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Bombay Islam The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840–1915 As a thriving port city, nineteenth-century Bombay attracted migrants from across India and beyond. Nile Green’s Bombay Islam traces the ties between industrialization, imperialism and the production of reli- gion to show how Muslim migration from the oceanic and continental hinterlands of Bombay fuelled demand for a wide range of religious suppliers, as Christian missionaries competed with Muslim religious entrepreneurs for a stake in the new market. Enabled by a colonial pol- icy of non-intervention in religious affairs, and powered by steam travel and vernacular printing, Bombay’s Islamic productions were exported as far as South Africa and Iran. Connecting histories of religion, labour and globalization, the book examines the role of ordinary people – mill hands and merchants – in shaping the demand that drove the religious market. By drawing on hagiographies, travelogues, doctrinal works and poems in Persian, Urdu and Arabic, Bombay Islam unravels a vernac- ular modernity that saw people from across the Indian Ocean drawn into Bombay’s industrial economy of enchantment. Nile Green is Professor of South Asian and Islamic History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of many books, including Islam and the Army in Colonial India: Sepoy Religion in the Service of Empire (2009); Religion, Language and Power, co-edited with Mary Searle-Chatterjee (2008); Indian Sufism since the Seventeenth Century: Saints, Books and Empires in the Muslim Deccan (2006); and Sufism: A Global History (forthcoming). www.cambridge.org © in this web service Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-76924-2 - Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840–1915 Nile Green Frontmatter More information
Transcript of Bombay Islam - Assets - Cambridge University...
Bombay Islam
The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840–1915
As a thriving port city, nineteenth-century Bombay attracted migrants from across India and beyond. Nile Green’s Bombay Islam traces the ties between industrialization, imperialism and the production of reli-gion to show how Muslim migration from the oceanic and continental hinterlands of Bombay fuelled demand for a wide range of religious suppliers, as Christian missionaries competed with Muslim religious entrepreneurs for a stake in the new market. Enabled by a colonial pol-icy of non-intervention in religious affairs, and powered by steam travel and vernacular printing, Bombay’s Islamic productions were exported as far as South Africa and Iran. Connecting histories of religion, labour and globalization, the book examines the role of ordinary people – mill hands and merchants – in shaping the demand that drove the religious market. By drawing on hagiographies, travelogues, doctrinal works and poems in Persian, Urdu and Arabic, Bombay Islam unravels a vernac-ular modernity that saw people from across the Indian Ocean drawn into Bombay’s industrial economy of enchantment.
Nile Green is Professor of South Asian and Islamic History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of many books, including Islam and the Army in Colonial India: Sepoy Religion in the Service of Empire (2009); Religion, Language and Power , co-edited with Mary Searle-Chatterjee (2008); Indian Sufi sm since the Seventeenth Century: Saints, Books and Empires in the Muslim Deccan (2006); and Sufi sm: A Global History (forthcoming).
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Bombay Islam
The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840–1915
NILE GREEN University of California, Los Angeles
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cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,
Singapore, S ã o Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa
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© Nile Green 2011
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2011
Printed in the United States of America
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Green, Nile.
Bombay Islam: the religious economy of the west Indian Ocean, 1840–1915 / Nile Green.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-521-76924-2 (hardback) 1. Internal migrants – India – Bombay – History. 2. Muslims – India – Bombay –
History. 3. Iranians – India – Bombay – History. 4. Bombay (India) – Commerce – History. 5. Economics – Religious aspects – Islam.
I. Title. hb2100.b66g74 2011
330.954�792031–dc22 2010027650
isbn 978-0-521-76924-2 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
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For Nushin
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Bombay is not a good place for ghosts. There is too much activity, too many people, and too great an amount of gas and electric light.
James Douglas, Bombay and Western India ( 1893 )
Samandar dariya 4 se 4 ba 4 wa 4 ja 4 n da 4 na 4 awliya 4 . Baba took from the seas and oceans and gave life to the friends of God.
Murja 4 n Sı 3 dı 3 Nangası 3 , Afro-Indian prayer song ( c . 1890)
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vii
Illustrations page ix
Acknowledgements xi
Maps xv
Introduction 1
1 Missionaries and Reformists in the Market of Islams 24
2 Cosmopolitan Cults and the Economy of Miracles 49
3 The Enchantment of Industrial Communications 90
4 Exports for an Iranian Marketplace 118
5 The Making of a Neo-Isma 4 ‘ı 3 lism 155
6 A Theology for the Mills and Dockyards 179
7 Bombay Islam in the Ocean’s Southern City 208
Conclusions 235
Notes 245
Bibliography 287
Index 317
Contents
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ix
1 Many Kinds of Muslim: Samples of Bombay Muslim Headdress page 5
2 Muslims from Far and Wide: Bombay Cafeteria Scenes, c . 1890 13
3 Discipline and Reform: The Anjuman-e Isla 4 m High School (completed 1893) 38
4 Custom in Print: Postcard of Muharram Carnival in Bombay, c . 1880 54
5 African Magic in the Market: Franchise Shrine of Ba 4 wa 4 Go 4 r of Ratanpur, Bhindi Bazaar, Bombay 60
6 The Saints at Sea: Shrine of Ha 4 jjı 3 ‘Alı 3 , Located off the Coast at Worli, Bombay 64
7 The Market of Morals: Bhindi Bazaar, Location of Sita Ram Building (1900) 79
8 Salacious Sainthood: Bilingual Title of Pe 4 dro 4 Sha 4 h’s Journalistic Hagiography (1903) 84
9 Lithographic Enchantment: The Adventures of Ha 4 tim Ta 4 ’ı 3 (dated 1326/1908) 103
10 The Ocean Industrialized: A Steamship in Bombay Harbour, c . 1890 112
11 Iranian Travels in Print: Colophon from Na 4 ’ib al-Sadr’s Travelogue (dated 1306/1889) 129
12 The Sufi as Celebrity: Lithograph of Safı 3 ‘Alı 3 Sha 4 h (d. 1899) in Sharaf Magazine 141
13 Shiraz Overseas: Iranian Mosque (founded 1858), Dongri, Bombay 145
14 Mausoleum of the Isma 4 ‘ı 3 lı 3 imam A " gha 4 Kha 4 n I (d. 1881), Mazagaon, Bombay 161
Illustrations
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Illustrationsx
15 Manuscript page from Habı 3 b al-bara 4 zikh in Habı 3 b ‘Alı 3 Sha 4 h’s Own Hand 192
16 Devotional Photograph of the Dockyard Sufi Preacher Habı 3 b ‘Alı 3 Sha 4 h (d. 1906) 201
17 An Offi cial Entry to the Marketplace: Ghula 4 m Muhammad’s Immigration Papers 218
18 Advertisement for Durban ‘Urs Festival in Urdu and Tamil (1912) 229
19 Enter the Dragon: Bombay-Printed Lithographic Drawing of an Izhdiha (1908) 233
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xi
Bombay Islam did not begin in Bombay, but like the religious ‘fi rms’ whose activities it traces, it set out from Tehran and Hyderabad on the far fringes of what in the nineteenth century became Bombay’s wide religious marketplace. There, tracing histories of Muslim organizations which I originally understood in terms of the regional and national, I pursued the peregrinations of men such as Safı 3 ‘Alı 3 Sha 4 h and Habı 3 b ‘Alı 3 Sha 4 h, whose own trails would ultimately lead me to Bombay. And so, over the course of more than a decade, what began as a search for neglected regional side-lights on the Muslim nineteenth century became an inter-regional survey converging on a city which, were it not for the persistency of my sources in drawing me towards it, I would never have recognized as the religious centre it became from the mid-1800s. When the penny farthing dropped and the focus of the project turned to Bombay itself, I was pushed to other directions in turn, from the dockyard shrines of Bombay proper to their reproduction across the ocean in the distant port of Durban. Linked as it was to these outlying markets by vernacular print and the steamship, Bombay offers the urban historian as large a canvas as might be man-aged. While tracing case studies in Iran and South Africa of Bombay’s links to a larger maritime market of faith, I hope to have at least drawn an outline on enough of that canvas to give a sense of the steam-driven pulse of ‘Victorian’ Bombay and the responses to those rhythms at every node of its capillaries. That said, the book is deliberately restricted to the Muslim experience of Bombay. Partly this is justifi ed because so little has been written about Bombay’s Muslims; partly because for all its neglect by historians of Islam, Bombay was a crucial oceanic hub for Muslims navigating the age of empire and industry. But if Islam is the major theme,
Acknowledgements
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Acknowledgementsxii
I have kept in mind the experiences of the city’s non-Muslim groups at every step, and would venture so far as to suggest that parallel cases could be made for Bombay’s variegated Hindus, Zoroastrians, Christians and Jews. Bombay’s religious market was ultimately open to all traffi c.
Like any new initiate to multi-sited research, I incurred many debts along the way, and I would like now to repay these, if only in the meagre coinage of acknowledgement. In Bombay, I am thankful for the cooper-ation of the staff of the Asiatic Society of Bombay; Bombay University Library; the Maharashtra State Archives; and the Library of the Shia Imami Ismaili Tariqah and Religious Education Board (in particu-lar Husain S. Jasani, Yasmina and Khairunnisa, none of whose views are refl ected in what follows). Personal thanks to Mohammed Hanif Gaya and Mrs Shahnaz Habibi; Minhaj Ali of Bismillah Shah dargah; Abdullah Wahedna of Baba ‘Abd al-Rahman dargah; and Papu the Urdu bookseller in Bhindi Bazaar. In Hyderabad, I am indebted to the staff of Osmania University Library and the Salar Jung Library (in partic-ular Dr A. Nagemder Reddy and Dr Syeda Asfi a Kauser). Thanks and adab to the custodians of the many shrines and family book collections to which I was given access, especially Faisal Yar Khan Habibi Siddiqi and Mohammed Ali Chishti Husayni. In Tehran, I am most grateful to the lineal heirs of Safi ‘Ali Shah (who for reasons of security I will not name) for introducing me to the writings of Safi ‘Ali and opening to me the library of their khanaqah and the various locations of his career around the city of Tehran. Though she is not associated with this broth-erhood, I am especially grateful to Fatima Nejadveisi for the lasting plea-sures of books and friendship. In Durban, I am most grateful to Naeem Khan Chishti for supplying various texts and opening many doors to me in KwaZulu-Natal. In addition, I was helped by many other members of KwaZulu-Natal’s Muslim community, especially Shah Mohammed Saied Soofi e (Sajjada Nasheen of Soofi e Saheb and Badsha Peer), Shah Abdul Aziz Soofi e, Moulana Mohammed Farouk Soofi e, Moulana Goolam Mohammed Soofi e, Hazrat Goolam Mohayudeen Kazi, Hafi z Mohammed Fuzail Soofi e, Fiona Khan, Imtiaz Khan, Mohammed Salih Jhaveri and Saajid Arbee. On the institutional front, I am much obliged to the Durban Cultural and Documentation Centre (in particular Nasreen Salig and Yatin Singh); the Durban Local History Museums (in partic-ular Neela Dullabh) and the Documentation Centre at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville Campus (in particular Mr K. Chetty). In Munich, I am indebted to Dr Winfried Riesterer for help in accessing the rare books collection of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
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Acknowledgements xiii
The research and eventual writing of Bombay Islam were pursued during my tenure at Oxford University, the University of Manchester and the University of California, Los Angeles. At Oxford, I am grateful for the support of Frances Lannon, Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, and the trustees and committee of the Milburn Research Fellowship. At Manchester, I learned more than I can easily summarize from my col-leagues Jacqueline Suthren Hirst and John Zavos, and received sound counsel and good company from Atreyee Sen, Soumhya Venkatesan, Anindita Ghosh, Andreas Christmann, Youssef Choueiri, Tilman Frasch and Lady Catherine Croft. I am especially thankful to Rylands Professor George Brooke and the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures for sup-port in funding my research in South Africa. At UCLA, I have been fortu-nate to be exposed to a veritable cuadrilla of accomplished scholars and unfamiliar ideas. Among the many who between casual observation and extended conversation have helped me sharpen my arguments, I am most appreciative of Edward Alpers, Andrew Apter, Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy, Caroline Ford, James Gelvin, Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, Nikki Keddie, Ghislaine Lydon, David Myers, Gabriel Piterberg, Teo Ruiz and Sarah Stein. Special thanks to Sanjay Subrahmanyam for setting an unfail-ing standard of inspiration and support. Thanks also to Alex Lowe and Carlos Hernandez for patient help with my many scan requests. In the Los Angeles area more generally, thanks to Arash Khazeni, Karen Leonard and John Wills for invitations and discussions. In the wider realms of academia, I am grateful to the following colleagues for various interven-tions and suggestions (and luncheons): Thomas Metcalf, Polly O’Hanlon, David Washbrook, Michel Boivin, Clare Anderson, Daniel Sheff ield, Teena Purohit, Elizabeth Lambourn, Jim Masselos, Scott Reese, Omar Khalidi, Scott Kugle, Mitch Numark, Sean O’Fahey and Torsten Tschacher. Much gratitude to Terenjit Sevea, Syed Farid Alatas and the National University of Singapore for enabling my visits to Singapore and Malaysia and all the comparative insights that came with them. An especial word of recogni-tion is due to Kai Kresse and Edward Simpson for initially encouraging me to frame my work in an Indian Ocean setting and to Francis Robinson for unfailing encouragement and intellectual generosity. Several graduate students also helped at various stages: Banu Demir worked with care on my revisions to the manuscript, Daniel Haines helped track down addi-tional material in Bombay and Nir Shafi r made astute suggestions as a reader. Final thanks to Marigold Acland at Cambridge University Press for agreeing to take on another book on working men’s miracles, and to Mary Starkey for the careful editing of my words.
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Acknowledgementsxiv
I am grateful to Sage/Society, the British Institute of Persian Studies and Cambridge University Press for permission to reprint revised sections in Chapters 2 , 4 and 7 from the following articles: ‘Moral Competition and the Thrill of the Spectacular: Recounting Catastrophe in Colonial Bombay’, South Asia Research 28, 3 (2008); ‘A Persian Sufi in British India: The Travels of Mirza Hasan Safi ‘Ali Shah (1251/1835–1316/1899)’, Iran: Journal of Persian Studies 42 (2004); and ‘Islam for the Indentured Indian: A Muslim Missionary in Colonial South Africa’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 71, 3 (2008).
Given the fact that in 1997 the offi cial Indian name of Bombay was changed to Mumbai, a fi nal word is required on my choice of toponym. In this, my decision was determined by the sources I have used for what is in essence a historical study: for the writers of Arabic, Persian, Urdu and English on whose works I have drawn for the period surveyed in Bombay Islam , the name was always Bomba’i/Bombay. The partial eclipse by Marathi of the old name and of the oceanic and imperial languages that used it marks the dilemmas of a different age.
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xv
0
0 1 km
1/2 mile1/4
1/2
N
Clerk Basin
Frere Basin
Malet Basin
B o m b a y
H a r b o u r
Carnac Basin
Kussara BasinP.&O.CompanyDockyard
MaletBandar
GravingDock
Prin
ce’s
Doc
k
Vic
tori
aD
ock
Now
roji
Hil
l
ElphinstoneReclamation
Mody BayReclamation
Port Trust Office
Mint
Arsenal
CASTLE
Flagstaff
Custom House
Customhouse Pier
GovernmentDockyard
Yacht Club
Government Docks
Apollo Bandar
Apollo Basin
Coal DepotArthur Basin
Arthur BandarGrant
Buildings
CottonGreen
Kolaba Station
Tramway Stables
Apollo Bandar Hotel
Wellington Fountain
Elphinstone College
University
Church Gate Station
Queen’sStatue
Telegraph Office
Marine Lines Station
Native Regiment Hospital
HinduBurial Ground
MuslimCemetery
European Burial Ground
EsperanceChurch
MumbadaviTank
Mosque
Jama Masjid
CrawfordMarket
Market
Panjrapole
WilsonCollege
Charni RoadStation
M A Z A G A O N
St Peter’sChurch
Cross Island(Battery)
BabulaTank
BombayTank
Northbrook Garden
Victoria TheatreMissionChurch
ChurchMission House
KennedyBridge
FrenchBridge
Grant Road Station
FrereBridge
Grant RoadTheatre
Dharmsala
Byculla Club
Synagogue
House of Correction
Christ Church
RailwayWork Shops
B Y C U L L ABycullaSchool
Incurables’Hospital
JamshidjisHospital
Grant Medical College
Sassoon ReformatoryInstitution
Ophthalmic Hospital
G I R G A O N
ESPLANADE
FO
R
T
Courtof Justice
GeneralPost Office
European General Hospital
Victoria Terminus (GIPR)
Fort George(site of)
SailorsHome
TownHall
Free ChurchNative Infantry
Lines
MarineBattalion Lines
MoneyInstitute
Holy Trinity Church
Theatre
Municipal Office
Police Court
ElphinstoneHigh School
GolkadosHospital
Prince of Wales Statue
Great Western Hotel
RC Church
Cathedral
Bombay Gazette
Cathedral High School
Bombay Club
Bank ofBombay
P.&O.Office
U. Hall Cook& Sons
St Xavier’sCollege
Ice Manufactory
Bombay
Baroda
&Central India
Railway
Great IndianPeni nsular
Railw
ay
B a c k B a y
Times of India OfficeFrere Fount
Library Tower
Anjuman-e Islam School
Pedro Shah ShrineSita Ram Building
BHIN
DI B
AZAAR
Iranian Mosque
Aga KhanMausoleum
Sharaf al-din Shrine
Habib ‘Ali’s Lodge
‘Abd al-RahmanShrine
Bawa Gor Shrine
Bismillah Shah Shrine
To Shrines ofShaykh Makhdum
& Hajji ‘Ali
Dockyard Road Rail Station
map 1. Map of Bombay, India
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0
0 1000
500 2000 miles
3000 km500 1500
1000 1500
2000 2500
Istanbul
Alexandria
Cairo Suez Canal(1869)
DamascusBaghdad
Basra
Jidda
Medina
Mecca
Aden
Muscat
Mogadishu
Mombasa
Zanzibar
BRITISH EAST
AFRICA
Cape Town
Durban
NATAL COLONYLadysmithPietermaritzburgSpringfield
Johannesburg
Bandar‘Abbas
Bushire
ShirazKerman
Isfahan
Tehran
Yazd
IRAN(PERSIA)
BRITISH INDIA
HYDERABADSTATE
Kabul Peshawar
Lahore
Karachi
Delhi
Surat
Madras
Calcutta
HyderabadBombay
MasulipatamRatnagiri
Cambay
Unava
Ratanpur
KONKAN
GUJARAT
Porbandar
AjmerEGYPT
POR
TU
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ESE
EAST
AFRIC
A
ABYSSINIA
FRENCHSOMALILAND
BRITISHSOMALILAND
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A R A B I A
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I N D I A N
O C E A N
R U S S I A N E M P I R E
AFG
H
ANISTAN
AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE
GREECE
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Hadramaut
GERMAN EAST
AFRICA(from 1885)
map 2. West Indian Ocean Map ( c . 1880)
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