Twelver Shi'ism in Modern India

Abstract

Shiʿi Muslims represent a sizeable minority of Muslims across South Asia, including in India; while there is no official enumeration, Shiʿis are often said to comprise approximately 10–15 percent of India’s Muslim population, which may put the current population at around 20 million. The Indian subcontinent has long been home to a range of Twelver Shiʿi communities, many of elite ancestry with Iranian or Arab heritage, and many of whom have historically exacted strong political influence. Significant semi-autonomous Shiʿi ruling dynasties emerged in the era of Mughal decline prior to the formation of the British Raj, including the Nawabs of Bengal, who ruled from Murshidabad (1717–1757), and most notably, the Nawabs (and, later, “Kings”) of Awadh: a dynasty of Nishapuri origins who founded their semi-autonomous North Indian state in 1722. Awadh, centered on the city of Lucknow, was revered as a center of Shiʿi learning and culture with close ties of pilgrimage and learning to Iraq, before it was finally annexed by the British Raj in 1856. Another Shiʿi community of great significance is located in the Deccan region in South India, especially the city of Hyderabad, where the political patronage of Shiʿism as state religion under the Qutb Shahi dynasty (1512–1687) ensured that the community remained politically and culturally significant, with this influence being maintained even in the court of the predominantly Sunni Asif Jahi dynasty (1724–1948). While Shiʿi political influence diminished during British rule, these and other Shiʿi ruling elites remained influential as major landholders and rulers of princely states, among them the Qizilbash dynasty in Punjab, Rajas of Mahmudabad, and Nawabs of Rampur in North India. Moreover, as an influential section of India’s Muslim elites, Shiʿis played a role in most currents of Muslim modernism and Muslim politics throughout the colonial period. However, Shiʿis had a largely ambivalent relationship with the major currents of Muslim political mobilization in British India. Ultimately, prominent Shiʿis participated actively in the Pakistan movement, but many Shiʿi groups opposed the creation of Pakistan. In independent India, Shiʿis have sometimes framed themselves as a “minority within a minority,” marginalized both as Muslims and by Muslims. Nevertheless, remnants of Shiʿism’s historic importance still inflect broader Muslim cultural life in many regions. Shiʿi communities are most visible and organized during the annual commemoration of Muharram, which is often marked by major public demonstrations of mourning, and which has occasionally led to local conflicts with Sunnis. (Note that this entry covers only the Twelver Shiʿis of modern India [i.e., British India since c. 1857, and independent India since 1947]; readers may wish to read it in conjunction with separate entries elsewhere on Ismaʿili Shiʿism in South Asia and/or Shiʿism in Pakistan.)