Islam and the Army in Colonial India: Sepoy Religion in the Service of Empire (Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society, Series Number 16)

A ground-breaking study of the cultural world of the Muslim soldiers of colonial India. Set in Hyderabad in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the book focuses on the soldiers' relationships with the faqir holy men who protected them and the British officers they served. Drawing on Urdu as well as European sources, the book uses the biographies of Muslim holy men and their military followers to recreate the extraordinary encounter between a barracks culture of miracle stories, carnivals, drug-use and madness with a colonial culture of mutiny memoirs, Evangelicalism, magistrates and the asylum. It explores the ways in which the colonial army helped promote this sepoy religion while at the same time attempting to control and suppress certain aspects of it. The book brings to light the existence of a distinct 'barracks Islam' and shows its importance to the cultural no less than the military history of colonial India. -- Book jacket Cover 1 Half-title 3 Series-title 4 Title 5 Copyright 6 Dedication 7 Contents 9 Illustrations 10 Preface and acknowledgements 11 A note on terminology 16 Glossary of Urdu and Anglo-Indian terms 17 Introduction 21 Of faqirs, sepoys and madmen 21 Islam and the army in colonial India 26 Army and empire in Hyderabad state 29 1 Traditions of supernatural warfare 37 The sepoy’s religious inheritance 37 Of guns and gods: towards a ‘newer’ military history 46 2 The padre and his miraculous services 51 The life and life of Afzal Shah 51 The sepoys and the padri 59 The padre’s supernatural services 61 A ‘saturnalia of fiends’: the Bolarum Rebellion of 1855 82 Changing army attitudes: Bolarum and the military evangelicals 91 The apotheosis of a Muslim padre 105 3 Allah’s naked rebels 110 Introduction 110 Reconstructions of a sepoy and faqir life 112 The sepoy faqir and his world 120 The sepoy, his drugs and his madness 125 From sepoy to jagirdar: authors, heirs and architecture 137 Just another mad sepoy? Taj al-din Baba of Nagpur 140 A mother for the sepoys: Baba Jan of Poona 147 Suppressing the faqir: from military culture to Islamic reform 152 Conclusions 156 The character of barracks Islam 156 The promotion of barracks Islam 159 The reform of barracks Islam 163 Departures 168 Notes 170 INTRODUCTION 170 1 TRADITIONS OF SUPERNATURAL WARFARE 174 2 THE PADRE AND HIS MIRACULOUS SERVICES 179 3 ALLAH’S NAKED REBELS 195 CONCLUSIONS 208 Bibliography 210 PRIMARY SOURCES (MAINLY URDU AND PERSIAN) 210 OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS AND ARCHIVAL SOURCES 211 TRACTS, PUBLISHED MEMOIRS AND COMMENTARIES 213 CATALOGUES AND REFERENCE WORKS 216 SECONDARY SOURCES 216 Index 231

A ground-breaking study of the cultural world of the Muslim soldiers of colonial India. Set in Hyderabad in the mid nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the book focuses on the soldiers' relationships with the faqir holy men who protected them and the british officers they served. Drawing on Urdu as well as English sources, the book uses the biographies of Muslim holy men and their military followers to recreate the extraordinary encounter between a barracks culture of miracle stories, carnivals, drug-use and madness and a colonial culture of mutiny memoirs, Evangelicalism, magistrates and the asylum. It explores the ways in which the colonial army helped promote this sepoy religion while at the same time attempting to control and suppress certain aspects of it. The book brings to light the existence of a distinct 'barracks Islam' and shows its importance to the cultural no less than the military history of colonial India.

Set in Hyderabad in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this book, a study of the cultural world of the Muslim soldiers of colonial India, focuses on the soldiers' relationships with the faqir holy men who protected them and the British officers they served. Drawing on Urdu as well as European sources, the book uses the biographies of Muslim holy men and their military followers to recreate the extraordinary encounter between a barracks culture of miracle stories, carnivals, drug-use and madness with a colonial culture of mutiny memoirs, Evangelicalism, magistrates and the asylum. It explores the ways in which the colonial army helped promote this sepoy religion while at the same time attempting to control and suppress certain aspects of it. The book brings to light the existence of a distinct 'barracks Islam' and shows its importance to the cultural no less than the military history of colonial India. This book studies the cultural world of the Muslim soldiers of colonial India. Set in Hyderabad in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the book focuses on the soldiers' relationships with the faqir holy men who protected them and the British officers they served. Nile Green. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 190-210) And Index.