Paper short abstract:

Focusing on Anglo-Muhammadan Law, this paper examines the interactions between ‘traditional’ Muslim scholars and the legal system in colonial India. It claims that, rather than the two existing in isolation, the ‘ulama began to interact with many institutions, and assumptions, of colonial adjudication.

Paper long abstract:

This paper engages scholarly debate on the subject of Anglo-Muhammadan Law, the hybridized amalgamation of English and Islamic law (shari'at), which became the major framework for the administration of Muslim legal affairs in British India. Much of this work has implied an artificial split between 'modernist' Muslims, those lawyers, judges and politicians who were closest to the colonial state and most engaged with its legal system; and the 'ulama, the traditional guardians of the Islamic Law who are seen as isolated from it.

This paper examines this vexed debate concerning rival claims to jurisdiction over Muslim legal affairs. It claims that, far from the two groups existing in isolation from each other, the 'ulama began to appropriate many assumptions of colonial legal adjudication. Many strove to establish an infrastructure of 'shari'at courts' modelled on their colonial equivalents; others spoke of formulating universally binding legal decisions, an enterprise which resembled British efforts at legal codification. The result of this particular interaction with colonial legal institutions and understandings of law was the development of a synthesised shari'at that, at least in intent, was more institutionalised, codified and objectified, something that has influenced understandings of Islamic Law until today.