To Flower and Fructify: Rational Religion and the Seeds of Islam in Nazir Ahmad’s (1830–1912) Late-career Religious Non-fiction

Abstract

Abstract Known primarily for his popular and moralizing novels, Nazir Ahmad’s (1830–1912) accomplishments as a scholar of Islam are often omitted from his biography. Yet in addition to working for the British Government of India, participating in Muslim social, political, and educational initiatives on the subcontinent, and demonstrating his linguistic and legal acumen by translating the law codes of British India into vernacular Urdu, Nazir Ahmad also translated religious texts and penned his own original compositions on themes of religion, society, and ethics. Reviewing the ideas presented in his comprehensive three-volume al-Ḥuqūq va-l-farāʾiż (1905–6) and his shorter catechism Ijtihād (1906), this article outlines Nazir Ahmad’s theory of worldly religion and introduces his concept of Islamic humanism in response to ulema-centric approaches to Islamic revival and reform in British India.