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Loyalty, Locality and Authority in Several Opinions (Faāwā) Delivered by the Muftī of the Jami'ah Nizāmiyyah Madrasah, Hyderabad, India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Gregory C. Kozlowski
Gregory C. Kozlowski
Affiliation:
De Paul University, Chicago
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Extract

During an evening's conversation in September of 1989 in Hyderabad, two educated men: onea retired professor of economics, the other a civil servant whose avocation was lexicography, entered into a spirited and lengthy debate over the proper way of translating ‘fundamentalist’ into Urdu. The lexicographer argued that ‘bunyād-parast (lit: one who loves the basics)’ was the most accurate as it conveyed not only the English meaning, but also the reality of what a fundamentalist Muslim believed. In opposition, the economist held that ‘mullah-yī (lit: like a mullah)’ was culturally more correct. The ‘foundation’ implied by bunyad was not specifically religious. It could apply to the fundamentals of anything: grammar, for example. In addition, he argued that what fundamentalists really did was to dress, act and talk like mullahs. In a sense, both were correct, because each was struggling over the transfer of a notion alien to traditional Islam into the vocabulary of a living language through which Muslims interact.

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Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , October 1995 , pp. 893 - 927
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

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