Fatwa-i-jahandari Was Written By

[Kum Verna]

Baraniwas born in 1285, to an Indian Muslim family native to Baran, (now Bulandshahr) in northern India, hence his nisba Barani.[5] His ancestors had immigrated to Baran from the Indian town of Kaithal, Haryana.[6] His father, uncle, and grandfather all worked in high government posts under the Sultan of Delhi. His maternal grandfather Husam-ud-Din, was an important officer of Ghiyas ud din Balban and his father Muwayyid-ul-Mulk held the post of naib of Arkali Khan, the son of Jalaluddin Firuz Khalji. His uncle Qazi Ala-ul-Mulk was the Kotwal (police chief) of Delhi during the reign of Ala-ud-Din Khalji.[7] Barani never held a post, but was a nadim (companion) of Muhammad bin Tughlaq for seventeen years. During this period he was very close to Amir Khusro. After Tughlaq was deposed, he fell out of favor. In "Exile" he wrote two pieces dealing with government, religion, and history, which he hoped would endear him to the new sultan, Firuz Shah Tughluq. He was not rewarded for his works and died poor in 1357.[8]

The Fatwa-i-Jahandari is a work containing the political ideals to be pursued by a Muslim ruler in order to earn religious merit and the gratitude of his subjects.[7] It is written as nasihat(advices) for the Muslim kings.[9]

His fatwa would condone segregation of the Muslim ashraf upper castes and ajlaf low castes, in addition to the azral under-castes or the converted Muslims who are regarded as "ritually polluted" by the ashraf.[10][11][12] Muzaffar Alam argues that, contrarily to what many think, through this aristocratic view of power he doesn't follow secular models (Iranian or Indian), "rather, the interests of the Muslim community define the contours of his ideas on the heredity question", as he saw that during times of political troubles "frequent changes within ruling classes lead to the ruination of illustrious Muslim families", and thus preserving these upper class families, themselves at such place for diverse administrative or military qualities, would lead to the advent of more capable rulers and in the longer run help Muslim interests, Alam to conclude that this hierarchization "was a conscious choice exercised by Barani to serve the narrowly sectarian interests of the early Islamic regime in India".[13]

Barani's Fatwa-i-Jahandari provides an example of his views on religion. He states that there is no difference between a Muslim king and a Hindu ruler, if the Muslim king is content in collecting jizya (poll-tax) and khiraj (tribute) from the Hindus. Instead, he recommends that a Muslim king should concentrate all his power on holy wars and completely uproot the "false creeds". According to him, a Muslim king could establish the supremacy of Islam in India only by slaughtering the Brahmins. He recommends that a Muslim king "should make a firm resolve to overpower, capture, enslave and degrade the infidels."[15]

At the same time, the book makes it clear that the kings of the Delhi Sultanate did not hold similar views. Barani rues that they honoured and favoured the Hindus, and had granted them the status of dhimmis (protected persons). The Muslim kings appointed Hindus to high posts, including governorships. Barani further laments that the Muslim kings were pleased with the prosperity of Hindus in their capital Delhi, even when poor Muslims worked for them and begged at their doors.[16]

The Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi or Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi (Firuz Shah's History) (1357) was an interpretation of the history of the Delhi Sultanate up to the then-present Firuz Shah Tughlaq. Then interpretation noted that the sultans who followed the rules of Barani had succeeded in their endeavors while those that did not, or those who had sinned, met the Nemesis.[8]

Barani categorized the law into two kinds, the Shariat and the Zawabit. The Zawabit were the state laws formulated by the monarch in consultation with the nobility in the changed circumstances to cater to the new requirements which the Shariat was unable to fulfill.[17]

Althoughthe Qur'an insists on the radical equality of all Muslims, caste (zat,jati, biraderi) remains a defining feature of Indian Muslim society,with significant regional variations. While the severity of caste amongthe Indian Muslims is hardly as acute as among the Hindus, with thepractice of untouchability being virtually absent, caste and associatednotions of caste-based superiority and inferiority still do play animportant role in Indian Muslim society. In most parts of India, Muslimsociety is based on the existence of numerous endogamous and generallyoccupationally specific caste groups, that have their own caste appellations.This disjunction between Qur'anic egalitarianism and Indian Muslim socialpractice has been theorized by Muslim scholars in different ways. Whilesome have sought to reconcile the two by interpreting the scripturalistsources of Islam to support social hierarchy, others have pointed outthat the continued existence of caste-like features in Indian Muslimsociety is a flagrant violation of the Qur'anic worldview.

Most studies ofcaste in India deal with the classical Hindu caste system or with itspresent forms among the Hindus. Since caste is the basis of the Hindusocial order and is written into the Brahminical texts, studies of castehave been largely Hindu-centric. Following from this, the existenceof caste-like features among non-Hindu, including Muslim, communitiesin India is thus generally seen as a result of the cultural influenceon these communities of their Hindu neighbours or of Hinduism itself.This claim is based on the untenable assumption of a once pure, radicallyegalitarian Muslim community in India later coming under the banefulimpact of Hinduism. However, as several studies on caste among the IndianMuslims have shown, while the influence of Hindu social mores on theMuslims might partially explain the continued salience of caste amongthem it does not fully explain how the Muslims of the region came tobe stratified on the basis of caste in the first place. It also ignoresthe role of sections of the 'ulama, scholars of Islamic jurisprudence,in providing religious legitimacy to caste with the help of the conceptof kafa'a.

This article beginswith a brief note on caste among the Indian Muslims, seeking to providean explanation of the phenomenon based on the historical evolution ofthe Muslim community in India. It then looks at how, through the notionof kafa'a, caste and caste-based social hierarchy were sought to beaccepted as normative and binding by important sections of the 'ulama.Through an examination of a text penned by a contemporary Indian Muslimscholar it then provides a critique of widely-held notions of kafa'aand caste based on the principle of Qur'anic egalitarianism.

The vast majorityof the Indian Muslims are descendants of converts from what is todaycalled 'Hinduism'. Individual conversions to Islam in medieval timeswere rare. Rather, typically, entire local caste groups or significantsections thereof underwent a gradual process of Islamisation, in thecourse of which elements of the Islamic faith were gradually incorporatedinto local cosmologies and ritual practice while gradually displacingor replacing local or 'Hindu' elements. In other words, conversion wasboth a social as well as a gradual process. Because it was a collectivesocial process, the original endogamous circle prior to conversion wasstill preserved even after the group undergoing the process had witnesseda significant degree of cultural change. Hence, even after conversionto Islam marriage continued to take place within the original castegroup. This is how Muslim society came to be characterized by the existenceof multiple endogamous caste-like groups. Because mass

conversion to Islam was also rarely, if ever, a sudden event, but, rather,generally took the form of a gradual process of cultural change, oftenextending over generations, many of the converts retained several oftheir local, pre-Islamic beliefs and practices. It was thus not theinfluence of Hinduism among a previously 'pure', 'uncontaminated' Muslimcommunity as such, but, rather, the continued impact of Hindu beliefsand customs on the converts who still remained within a largely Hinducultural universe and retained many of its associated beliefs and practices,that explains the continued hold of caste-related practices and assumptionsamong large sections of the Indian Muslim community.

Scholarly writingson caste among Indian Muslims generally note the division that is oftenmade between the so-called 'noble' castes or ashraf and those labeledas inferior, or razil, kamin or ajlaf. The ashraf-ajlaf division isnot the invention of modern social scientists, for it is repeatedlymentioned in medieval works of ashraf scholars themselves. To thesewriters, Muslims of Arab, Central Asian, Iranian and Afghan extractionwere superior in social status than local converts. This owed not justto racial differences, with local converts generally being dark-skinnedand the ashraf lighter complexioned, but also to the fact that the ashrafbelonged to the dominant political elites, while the bulk of the ajlafremained associated with ancestral professions as artisans and peasantswhich were looked down upon as inferior and demeaning.

In order to providesuitable legitimacy to their claims of social superiority, medievalIndian ashraf scholars wrote numerous texts that sought to interpretthe Qur'an to suit their purposes, thus effectively denying the Qur'an'smessage of radical social equality. Pre-Islamic Persian notions of thedivine right of kings and the nobility, as opposed to the actual practiceof the Prophet and the early Muslim community, seem to have exerciseda powerful influence on these writers. A classical, oft-quoted examplein this regard is provided by the Fatawa-i Jahandari, written by thefourteenth century Turkish scholar, Ziauddin Barani, a leading courtierof Muhammad bin Tughlaq, Sultan of Delhi. This text is the only knownsurviving Indo-Persian treatise exclusively devoted to political theoryfrom the period of the Delhi Sultanate.

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