the Sūfī path, correct religious practice, and related questions. By narrating in intimate detail the lifestyle and practices of a perfect shāykh, Tazkira't al-Rashīd presented a holistic account of Dēōbandī pietism to a formative ‘public’ of lay Muslim readers.¹⁶

Following an introduction to Rashīd Ahmad Gangōhī himself, this article examines just two subjects on which this tazkira attempted to provide lessons in dēōbandīyyat for its readers: Sufism and the Sūfī path; and normative conduct and avoidance of bid‘ah. A final section briefly discusses a further ‘lesson’ from which later Dēōbandīs subsequently distanced themselves, namely that of disengagement from politics and matters of state, focusing particularly upon the tazkira's narration of the events of 1857.

The shining light of Gangoh

Since the tazkira cannot be separated from its own subject, we must begin with a quick introduction to Rashīd Ahmad Gangōhī himself as presented in Mīrutī's account. The text refers to Gangōhī chiefly by his honorific title Imām Rabbānī (Servant of God), as well as others, including Qutb al-Irshād (Guiding Star), Mujaddīd-al-Zamān (Reviver of the Era), Mujāz-al-Mashā’īkh (Highest Among Shāykhs), and Gangōhī Mish‘al Chamakdar (Shining Light of Gangoh).¹⁷ Likewise, in line with the laudatory tones of the tazkira genre, Mīrutī's work devotes much space to revering his qualities. Several chapters consider Gangōhī's temperament, especially his qualities of ‘steadfastness (istiqāmat)’, ‘serenity (itminān)’, and ‘trust in God (tawakkul)’. Others discuss his personal qualities such as generosity, affection, patience, and tolerance.¹⁸ Equally, there are frequent allusions to his physical presence: his handsome looks, deep eyes, melodious voice, and eloquent speech, for instance. Yet, the work (especially the first volume) also offers an all-embracing biography, which is worth summarising here.

Gangōhī was born into an established Sūfī family, descended on both sides from ‘Abd-al Quddūs Gangōhī (d. 1538), a Chishtī Sābrī shāykh of the small town of Gangoh in India's Saharanpur district.¹⁹ Following the standard tropes of the tazkira genre, the text also offers a clear genealogical tracing (shajra) which, as for many South Asian Sūfīs, placed him within four tarīqahs: the Chishtīyya, Qādīriyya, Naqshabandīyya, and Suhrawardīyya, all by virtue of the Quddūsī lineage.²⁰ Losing his father as a child, he moved to Delhi at around the age of 15, where he studied Arabic and the traditional dars-i-nizāmī curriculum under the renowned scholar Mamlūk ‘Alī Dehlawī and other ‘ulamā. During these studies, he met his fellow student and future collaborator Muhammad Qāsim Nanaūtawī (Mīrutī describes the pair as ‘like the sun and moon’ in their companionship), as well as Imdād-Ullah, a charismatic Sūfī inducted in the line of Shāh Walī-Ullah and his successors.²¹ Along with Nanaūtawī, Gangōhī identified Imdād-Ullah as a suitable shāykh in his own quest to follow the Sūfī path.²² In the late 1840s, Gangōhī pledged bay‘a to Imdād-Ullah, joining his khānaqāh (lodge) in the qasbah (town) of Thana Bhavan.²³ Subsequently, Gangōhī was appointed as khalīfa with the authority to carry Imdād-Ullah's Sūfī lineage, and he started accepting bay‘a from his own followers.

While maintaining frequent visits to Imdād-Ullah's khānaqāh, Rashīd Ahmad resettled in around 1850 in his ancestral town of Gangoh. Here, he quickly established a clinic in Unānī medicine (offering treatment to all local residents, including women, children, the poor, and Hindus²⁴), and set about reviving the deteriorated khānaqāh of ‘Abd-al Quddūs. Gangōhī gradually built up this ‘durbār (court) of Qutb Gangōhī’ into a significant centre of learning in the sciences of Islam and Sufism, largely delivered in a sheltered courtyard (sehdārī) adjacent to the old lodge building.²⁵ Gangōhī ran classes in Hadīth and sharī‘āh, consciously shifting away from the rationalist emphasis of the traditional dars-i-nizāmī.²⁶ Each year, he received tālibs (students) in Gangoh from all parts of the subcontinent as well as Afghanistan, Anatolia and elsewhere in the Muslim world.²⁷ Alongside teaching the Islamic sciences, he accepted growing numbers of disciples (mostly referred to as khuddām, sāliks, murīds) who followed his guidance in their journeys on the Sufi path (tarīqah). By the 1880s, this small town hosted dozens of his students, disciples, and other followers at any one time.

Aside from a few interruptions—a spell of imprisonment after 1857 (discussed below) and three hajj pilgrimages—Gangōhī's ‘court’ ran for several decades from circa 1849 until circa 1895, when his age and deteriorating eyesight curtailed his endeavours. Over these five decades, Gangōhī built relationships with more than 50,000 trusted ‘affiliates (mutawassilīn)’ attached in different ways to his court.²⁸ These included large numbers who pledged bay‘a to him, ranging from local villagers to famed personalities such as Sultan Jahan, the begum of Bhopal.²⁹ His webs of associates also included over 300 ‘ulamā who graduated under him, and a large number of attendants dedicated to the service of his khānaqāh.³⁰ Further still, Gangōhī ultimately appointed around 30 khalīfas trusted to continue the succession of his Sūfī lineage, establishing Gangōhī's centrality in the wide educational and Sūfī networks out of which the Dēōband movement emerged.³¹

Given Gangōhī's latter-day fame as a founder of the Dēōband movement, one of the most noticeable features of the tazkira is the relative infrequency of reference to the dar-ul-‘ulūm at Deoband itself. There is one, relatively brief, chapter dedicated to Gangōhī's role as sarparast (principal) and mudarris (teacher) in the dar-al-‘ulūm, where he superintended the teaching curriculum and presided over dastārbandī (graduation ceremonials).³² However, the tazkira's overwhelming focus is Gangōhī's khānaqāh and the circles of his followers and students in his home town. While many academic studies have been written on the Dēōband movement from the perspective of its madrasa, this tazkira foregrounds the life of the shāykh in the expansion of Dēōbandī pietism; and as such, it frames the town of Gangoh rather than Deoband as the court (darbār), orchard, rose-garden, and epicentre (qutb) of the Islamic world.

Lessons on the Sūfī path

As argued above, Mīrutī's tazkira was intended to be both an authentic remembrance of Gangōhī and an instructive text, offering comprehensive religious guidance to a nascent Dēōbandī-influenced ‘public’ of pious readers and cultivating their moral excellence. The most-discussed aspect of this multidimensional project of dēōbandīyyat in Mīrutī's text is the Sūfī path (tarīqah), specifically, the Dēōbandī teaching that the individual must only follow the Sūfī path under a designated Sūfī shāykh.³³ Mīrutī himself was a specialist in the sciences of Sufism, who during his career translated several works by Sūfī masters into Urdu³⁴ (including, most importantly, a manuscript by Gangōhī himself³⁵). As such, taken as a whole, Tazkira't al-Rashīd offers a comprehensive excursus of the Dēōbandī iteration of Sufism, delivered both directly through the works and sayings of Gangōhī, but also through the words of its author.

The clearest entry point to understanding these teachings is the opening chapter of Mīrutī's second volume: ‘Tarīqah’, which begins with the publication an undated letter written by Gangōhī to an unspecified disciple. In this letter, Gangōhī offers a comprehensive vision of the Sūfī path according to Dēōbandī interpretations. He describes the ‘knowledge of Sufism (‘ilm al-sūfīyya)’ as equivalent to ‘the knowledge of Islam’ itself. He then dwells on the need for ‘rectification of character (tazkīya-i-nafs) and eternal submission to Allah’, arguing that ‘Sufism involves the inner self, outer self, and the courage of conviction’ and that the accomplished Sūfī ‘cultivates his inner and outer character’ with perfect skills of humility, generosity, compassion, and mastery over one's emotions and desires.³⁶ Throughout many chapters of the tazkira, especially its second volume, Mīrutī expounds and clarifies Gangōhī teachings regarding the Sūfī path and perfection of character, to the extent that the guidance of the Sūfī adherent becomes a major theme and purpose throughout the text.

Several aspects of Gangōhī's teachings stand out throughout the tazkira. First, an initial major priority of Mīrutī's work as a whole is to emphasise (as expressed by Gangōhī in his letter) the Dēōbandī principle that the way to follow the Prophet's Sunnah lay in both ‘sharī‘ah-va-tarīqah (the law and the Sūfī path)’. These two paths are described as intertwined means of perfecting the outer (zāhirī) and inner (bātinī) sides of the self respectively.³⁷ This more sharī‘ah-centred Sufism both built upon the long-term legacies of Walī-Ullah and his heirs, and chimed with current global trends of Sūfī reform which were moving away from more esoteric forms of Sūfīsm towards an understanding of the Sūfī path as a means to fulfilling the law rather than rejecting it.³⁸ As such, Mīrutī's tazkira offers persistent attention to Gangōhī's absolute adherence to sharī‘ah: ‘his character and attributes were all modelled after the Prophet [and] his whole existence was lived in the image of the sharī‘ah, … he did not have the ability to ever act against it’.³⁹ He also stresses Gangōhī's expertise in both: he was ‘without doubt, the authority of his time among the specialists in both sharī‘ah and tarīqah and was a leader in the knowledge and practice of both’.⁴⁰ To prove this point, along with Gangōhī's accomplishments on the Sūfī path, Tazkira't al-Rashīd perpetually restates Gangōhī's knowledge of the sharī‘ah, both as faqīya (jurisprudent) and muftī (one who offers legal opinions). Entire chapters are given to his legal insight and reasoning (tafaqah, iftā), his devotion to the Hanafī legal school, and his responses to legal questions and issuing of fatāwa (legal opinions), of which dozens are included.⁴¹

A second theme from Gangōhī's letter on following the Sūfī path which Mīrutī elaborates is the ‘achievement of perfect character’ (known as husn-i-sulūk, husn-i-khulūq).⁴² Mīrutī emphasises Gangōhī's consistent striving (mujāhadah) to follow God in both one's inner heart and outer behaviours as a model for all disciples. Equally, he notes the shāykh's mastery over his own emotions, including those passions of the self (nafs) such as anger (ghazabīya), desire (shahwat), and quick-thinking (‘aql): Mīrutī claims that Gangōhī had tempered these human traits so that they were sources of his brilliance and creativity rather than excess.⁴³ This latter theme of conquering the self is highly resonant with the teachings of both Gangōhī and those medieval masters with whose works Mīrutī was acquainted, including al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) whose teachings Mīrutī references specifically.⁴⁴ Through this path of self-perfection, Gangōhī was seen to have acquired the ‘spiritual strength of the heart (quwwat-i-qudsīya)’ which opens the way to illumination from God,⁴⁵ as well as the heights of both kashf (insight) and also karāmāt (spiritual perfections, or literally, ‘miracles’, about which more is said below), both of which gave Gangōhī his cherished ‘closeness (nisbat)’ with God.⁴⁶

Following from this is the third major lesson on the Sūfī path: that the perfection of self cannot be achieved alone, but only by undertaking discipleship to a chosen, living spiritual guide. Elaborating on Gangōhī's teachings, Mīrutī argues that Sūfī shāykhs and teachers represent ‘the lamps which carry the light of Prophethood [and] are present in the world even today’, and as such, ‘the mashā’īkh (shāykhs) are the channels by which the spiritual instruction, virtue and cultivation of one's character may happen’. As such, he urges his readers to take an oath of allegiance to a shāykh to strive for their rectification of character.⁴⁷

Indeed, Mīrutī further elaborates in later chapters upon the Dēōbandī understanding of pīrī-murīdī (the Sūfī master-disciple relationship), providing a lesson to inform the journeys of disciples in current times. Gangōhī, Mīrutī argues, carefully selected who might be permitted to pledge allegiance to him, showing the high standards of commitment required of disciples. Gangōhī was willing to accept pledges from among the poor, villagers, and women,⁴⁸ but is shown rejecting them from those whose commitment or conduct fell below the desired standard.⁴⁹ Once a murīd had been accepted, Mīrutī shows, then they would receive committed guidance from their shāykh. At one point, he describes the shāykh with the analogy of a ‘spiritual physician (rūhānī tabīb)’: since each seeker's path to self-perfection needs different guidance, the shāykh must guide each follower differently.⁵⁰ Different disciples had ‘different personalities, circumstances and levels of education’ and it was the shāykh's task ‘to offer guidance to all of them according to the situation of each’.⁵¹

The intimate relationship between the disciple and his shāykh is further evidenced in recurring stories in the tazkira of Gangōhī appearing to his disciples in dreams and visions.⁵² Mīrutī relays many stories throughout the text of Gangōhī appearing to followers via such revelations and providing solace or advice.⁵³ In one case, for instance, Gangōhī appears in a disciple's dream saving him from a storm by collecting him in a wagon, while another follower even dreamt of taking Gangōhī as his bride.⁵⁴ Stories of Gangōhī's appearance in dreams were obviously narrated to Mīrutī in abundance by his disciples while he was writing the tazkira: they were said to be ‘countless’ and sources of comfort and contentment (tasallī, itmīnān) for their beholders.⁵⁵ Indeed, the frequency of such references shows how far Dēōbandī pīrī-murīdī drew upon the dream motif historically embedded in Chishtī Sufism,⁵⁶ and also, how far these visionary appearances comprised a major source of the reverence in which Gangōhī was held by his followers.

The extensive and accessible elaboration of Dēōbandī Sufism throughout the tazkira may also be understood as a response to contemporaneous ‘anti-Sufi’ critique in North India. At this time, ‘puritan’ movements such as the Ahl-i-Hadīth were launching polemics against Sufism; in retort, Mīrutī's elaboration of a sharī‘ah-oriented Sufism was intended to confute those who falsely alleged that Sūfīs (and especially Chishtīs) ‘act against the sharī‘ah’ and thus ‘give Sufism a bad name’.⁵⁷ But Mīrutī simultaneously took a swipe at those who were attracted towards overly mystical or esoteric Sufism. Mīrutī states that Gangōhī did not encourage his followers to engage in ‘ecstatic or wild practices (jōsh-va-kharōsh)’ or to ‘sever relationships with others (tajarrud-va-tark-i-ta‘luqāt)’.⁵⁸ Instead, Gangōhī compelled them to reject ‘ecstatic (darwēshī)’ practices and fulfil their worldly obligations. One example was a disciple from Bulandshahr, who apparently became so immersed in zikr (meditative prayer) that he considered walking out on his family and retreating into the forest to devote himself to the remembrance of God. When Gangōhī heard of this, he told him to give up these thoughts of ‘severance and retreat (tajarrud-va-rahbārī)’ and repair his relationships with his family, which of course he did.⁵⁹ In another instance, a police officer neglected his duties and almost resigned from his job to devote himself to discipleship under Gangōhī, but Gangōhī chided him, instructing him to commit to his worldly responsibilities and resume his employment.⁶⁰

Tazkira't al-Rashīd thus offers a full account of Gangōhī's teachings on the Sūfī path, the process of discipleship, and the role of the shāykh. But while imparting these lessons through the tazkira, Mīrutī's work places limitations upon this same format of the published lesson. As Ingram has powerfully argued, Dēōbandī teaching on Sufism has remained consistently ‘anthropocentric’, in that it has continued to demand a seeker's attachment to a living shāykh rather than resorting to lessons gained from published texts.⁶¹ As such, as one of the closing messages of the work, Mīrutī instructs Gangōhī's disciples to attach themselves to another shāykh following their master's death and follow his guidance absolutely. ‘The garden is full of sun,’ he argues: ‘connect yourself with this silsila and its leaders… follow the example [they] set for you, and do not miss the opportunity.’⁶² While texts such as this tazkira could be used to crystallise and clarify knowledge about the Sūfī path, the text's central message was to direct its readers towards the guidance of a living, human master.

Lessons on religious practice

In addition to this exposition of Dēōbandī Sufism, a further set of lessons within Tazkira't al-Rashīd relates to rightful religious conduct. As much work has argued, proper lay religious and social observance was a key concern for the elders of the Dēōband movement, who showed both an unprecedented concern with correcting practice among the Muslim ‘public’ and a preoccupation with the possible impact of bid‘ah (disorder) upon normative Islamic life.⁶³ For Mīrutī, a full and detailed description of Gangōhī's own behaviour could provide this lesson in correct conduct and offer a model of embodied dēōbandīyyat. As he argues, since Gangōhī was ‘incapable of disobedience’ and ‘abhorred bid‘ah’, his conduct ‘demonstrated to the world’ a model for all pious Muslims: ‘people can take lessons of divine guidance from his words and actions’.⁶⁴

One recurring example of Mīrutī's attempt to communicate correct guidance to his readers was his commentary on Gangōhī's attitudes to marriage conventions. The tazkira features accounts of several marriages, including those of Gangōhī's own daughter and son, in 1872/1873 and 1874/1875 respectively. According to these accounts, Gangōhī refused to accept several existing marriage customs (rusm): these included lavish spending, the assumption that the whole extended clan (birādārī) must attend, and the traditions of providing too large a dowry (jāhēz) and displaying it before all guests.⁶⁵ Clearly, these descriptions of proper marriage conduct were intentionally prescriptive: as is stated, Gangōhī ‘conducted his daughter's marriage in a perfect way and provided an example of emulating sharī‘ah for all Muslims’.⁶⁶

The tazkira also offers prescriptions on various matter of Dēōbandī religious practice, with a key example being discomfort with the risks of idolatrous behaviour latent in some forms of Sufism. One theme that emerges on several occasions in the text is Gangōhī's disapproval of ‘urs: celebrations of the death-anniversaries of Sūfī shāykhs, held at their graves. The tazkira expresses Gangōhī's despair at the network of descendants (the maligned ‘pīr-zādē’) of ‘Abd al-Quddūs, who apparently observed ‘urs assemblies at their ancestor's grave in Gangoh with music and festivities. Gangōhī apparently ‘hated these behaviours’ and ‘gave advice and took action to get people to adhere to the sharī‘ah’. Sometimes, he would even depart Gangoh for the duration of the ‘urs.⁶⁷

The question of the ‘urs, moreover, reveals how far the fear of bid‘ah shaped even what Gangōhī considered appropriate practice. The tazkira claims that, in earlier times, Gangōhī would visit ‘Abd al-Quddūs's grave, since there was no intrinsic harm in doing so. However, he ceased doing this ‘on account of [the actions of] the innovators’ who continued to advocate attending ‘urs: he feared that, if he did visit the grave, ‘the local pīr-zādē will say that I am yielding to them and will commit this bid‘ah’.⁶⁸ In other words, according to this account, even lawful acts such as visiting graves should be avoided if they might be misconstrued by ordinary Muslims as affirming wrongful practice: ‘Hazrat [Gangōhī] separated himself even from permissible (mubāh) actions which observers may see as permitting bid‘ah, or which could enable others to issue commands to do so.’⁶⁹

A comparable debate developed around the custom of mawlīd: celebratory gatherings held on the death-anniversary of the Prophet, which were maligned by Dēōbandīs. The tazkira includes an extensive written correspondence dated 1897 between Gangōhī and Ashraf ‘Alī Thānawī: a shāykh of the next generation and, ultimately, a figure of comparably towering influence within the Dēōband movement. In this exchange of letters, Thānawī confesses to having offered zikr (meditative prayer) before the crowd at some recent mawlīd gatherings. While Thānawī accepted that celebrating mawlīd comprised bid‘ah, he reasoned that reciting zikr (itself a meritorious action) at prearranged mawlīd gatherings was permissible, so long as this did not imply approval of the mawlīds themselves. He justified his act by saying that the large gathering offered an unrivalled opportunity to ‘speak before and advise thousands of people’ and to ‘correct the[ir] beliefs’ through a demonstration of correct prayer.⁷⁰ Gangōhī, however, reprimanded Thānawī. He argued that people were attending the mawlīd only for ‘singing and dancing… and to enjoy the gatherings’, and ‘show no respect for true worship and the Sunnah’.⁷¹ As such, he continued, Thānawī's performance of zikr at a mawlīd was ‘causing others to stray [from the Sunnah], so how can you deem it permissible?’⁷² As with visits to graves, Gangōhī was arguing that pious Muslims should take great care to shun even permissible practices if they may unwittingly draw laypersons towards bid‘ah.

Yet, on the flipside, the tazkira also hints at an apparent recognition on Gangōhī's part that there may be advantages to partaking in ‘popular’, if fallacious, customary religious acts, if doing so might allow some improvements to be enacted in public practice. A clear example is a late chapter which deals with popular or superstitious practices (termed ‘amallīyāt’) among Muslims. The tazkira indicates the everyday prevalence of customs such as keeping hold of amulets (ta‘wīdhāt), pictures (nuqūsh), threads, or written prayers and blessings in order to seek God's protection or cures from misfortunes.⁷³ Representing Gangōhī's opinions, Mīrutī castigates these practices as disingenuous, believing that ‘Shāytān (Satan) attacks from behind the veil of ‘amallīyat, and diverts [Muslims] from their true objectives’.⁷⁴ However, while the text argues that Gangōhī denigrated these superstitions and tried to avoid them, it also narrates numerous examples of Gangōhī engaging in them. Many pages, for example, document Gangōhī writing prayers, whether for curing illnesses, conquering infertility, or warding off evil spirits, on strips of paper and handing them to petitioners. Gangōhī is also depicted tying threads onto the limbs of ailing persons to seek God's protection for them.⁷⁵ The justification given in the text is that ‘Hazrat [Gangōhī] was able [through these actions] to attract his followers, to provide them with internal tranquillity and comfort, and to earn their affection. He was, thereafter, able to attend to their spiritual correction.’⁷⁶ In other words, Mīrutī explains that Gangōhī's compassion and wish to guide people towards God led him to participate on occasion in popular customs—accepting that such material objects served as reminders of God for ordinary Muslims—without himself assigning them divine significance. Yet, we see here a tension between Gangōhī's own occasional willingness to engage in ‘amallīyāt in order to attend to the spiritual rectification of lay followers, and his castigation of Thānawī for involvement in the mawlīd narrated above, which Thānawī had justified on similar grounds.

A similar contrast between Dēōbandī teachings and normative understandings might be seen in the author's argument about karāmāt: ‘miracles’, or inexplicable actions often attributed to leading shāykhs, including Gangōhī, by their followers. Mīrutī argues that there are two kinds of karāmāt: ‘spiritual (ma‘anvī)’ miracles involving achieving closeness to God, and ‘material (hassī)’ miracles, which are ‘visible events which break natural laws and appear as miraculous’, such as clairvoyance, walking on water, or flying.⁷⁷ Mīrutī narrates dozens of stories reported to him of Gangōhī's interventions spurring God to enact material miracles such as these. These included curing various followers of fevers, upset stomachs, migraines, blindness, epilepsy, and cholera; replenishing the empty purses of poor followers with coins; spurring barren trees to grow dates; cleansing water in a dirty well; and preventing the appearance of bubonic plague in Saharanpur district.⁷⁸ However, Mīrutī tempers his argument by saying that Gangōhī's ‘material karāmāt’ are less important than his ‘spiritual karāmāt’. As he writes, ‘I do not wish to record his worldly karāmāt alongside his spiritual karāmāt, because it stands as the lesser to the greater’, like a lamp next to the sun. Nevertheless, he says, somewhat begrudgingly, ‘in the service of a complete biography, it is necessary to present some examples of these events’.⁷⁹

A comparable argument could be made for kashf: moments of the shaykh's heightened or supernatural insight, which Gangōhī's followers also attributed to him. Gangōhī's acquaintances had also narrated to Mīrutī various examples of his magical or telepathic knowledge as proof of his closeness to God, including correctly predicting in advance good fortunes for believers, the outcomes of court cases, and the imminent deaths of apparently healthy individuals.⁸⁰ However, Mīrutī applies a similar argument to that concerning karāmāt: that Gangōhī's ‘spiritual kashf’, or his knowledge of God, towers over these tales of apparent clairvoyance. Mīrutī notes that many thousands of followers have heard examples of Gangōhī's magical knowledge, but ‘compared with his spiritual deliberation and attention to the heart, there is no pleasure to be found in explaining these instances of [magical] kashf’.⁸¹ Nevertheless, Mīrutī clearly feels compelled to include many such anecdotes of magical insight for his readers.

Tazkira't-al-Rashīd, therefore, is laden with lessons for the reader concerning permissible forms of religious observance and the avoidance of bid‘ah. Yet, the text also demonstrates how these debates about appropriate Muslim observance were marked by ongoing negotiation. Gangōhī is presented as an ardent reformer of popular practice, seeking to eliminate heretical practices such as ‘urs or mawlīds; yet, simultaneously, he is portrayed as having to partake in ‘superstitious’ practices to engage followers. Likewise, Mīrutī sometimes seems torn between his pious desire to emphasise Gangōhī's spiritual insights and perfections, and his authorial duty to include dozens of reported stories of worldly miracles and magical insight, which he simultaneously tries to downplay. Despite frequent assertions in literature about the rigidity and certainty of Dēōbandī religious practice, these examples show how dēōbandīyyat did not have a single, fixed template, but remained a changing and discursive exercise. Mīrutī's tazkira reveals how, in certain cases, Gangōhī, Thānawī, and even Mīrutī himself all had to find a balance between propounding proper observance, on the one hand, while, on the other, accepting the existence of forms of normative practice that could ensure their engagement with a nascent Dēōbandī public.

Lessons [un]learned from 1857

Most of Mīrutī's lessons for readers on Sufism and religious practice in Tazkira't-al-Rashīd have been maintained and furthered by later Dēōbandīs: figures such as Muhammad Zakarīyya and Tāqī ‘Usmānī have praised Tazkira't-al-Rashīd both for its account of Gangōhī's life and for its guidance on the Sūfī path, the perfection of character, following the Sunnah, and other critical teachings. However, one lesson that later Dēōbandīs have largely sought to revise is that concerning Gangōhī's role in the 1857 Rebellion.

According to Mīrutī's account, Gangōhī, along with Nanaūtawī and Imdād-Ullah, took shelter in the latter's lodge in Thana Bhawan during the main spell of fighting in Saharanpur district. Two years later, all three were falsely accused by so-called ‘troublemakers’ of fighting against the British in the battle of Shamli. The ‘rumour-mongering (jhūtī-sachī)’ and ‘allegations and conspiracies (ilzām-va-bhotān)’ against Gangōhī initially forced him into hiding, but he was ultimately arrested by British officers for his alleged participation.⁸² Gangōhī denied all charges in court: his only weapon, he told the jury, had been his tasbīh (prayer-beads). Ultimately he was jailed, but no evidence was uncovered and after six months he was released.⁸³ Mīrutī offers no indication in the work that Gangōhī fought against the British Raj, instead remarking on the ‘compassionate nature (raham-i-dil)’ of the British government.⁸⁴

Thereafter, there is no reference in the tazkira to Gangōhī or other Dēōbandī scholars engaging in any subversive political activity. Whether due to the realities of colonial rule, or historical inclinations within Chishtī Sufism to retain distance from the state,⁸⁵ Gangōhī is portrayed as shunning engagement with political matters throughout his life.⁸⁶ By contrast, Gangōhī is seen throughout the tazkira as willing to engage Muslim government employees should they be genuinely pious, accepting bay‘a from public inspectors, policemen, and tax collectors.⁸⁷ This insinuation that Gangōhī kept apart from politics matches the assumptions often made in scholarship that the early Dēōband movement sought to withdraw from matters of government and protect Islamic life and learning from colonial influence.⁸⁸

However, Mīrutī's account of 1857 differs greatly from later recollections about these early Dēōbandīs, who have often been lauded in retrospect as jihādī freedom fighters. According to this alternative narrative, Gangōhī, Nanaūtawī, and others bravely fought at Shamli in 1857 and laid the foundations of a proto-state under Imdād-Ullah as its prospective amīr (leader).⁸⁹ Yet, as Metcalf has argued, this narrative of the Dēōbandī ‘ulamā's participation in the Rebellion only really appears in printed works after around 1920, following the foundation of the nationalist Jamī‘at-i-‘Ulamā-i-Hind in 1919 and the ‘ulamā's leadership of the anti-colonial khilāfat movement (1919–1924).⁹⁰ Indeed, this narrative was accentuated in ‘ulamā-biographies written just before and soon after Indian independence, during which the ‘ulamā's alleged leadership during the Rebellion may have played the useful role of confirming Muslim loyalty to the Indian nationalist cause. Muhammad Mīyān (1903–1975), a Dēōbandī ‘alīm and historian who wrote several ‘ulamā-histories in the 1950s–1970s, was perhaps the leading example of this interpretation. In his well-known, multi-volume chronicle of the ‘glorious past’ of the Indian ‘ulamā written after independence, he attests to the ‘ulamā's valiant struggle in 1857. Mīyān even quotes ad verbatim Mīrutī's account of Gangōhī's arrest but frames it within a wider account that tells of the ‘ulamā's clear participation in the uprising, and thus implies Gangōhī's participation.⁹¹

The differences among these accounts of 1857 may reveal generational political differences between earlier (more quietist) affiliates of Dēōband, like Mīrutī, and later (more nationalist) Dēōbandī writers. In a later biography of the nationalist and pan-Islamist Dēōbandī figureheads Mahmūd al-Hasan and Husāyn Ahmad Madanī, Muhammad Mīyān refers to Mīrutī as having been ‘politically opposed’ to Hasan and Madanī and to the Jamī‘at al-‘Ulamā-i-Hind of which they were part, revealing the existence of different attitudes among these Dēōbandīs towards the colonial state in the interwar period.⁹² Tazkira't al-Rashīd, written before the ascendancy of this brand of Muslim nationalism and pan-Islamism, clearly intended to absolve the Dēōband movement's early shāykhs from suspicion after 1857. By contrast, later Dēōbandī writers were keener to celebrate those same allegations as markers of legitimacy within the Indian nationalist project.

Later Dēōbandīs have sought actively to justify these discrepancies between accounts, affirming the later interpretation as accurate without criticising Mīrutī. Muhammad Zakarīyya Kāndhlawī, a highly influential twentieth-century Dēōbandī shāykh and successor to Gangōhī's lineage, wrote a direct response in 1978 to ‘critics’ of Mīrutī's account (very probably, including Mīyān). Zakarīyya argued that the ‘true events’ of 1857 (that is, that Gangōhī, Imdād-Ullah, Nanaūtawī, and their supporters had waged jihād at Shamli) were well-known to all Dēōbandī affiliates past and present. However, he argues, Mīrutī was writing this tazkira in fear of government censorship or retribution, and so he simply described events as they had already been presented to the government by witnesses during Gangōhī's trial. However, Zakarīyya argued, Mīrutī's account never specifically denied Gangōhī's wider involvement in the uprising, and the truth was thus still ‘clear to see’ for the reader, just as a curtain cannot hide the sun behind it.⁹³ Zakarīyya's apologia, included as an appendix to a subsequent edition to the tazkira, shows how important the narrative of the ‘ulamā's role in 1857 has been for later Dēōbandīs as a validation of their commitment to nationalism.

Conclusions

Looking at one of the genre's most influential examples, this article has explored how the tazkira, a staple South Asian Muslim literary genre for writing life-history, was increasingly employed in the twentieth century to record the lives of the ‘ulamā. Insofar as tazkiras describe not only their subjects but the times and places in which they lived, these plentiful life-histories of ‘ulamā could be described as a form of ‘ulamā-logy: an effort to write Indian Muslim history through the lives of its learned men and to position them as its core agents.⁹⁴

Indeed, an understudied facet of modern South Asia's ‘ulamā has been the extent to which these figures, traditionally understood as experts in the traditional Islamic sciences, have themselves engaged in life-writing to safeguard their own corporate entity and legacy. The scholars of religion in modern times have invested great effort in ensuring the production of these life-histories. As shown above, the senior elders of Dēōband took a strong hand in commissioning and promoting Tazkira't-al-Rashīd, but in other cases even senior ‘ulamā in this period wrote their own autobiographies or biographies of their own ancestors in an effort to secure their own reputations or their families’ ongoing relevance.⁹⁵ Perhaps the reason for such investment in the ‘ulamā life-history lay in the ‘ulamā's aspirations to reach out to a wider readership and secure influence among the Muslim ‘public’ by narrating the lives of key figureheads. Conversely, perhaps this investment reflects the deterioration of the ‘ulamā's social relevance and a collective attempt to shore up their reputation in the face of their ongoing marginalisation.

This article has suggested a further reason for the expansion of the tazkira genre, which is that these life-histories became important instructive works. More than a historical record, Tazkira't al-Rashīd was a didactic document that outlined in detail a holistic vision of the model of piety known as dēōbandīyyat. It carried prescriptions for following the Sūfī path, ways of seeking the perfection of self, standards for pledging allegiance to a Sūfī master and following his guidance, and various aspects of religious and social practice. It therefore confirmed an established Sūfī model of leaning on the written lives of past shāykhs as sources of self-perfection and guidance for modern followers, which was perpetuated among subsequent generations of Dēōbandīs.

Why did Dēōbandī elders in particular invest so much in the writing of life-histories? Perhaps, the origins of the Dēōband movement in Chishtī Sābrī Sufism and its emphasis on the tutelage of shāykhs as indispensable spiritual guides gave Dēōbandīs a particular link with the long-established, early modern tazkira tradition grounded in the hagiographies of saints; indeed, as noted throughout this article, this tazkira of Gangōhī retained a number of features resonant of the traditional Chishtī Sūfī tazkira.⁹⁶ In other ways, the Dēōbandī appropriation of the life-history resulted not just from the genre's long-standing pedigree, but its utility. One might argue that the Dēōband movement's attempted harmonisation of sharī‘ah and tarīqah as concomitant paths of praxis, and its wish to promote this model for all Muslims, was best communicated by narrating the life-history of a single pious figure who successfully amalgamated both sharī‘ah and tarīqah in his own following of the Sunnah. Perhaps, too, there was the more general emphasis in Islamic reformism in this period towards more temporal, ‘this-worldly’ forms of Islam that stressed personal responsibility and striving for correct living, which therefore emphasised the agency of the ‘self’ as the true vassal of piety.⁹⁷

In common with some other recent scholarship, this article makes a case for refocusing our knowledge of dēōbandīyyat. Various established studies have considered the Dēōband movement as a largely corporate or collective enterprise, defined either by its institutions (for example, its dar-al-‘ulūm), its intellectual contributions (for example, its curriculum of learning), or its mass proselytisation campaigns (for example, its preaching and printing networks). Looking to the tazkira, we see dēōbandīyyat from an alternative viewpoint: as embodied within the lives of individual shāykhs and transmitted within the written records that preserved them. As shown in the introduction, the tazkira declared the historical life of Gangōhī to be one of his ‘enduring good works’, and thus the tazkira, which meticulously preserved those good deeds for later generations, was classed as one of the life-achievements of Gangōhī himself. Ultimately, the Dēōband movement's ‘androcentric’ worldview in which guidance could only be imparted by a particular shāykh to his successors and disciples still carried a ‘bibliocentric’ dimension, in the sense that the lives of key shāykhs needed to be recorded in print to cultivate moral excellence in their readers. This fundamental need has ensured the ongoing importance of life-history writings at the heart of the project of Dēōbandī pietism.