The 'Munshis' and the 'Sahibs': Bengal Muslims under British rule, 1855-190

This work is primarily a study of the response of the educated Muslims of Bengal to the impact of British colonial rule in India. More specifically, it examines the relationship between the native Muslim language interpreters (the Munshis) of Bengal and the British rulers (the Sahibs) in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries.;Contrary to the widely held historical view that the Bengal Muslims responded to the colonial rule with hostility, the study contends that the traditional Muslim literati of Bengal, disillusioned by the misrule of their native governors in the eighteenth century, not only welcomed British rule a a viable alternative, but also provided it with religious legitimacy by an innovative reinterpretation of the Islamic Sharia laws.;The Munshis opposed the orthodox Islamic jihad (holy war) against the British, insisted on educating Indian Muslims in English and pointed out that their refusal to learn English would only lead to their "backwardness" in modern India.;The Munshi-Sahib collaboration in Bengal, however, was greatly facilitated by the non-interventionist religious and cultural policy of the British. The establishment of the Calcutta Madrasah by Warren Hastings in 1780, which was exclusively meant for the education of Indian Muslims in Islamic laws and religious tradition, was the earliest indication of the British non-interference with the religious and cultural beliefs of Indian Muslims. In fact, the Calcutta Madrasah was the earliest institutional setting of an intellectual encounter between Islam and the modern West.;According to the author, the generations of students of the Calcutta Madrasah, who worked a native officials (Munshis) of the colonial government, were the forerunners of the modernist movement among Indian Muslims. They liberated Indian Islam from the domain of the orthodox theologians as well as from the influence of the dynastic ruling princes, who had historically guided the course of political Islam. Thus, they revitalized the original democratic spirit of their religion and Indianized Islam.;The Munshis established the first modern political Association of Indian Muslims and articulated the modern Indian Muslim political and cultural ideology, which was expanded as the Pakistan ideology by their later generations.