He goes on to explain the legal hermeneutic that informs his approach to the mawlud, which effectively summarizes the entire Deobandi stance on bid‘a. First, he says, it is expressly forbidden to “consider an unnecessary matter necessary or to act on it with the same or higher degree of persistence than one accords to necessary and obligatory acts, or to consider it blameworthy to forgo this action or to censure those who do.”110 The Shari‘a forbids “restricting, stipulating, specifying, or making mandatory” any particular belief or action if it simulates or mimics the normativity of the law. This is a succinct formulation of the same principle that appears in both Imdad Allah and Gangohi: to perform any action with the same degree, consistency, or intentionality that one is expected to grant Sunna acts is prohibited. Thus, Thanvi relates a Hadith in which Ibn Ma‘sud observed the Prophet occasionally leaving his prayer from the left side, even though he had said leaving from the right side was recommended. The point, Ibn Ma‘sud says, is that one must not extrapolate a commandment from something merely recommended.111 In the same way, the Shari‘a forbids even slight alterations of what has been commanded, even if arising from the best of intentions. Someone who prays five cycles (rak‘at) during Salat, when he or she is supposed to pray only four, will get credit for none—even if that person thinks that he or she is doing “extra” prayers.112 It is important to highlight the element of intentionality here. There is no harm in someone spontaneously standing (qiyam) while recollecting the Prophet’s birth, especially in an ecstatic state (hal) born out of love for him. It is when those recollecting the Prophet’s birth treat standing as an article of faith that bid‘a arises.113
Second, even one violation of the Shari‘a renders an otherwise legitimate act reprehensible. There is, in other words, a metonymy between an illicit part and otherwise licit whole. “A permissible [mubah] action,” he writes, “in fact, even a praiseworthy [mustahabb] one, becomes unlawful and prohibited if combined with an unlawful action.”114 Thanvi offers the example of attending a dinner when invited: a Sunna and praiseworthy act in principle, it becomes repugnant if forbidden (haram) activities take place.
Third—perhaps the most important point for understanding Deobandi social interventions into Sufi practices: “As it is a commandment to save other Muslims from harm, if the elite [khawass] engages in some unnecessary action that corrupts the belief of the masses [‘awamm], then this action will become reprehensible and prohibited for the elite as well. The elite should abandon such an action.”115 The inference here is that the elite, who are supposed to understand the rationale behind what is prohibited and what is accepted, must be cautious regarding what they say and how they conduct themselves in public view.
Fourth, that which was appropriate in the past may no longer be so today: “It is possible for something that was once lawful to be no longer regarded as such; for, at that time there was no reason to deem it reprehensible, but now a reason to deem it reprehensible has arisen. Or something that is permitted in one place may be prohibited in another.”116 Here Thanvi invokes a legal principle known as “corruption of the times” (fasad al-zaman), which deems acts that are permissible in principle to be no longer permissible because of a perceived “corruption” (fasad) in the wider society. As others have noted, this principle granted jurists enormous latitude in prohibiting certain acts because it relied on a subjective judgment about a law’s social context.117 We will see Thanvi make similar claims about the Sufi saints’ death anniversaries (‘urs) and the Sufi musical assembly (sama‘).
The fifth and final point concerns one of the most oft-cited justifications for a particular action in terms of Shari‘a: whether it has some “benefit” to the masses. Thanvi approaches this logic with extreme caution. “If an action contrary to the Shari‘a has some benefit or public good [maslaha],” he argues, “but attaining this benefit or good is not necessary in terms of the Shari‘a, or there are other means of attaining it, or these actions are done with the intention of attaining the benefit, or after seeing the benefit then the masses will not stop such an action—then it is not permissible.”118 Thanvi largely rejected the use of the legal category of maslaha and condemned the abuse of this legal stratagem as “maslaha worship” (masalih parasti).119
So, for example, if someone attends a lecture on the Prophet’s life and teachings and, say, feels an urgency to donate food, money, or clothing to the poor, or perhaps even becomes so emotionally overwhelmed that he or she stands up, there is no harm in this so long as it does not become a habit, and one is not doing it solely for the “benefit” of aiding the poor but only for the pleasure of God. It is not that Thanvi opposes helping the poor, to be sure; but doing so for that reason is objectionable, since the only motive for such a gathering should be worship. And one must not appoint a time for it, nor insist that others do it; it must be purely spontaneous.120
In 1915, Thanvi delivered a sermon on the Prophet’s birthday in the main mosque in Thana Bhawan, titled Al-Surur bi-zuhur al-nur (Joy at the appearance of the light). This sermon, we can assume, represents what Thanvi described as the third type of mawlud: devoid of bid‘a and sound in every way. He began the sermon with a long panegyric on the Prophet’s birth, expounding on Qur’an 21:107: “We have not sent you [Muhammad] except as a mercy to the worlds.” Thanvi sees this verse as the basis for Sufi understandings of the Prophet as Light (nur). “To be a mercy for the worlds, the Prophet had to be created before them, and this existence is his Light. The Prophet’s Light was created before all else.”121 Indeed, the Prophet’s birth is an occasion of “joy and mirth” (farah wa surur), but one that veered toward excessive forms of veneration.122 The sermon becomes an extended critique of forms of bid‘a that take place at these gatherings. Fundamentally, he says, any new innovation since the Prophet’s era can be categorized in one of two ways. The first is something that actually facilitates the goals and intentions of the Shari‘a. This category includes “the composition of religious books, and the establishment of madrasas and Sufi lodges [khanqahs].” In the Prophet’s time, he goes on to say, these innovations were not needed. Such was the affective power of the Prophet’s message and personality that his Companions became living embodiments of that message. It is only in subsequent centuries that the need for religious books, seminaries, and Sufi lodges arose. The second category, of which the mawlud is the prime example, is the mirror image of the first. The rationale (sabab) behind celebrating the Prophet’s birthday is joy at his birth. The Prophet’s Companions shared that joy, Thanvi argues, but they did not innovate the actual practice of celebrating it. “They had the rationale [sabab] for celebrating the Prophetic birth, but neither the Prophet nor the Companions celebrated it. Can we say—God forbid!—that their understanding was limited? If the rationale was not present, then we could say they had no cause for it. But the rationale for milad [i.e., mawlud] was there, and neither the Prophet nor the Companions celebrated it.” In the first category, there was no initial rationale for it, but the rationale emerged later as a means of fulfilling Shari‘a commandments, whereas in the second, there was a rationale for it, and the early Muslims still did not innovate the practice despite this evident rationale. They did not have a reason (sabab) for madrasas and innovated them when the need arose. They did have a reason for mawlud celebrations and did not innovate them despite it. “This,” he says, “is the basis for distinguishing Sunna from bid‘a.”123
GRAVE DANGER: VISITING SAINTS’ GRAVES (ZIYARAT) AND CELEBRATING THEIR DEATH ANNIVERSARIES (‘URS)
For Sufis, especially of India’s own “indigenous” Sufi order, the Chishtiyya, the Indian subcontinent is what Thomas Laqueur calls a “necrogeography.” Saintly bodies anchor the spiritual landscape, their shrines orient pilgrimage routes, and their death anniversaries give shape to the passing of time. Above all, saints do things for their devotees. This is what Laqueur calls the “work of the dead”—work that is inseparable from the spaces their bodies occupy.124 For these reasons, Engseng H
o described the grave as a “dense semiotic object” with the power “to create communities based not on revelation but on something autochthonous and incipient in the grave complex.”125 For the Deobandis, this semiotic density disrupted the correct understanding of divine sovereignty. Any grave, in theory, could channel these disruptive forces. With its magnetic pull on lay Muslims, a Sufi saint’s grave was all the more threatening in this regard. Combine the spatial dimension of the grave with the temporal dimension of the saint’s death anniversary—in short, doubly disruptive—and one can begin to understand Deobandi attitudes toward the ‘urs.
Literally meaning a “wedding” (i.e., the day the saint “wedded” his beloved, God), the ‘urs is typically celebrated at the saint’s grave on the day of his death. The ‘urs has deep roots in central Asia and Anatolia. Jalal al-Din Rumi’s (d. 1273) ‘urs was already being celebrated in the early fourteenth century. The ‘urs celebration seems to have come to India as Sufis fled central Asia in the wake of the Mongol invasions of Khurasan.126 Nile Green has cautioned against the dominant view of the ‘urs as a “narrowly ‘popular’ devotionalism.”127 “If anything,” argues Green, “saint worship emerged at the top of the social spectrum and trickled down from there.”128 Indeed, the Baburnama records that the first Mughal emperor, Babur (d. 1530), visited Sufi saints’ shrines and circumambulated them.129 Akbar (d. 1605), likewise, visited the shrine of Mu‘in al-Din Chishti some fourteen times, patronizing the shrine and donating the massive cauldron used to prepare food for pilgrims.130 In 1640, the daughter of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, Jahanara, wrote of walking “seven times around the illuminated tomb” of Mu‘in al-Din Chishti and “kissing the ground” nearby.131
Sufis considered visiting saints’ graves an important part of spiritual pedagogy. In the same era as Jahanara, Muhammad Chishti (d. 1630) described the etiquette of visiting graves for the average Sufi: “As for visiting your master’s grave, when you draw near do not go too quickly, nor too slowly, but go at a moderate pace. If there is no harm in doing so, circumambulate the grave. . . . When you circumambulate, recite the takbir [“Allahu akbar”] and the Fatiha [sura 1 of the Qur’an], then say, ‘O master!’” Kissing the grave and rubbing the dirt near the grave are also acceptable, if not expected, forms of showing one’s reverence.132
But beyond Mughal elites and Sufi adepts, saints’ shrines became sites of popular veneration as well. In the mid–eighteenth century, Muhammad Najib Qadiri Ajmeri observed in his Makhzan-i a‘ras (Treasury of death anniversaries) just how widespread offering food to the saints and distributing it to other pilgrims was during this time.133 Observations of Delhi during the reign of Muhammad Shah (d. 1748) reveal a robust culture of saint veneration in and around the city, as recorded in Dargah Quli Khan’s Muraqqa-yi Dihli (Delhi scrapbook). Khan ornately described the shrine of Nasir al-Din Chiragh-i Dihli (d. 1356)—among the most prominent disciples of Nizam al-Din Awliya’, who supported circumambulation of saints’ tombs134—and the festivities that took place there:
The radiance of his miracles [karamat] is a burning lamp for the destitute. The air [of his tomb] is the envy of the rose in assuaging the hearts of the needy. Truly he is not only the Lamp [chiragh] of Delhi, but the eye and lamp of all of India. Pilgrimage to his blessed tomb is performed on Sunday. In the month of Diwali, the crowds are especially large, and on every Sunday of Diwali, pilgrims are blessed with good fortune. Near the shrine is a fountain where people bathe and are completely cured of old illnesses. Hindus and Muslims alike make pilgrimage to the shrine. From morning till night, caravans of pilgrims arrive. Spread out in the shade of every tree and beneath every wall, people are filled with mirth and cheer by spectacles strange and wondrous. In every place there is music and merriment. Sounds of the barrel drum and Jew’s harp echo from every corner. Such pomp and splendor are especially present during his blessed ‘urs.135
One can sense in this evocative description, in particular, the baroque array of beliefs and practices that had come to define the Sufi shrine.
As with the mawlud, Imdad Allah believed that contentions surrounding the ‘urs pertained to particular aspects of it, not the practice as a whole, which he wanted to preserve. Besides giving an opportunity for pleading for the mercy of the dead, Imdad Allah explains, the ‘urs provides a means for Sufis to meet one another and for Muslims to find potential Sufi teachers.136 Like the debate about the mawlud, debate about the ‘urs revolved around whether the Shari‘a sanctions setting aside a specially appointed day for Muslims to come together at the tomb of a saint to honor him—not around the merits of visiting saints’ tombs generally.137 Some ‘ulama cite the Hadith “Do not make my grave a site for an ‘Eid” to argue that it is forbidden to have fairs and festivities at the tomb and to decorate it with pomp and display. These ‘ulama believe that the purpose of visiting tombs is recollection of the afterlife, but the meaning of this Hadith, he explains, is not that gathering at a tomb is forbidden; otherwise the caravans to Medina for visiting the Holy Cemetery would also be forbidden. “The truth is that visiting tombs is permissible, whether individually or in a group,” he submits, “as well as conveying merit upon the dead through Qur’an recitation or [distributing] food, and it is established that this is a social good [maslaha].”138
Deobandis agreed with Imdad Allah on many of these points, and did not oppose visiting saints’ graves categorically. In fact, many believed visiting the graves of saints within their Sufi lineage (silsila) was an important aspect of spiritual training. Deobandi works abound with references to the spiritual energy that graves emit. Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri, for example, enjoyed paying his respects to the founder of the Chishti Sabiri lineage, ‘Ala al-Din ‘Ali Sabir (d. 1291). But he was not above criticizing even the familial caretaker (sajjada nishin) of the shrine during his visits. Once the caretaker brought him two green handkerchiefs to place on the shrine and various sweets to leave nearby. The caretaker was stunned when Saharanpuri not only rejected the offerings but lectured him on the impropriety of making such offerings. On another occasion, Saharanpuri and Thanvi visited the shrine of Mu‘in al-Din Chishti in Ajmer. One of the attendants in Ajmer was vexed when Saharanpuri sat down near the tomb and went into a meditative state (muraqaba), because it conflicted with the custom in that part of the shrine of prostrating and circumambulating. The attendant was horrified when Khalil Ahmad sat in this state for so long that other pilgrims began to get offended.139
Above all, Deobandis have taught that graves—all graves—are meant to be sites of reflection on mortality. Mahmud Hasan Gangohi (d. 1996) described the proper etiquette for visiting the grave of one’s parents:
When one goes to the grave, he should think of the high positions they held, the buildings they owned, and the houses they once owned. They possessed orchards and cars. Some of them had children; some had extensive knowledge, and today all of them are in their graves. They had not taken anything of the world along with them into the grave. The only thing that they had taken along was their actions. If their actions were good then they will be in a good condition, and if their actions were evil then they will be in a miserable condition. May God shower His mercies on these people. Reflect over this in order that your love for the world decreases.140
We see similar sentiments in Muhammad Zakariyya Kandhlavi’s Maut ki yad (Remembrance of death), a collection of Hadiths, with short commentaries, that pertain to death and dying—a Sufi meditation on the futility of any deed that is not motivated solely on attaining the pleasure of God.141
Gangohi, too, visited saints’ graves. But as we have already seen, the public persona of Deobandi scholars was an important part of decisions to avoid certain practices. Gangohi once enjoyed going to the grave of his ancestor ‘Abd al-Quddus Gangohi (d. 1537).142 “Initially I went often and would sit close to it,” explained Gangohi, “but because of the innovators, I abandoned this practice. Nowadays I feel restless in my urge to visit the grave, but I won’t go because the descendan
ts [of ‘Abd al-Quddus at the shrine] will say that I am inclining toward them—in other words, inclining toward bid‘a. For this reason, I am content to send him my salutations from here and have no desire to go there.”143
Here, Gangohi demonstrates in practice one of the principles for understanding bid‘a that Thanvi articulated in theory: that it is incumbent on the elite (khawass) to abandon a practice that corrupts the masses (‘awamm)—indeed, even one that is permissible in principle. The generation before Deoband may have been less strict about this. A story is told about the Hadith scholar Shah Muhammad Ishaq of Delhi (d. 1845), grandson of Shah Wali Allah and revered among Deobandis, visiting the shrine of Mu‘in al-Din Chishti. One of his disciples in Ajmer learned that he planned to pass through the town and intended to visit the shrine. The disciple learned of his impending visit and asked Muhammad Ishaq not to come, since he had been preaching against visiting saints’ shrines around the town and worried that if his master came to Ajmer, it would nullify the lessons he had preached. Muhammad Ishaq responded: “Khwaja Sahib [Mu’in al-Din] is one of our great masters. I will not be able to pass through and not visit him. When I come to Ajmer, give a sermon in which you explain that I am in error in coming to Ajmer and that there is no need for this sort of action. Say this in front of me and do not think I won’t be able to endure it. I will admit my error and you will avoid doing the harm that worries you so.”144
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