Unsuri, Abu’l-Qasim Hasan
Unsuri, Abu’l-Qasim Hasan (Abu’l-Qasim Hasan Unsuri) (Malik-us Shu'ara - King of Poets) (d. 1039/1040/1049). Persian poet. He owes his fame to a collection of poetry, which contains love poems and panegyrics. Among the latter, many are written in praise of the Ghaznavid Mahmud ibn Sebuktigin.
Abul Qasim Hasan Unsuri was a 10-11th century Persian (Tajik) poet. He is said to have been born in Balkh, today located in Afghanistan, and he eventually became a poet of the royal court, where he was given the title Malik-us Shu'ara (King of Poets). His Divan is said to have contained 30,000 distiches, of which only 2500 remain today.
Abu’l-Qasim Hasan Unsuri see Unsuri, Abu’l-Qasim Hasan
Malik-us Shu'ara see Unsuri, Abu’l-Qasim Hasan
King of Poets see Unsuri, Abu’l-Qasim Hasan
Unsuri, Abu’l-Qasim Hasan (Abu’l-Qasim Hasan Unsuri) (Malik-us Shu'ara - King of Poets) (d. 1039/1040/1049). Persian poet. He owes his fame to a collection of poetry, which contains love poems and panegyrics. Among the latter, many are written in praise of the Ghaznavid Mahmud ibn Sebuktigin.
Abul Qasim Hasan Unsuri was a 10-11th century Persian (Tajik) poet. He is said to have been born in Balkh, today located in Afghanistan, and he eventually became a poet of the royal court, where he was given the title Malik-us Shu'ara (King of Poets). His Divan is said to have contained 30,000 distiches, of which only 2500 remain today.
Abu’l-Qasim Hasan Unsuri see Unsuri, Abu’l-Qasim Hasan
Malik-us Shu'ara see Unsuri, Abu’l-Qasim Hasan
King of Poets see Unsuri, Abu’l-Qasim Hasan
Uqaylids
Uqaylids (Banu ‘Uqayl). Arab dynasty in northern Syria and northern Iraq (r.990-1096). Their main capital was Mosul. The Banu Uqayl, of the Qays tribal group, with possessions throughout North Africa. They belonged to the great Bedouin tribe of the ‘Amir ibn Sa‘sa‘a. Initially under Hamdanid sovereignty, their leader, Abu Dhawwa (Abu’l-Dhawwad), conquered Balad in 990 and Mosul in 992, but was driven out by the Buyids. His brother, Mukallad (r. 996-1000), gained recognition as governor of Mosul, Kufa, and other towns. Following a consolidation of power under his son, Karvash (Mu‘tamid al-Dawla Qirwash) (1000 [1001?]-1050), Abu’l-Makarim Muslim (Sharaf al-Dawla Muslim) (r. 1061-1085) extended his rule from Baghdad to Aleppo (capturing Raqqas in 1070, Aleppo in 1079). After the reign of Abu’l-Makarim Muslim, ‘Uqaylid power declined rapidly.
The Uqaylids were subject to Fatimid sovereignty from 1011 and helped them to conquer Baghdad in 1058. After Muslim had fallen in battle against the Great Seljuks in 1085, Uqaylid authority went into decline. Ibrahim (r. 1085-1093) was defeated and put to death by the Saljuq of Syria Tutush. The last ruler ‘Ali ibn Muslim had to give up Mosul in 1096, and in 1096 the Seljuks drove the Uqaylids into an area to the north of the Persian Gulf.
Another branch of the ‘Uqaylids was established between 1036 and 1056 in Takrit.
The 'Uqailid or 'Uqaylid Dynasty was a Shi'a Arab dynasty with several lines that ruled in various parts of Al-Jazira, northern Syria and Iraq in the late tenth and eleventh centuries. The main line, centered in Mosul, ruled from 990 to 1096.
The ʿUqaylids, descendants of the famous Bedouin tribe of ʿĀmir ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿah, established themselves in Jazīrat ibn ʿUmar, Niṣībīn (modern Nusaybin, Turkey), and Balad (northern Iraq) at the end of the 10th century. Abū adh-Dhawwūd Muḥammad (r. c. 990–996), the first ʿUqaylid, was drawn into the struggle between the Ḥamdānids and Marwānids for possession of Mosul and eventually succeeded the Ḥamdānids as emir of Mosul, though remaining nominally subject to the Būyids of Baghdad.
The reign of Qirwāsh ibn al-Muqallad (1001–50), who assumed the emirate after many years of bitter family feuding, was troubled by the threat of Oğuz tribesmen invading his dominions from western Iran and southern Iraq, forcing him into defensive alliances with the Mazyadids, another Muslim Arab dynasty in al-Ḥillah, central Iraq.
Muslim ibn Quraysh (r. 1061–85), however, was able to bring the ʿUqaylid dynasty to the height of its power. By allying himself with the Seljuq sultans Alp-Arslan and Malik-Shāh, Muslim annexed part of northern Syria and thus established ʿUqaylid rule over an area reaching from Aleppo to Baghdad. ʿUqaylid fortunes declined, however, when Muslim switched allegiance to his co-religionists, the Shīʿite Fāṭimids of Egypt. Seljuq armies invaded Mosul and routed Muslim, who was subsequently killed in battle with Seljuq forces. The ʿUqaylids were allowed to remain in Mosul as Seljuq governors but were finally subjugated by the Seljuq sultan Tutush in 1096.
Another ʿUqaylid line had been installed in Takrīt, on the Tigris River, sometime before 1036. The governorship remained in their hands until they submitted to the Seljuq sultan Toghrïl Beg, who in 1055 took Baghdad and displaced the Būyids as overlord of Iraq.
Banu ‘Uqayl see Uqaylids
Uqaylids (Banu ‘Uqayl). Arab dynasty in northern Syria and northern Iraq (r.990-1096). Their main capital was Mosul. The Banu Uqayl, of the Qays tribal group, with possessions throughout North Africa. They belonged to the great Bedouin tribe of the ‘Amir ibn Sa‘sa‘a. Initially under Hamdanid sovereignty, their leader, Abu Dhawwa (Abu’l-Dhawwad), conquered Balad in 990 and Mosul in 992, but was driven out by the Buyids. His brother, Mukallad (r. 996-1000), gained recognition as governor of Mosul, Kufa, and other towns. Following a consolidation of power under his son, Karvash (Mu‘tamid al-Dawla Qirwash) (1000 [1001?]-1050), Abu’l-Makarim Muslim (Sharaf al-Dawla Muslim) (r. 1061-1085) extended his rule from Baghdad to Aleppo (capturing Raqqas in 1070, Aleppo in 1079). After the reign of Abu’l-Makarim Muslim, ‘Uqaylid power declined rapidly.
The Uqaylids were subject to Fatimid sovereignty from 1011 and helped them to conquer Baghdad in 1058. After Muslim had fallen in battle against the Great Seljuks in 1085, Uqaylid authority went into decline. Ibrahim (r. 1085-1093) was defeated and put to death by the Saljuq of Syria Tutush. The last ruler ‘Ali ibn Muslim had to give up Mosul in 1096, and in 1096 the Seljuks drove the Uqaylids into an area to the north of the Persian Gulf.
Another branch of the ‘Uqaylids was established between 1036 and 1056 in Takrit.
The 'Uqailid or 'Uqaylid Dynasty was a Shi'a Arab dynasty with several lines that ruled in various parts of Al-Jazira, northern Syria and Iraq in the late tenth and eleventh centuries. The main line, centered in Mosul, ruled from 990 to 1096.
The ʿUqaylids, descendants of the famous Bedouin tribe of ʿĀmir ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿah, established themselves in Jazīrat ibn ʿUmar, Niṣībīn (modern Nusaybin, Turkey), and Balad (northern Iraq) at the end of the 10th century. Abū adh-Dhawwūd Muḥammad (r. c. 990–996), the first ʿUqaylid, was drawn into the struggle between the Ḥamdānids and Marwānids for possession of Mosul and eventually succeeded the Ḥamdānids as emir of Mosul, though remaining nominally subject to the Būyids of Baghdad.
The reign of Qirwāsh ibn al-Muqallad (1001–50), who assumed the emirate after many years of bitter family feuding, was troubled by the threat of Oğuz tribesmen invading his dominions from western Iran and southern Iraq, forcing him into defensive alliances with the Mazyadids, another Muslim Arab dynasty in al-Ḥillah, central Iraq.
Muslim ibn Quraysh (r. 1061–85), however, was able to bring the ʿUqaylid dynasty to the height of its power. By allying himself with the Seljuq sultans Alp-Arslan and Malik-Shāh, Muslim annexed part of northern Syria and thus established ʿUqaylid rule over an area reaching from Aleppo to Baghdad. ʿUqaylid fortunes declined, however, when Muslim switched allegiance to his co-religionists, the Shīʿite Fāṭimids of Egypt. Seljuq armies invaded Mosul and routed Muslim, who was subsequently killed in battle with Seljuq forces. The ʿUqaylids were allowed to remain in Mosul as Seljuq governors but were finally subjugated by the Seljuq sultan Tutush in 1096.
Another ʿUqaylid line had been installed in Takrīt, on the Tigris River, sometime before 1036. The governorship remained in their hands until they submitted to the Seljuq sultan Toghrïl Beg, who in 1055 took Baghdad and displaced the Būyids as overlord of Iraq.
Banu ‘Uqayl see Uqaylids
‘Uqba ibn Nafi’ibn ‘Abd Qays
‘Uqba ibn Nafi’ibn ‘Abd Qays (c. 630-683). Famous Arab commander. Shortly before his death in 663 his uncle ‘Amr ibn al- ‘As, the conqueror of Egypt, gave him the supreme command in Ifriqiya. In 670 he founded the military stronghold of Qayrawan. He was dismissed in 675 but restored to his post in 682. He defeated the Berbers but did not secure his conquests. He was defeated by the Berber chief Kusayla.
‘Uqba ibn Nafi’ibn ‘Abd Qays (c. 630-683). Famous Arab commander. Shortly before his death in 663 his uncle ‘Amr ibn al- ‘As, the conqueror of Egypt, gave him the supreme command in Ifriqiya. In 670 he founded the military stronghold of Qayrawan. He was dismissed in 675 but restored to his post in 682. He defeated the Berbers but did not secure his conquests. He was defeated by the Berber chief Kusayla.
‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad
‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad (Ahmad ‘Urabi Pasha) (Ahmed Orabi) (Ahmed Urabi) (Aḥmad ʿUrābī Pasha al-Miṣrī) (Orabi Pasha) (Urabi Pasha) (Ahmed Pasha Urabi el-Masri) (Ahmad Arabi) (b. 1839/April 1, 1841, near Al-Zaqāzīq, Egypt - d. September 21, 1911, Cairo, Egypt). Egyptian army officer and nationalist who led a revolution against Egypt's Dual Control (1881-1882). Under the slogan “Egypt for the Egyptians” he led a movement directed against foreign control. The khedive Tawfiq Pasha requested the assistance of the French and the British, and the latter defeated him in 1882.
ʿUrābī, the son of a village sheikh, studied in Cairo at al-Azhar, the preeminent institution of Arabic and Islamic learning. Conscripted into the army, he rose to the rank of colonel after serving as a commissariat officer during the Egyptian-Ethiopian war of 1875–76. In 1879 he participated in the officers’ revolt against the khedive Ismāʿīl Pasha.
Early in his career ʿUrābī joined a secret society within the army with the object of eliminating the Turkish and Circassian officers who monopolized the highest ranks. In 1881 he led a revolt against this dominance. The following year, intervention by the European powers and the dispute about the rights of the Egyptian Assembly concerning budget controls led to the formation of the nationalist ministry of Maḥmūd Sāmī al-Bārūdī, with ʿUrābī as minister of war. ʿUrābī emerged as the national hero under the slogan “Miṣr li’l Miṣriyyīn” (“Egypt for Egyptians”). Khedive Tawfīq, threatened by ʿUrābī’s increasing popularity, requested the assistance of the French and British, who promptly staged a naval demonstration in the bay of Alexandria. Riots then broke out in Alexandria. When the British fleet bombarded the city (July 1882), ʿUrābī, who was commander in chief of the Egyptian army, organized the resistance and proclaimed the khedive a traitor. ʿUrābī’s army was defeated at Tall al-Kabīr (September 13, 1882) by British troops that had landed at Ismailia under the command of Garnet Wolseley. ʿUrābī Pasha was captured, court-martialed, and sentenced to death, but, with British intervention, the sentence was changed to exile in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). He was permitted to return to Egypt in 1901. Although ʿUrābī died an unpopular figure in relative obscurity, his image was revitalized in the 1950s by Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose rise to power bore similarities to ʿUrābī’s.
Ahmad 'Urabi Pasha see ‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad
Ahmed Orabi see ‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad
Ahmed Urabi see ‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad
Aḥmad ʿUrābī Pasha al-Miṣrī see ‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad
Orabi Pasha see ‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad
Ahmad Arabi see ‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad
‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad (Ahmad ‘Urabi Pasha) (Ahmed Orabi) (Ahmed Urabi) (Aḥmad ʿUrābī Pasha al-Miṣrī) (Orabi Pasha) (Urabi Pasha) (Ahmed Pasha Urabi el-Masri) (Ahmad Arabi) (b. 1839/April 1, 1841, near Al-Zaqāzīq, Egypt - d. September 21, 1911, Cairo, Egypt). Egyptian army officer and nationalist who led a revolution against Egypt's Dual Control (1881-1882). Under the slogan “Egypt for the Egyptians” he led a movement directed against foreign control. The khedive Tawfiq Pasha requested the assistance of the French and the British, and the latter defeated him in 1882.
ʿUrābī, the son of a village sheikh, studied in Cairo at al-Azhar, the preeminent institution of Arabic and Islamic learning. Conscripted into the army, he rose to the rank of colonel after serving as a commissariat officer during the Egyptian-Ethiopian war of 1875–76. In 1879 he participated in the officers’ revolt against the khedive Ismāʿīl Pasha.
Early in his career ʿUrābī joined a secret society within the army with the object of eliminating the Turkish and Circassian officers who monopolized the highest ranks. In 1881 he led a revolt against this dominance. The following year, intervention by the European powers and the dispute about the rights of the Egyptian Assembly concerning budget controls led to the formation of the nationalist ministry of Maḥmūd Sāmī al-Bārūdī, with ʿUrābī as minister of war. ʿUrābī emerged as the national hero under the slogan “Miṣr li’l Miṣriyyīn” (“Egypt for Egyptians”). Khedive Tawfīq, threatened by ʿUrābī’s increasing popularity, requested the assistance of the French and British, who promptly staged a naval demonstration in the bay of Alexandria. Riots then broke out in Alexandria. When the British fleet bombarded the city (July 1882), ʿUrābī, who was commander in chief of the Egyptian army, organized the resistance and proclaimed the khedive a traitor. ʿUrābī’s army was defeated at Tall al-Kabīr (September 13, 1882) by British troops that had landed at Ismailia under the command of Garnet Wolseley. ʿUrābī Pasha was captured, court-martialed, and sentenced to death, but, with British intervention, the sentence was changed to exile in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). He was permitted to return to Egypt in 1901. Although ʿUrābī died an unpopular figure in relative obscurity, his image was revitalized in the 1950s by Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose rise to power bore similarities to ʿUrābī’s.
Ahmad 'Urabi Pasha see ‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad
Ahmed Orabi see ‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad
Ahmed Urabi see ‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad
Aḥmad ʿUrābī Pasha al-Miṣrī see ‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad
Orabi Pasha see ‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad
Ahmad Arabi see ‘Urabi Pasha, Ahmad
Urdu-speaking peoples
Urdu-speaking peoples (Muhajir). The Urdu speaking peoples Muslims of north India and Pakistan are not an ethnic group in the strict sense of the term, but a collection of ethnic groups. Nor are they, strictly speaking, a regional group, but rather are widely dispersed geographically. Nevertheless, they possess a sense of group identity based on cultural and historical factors. These include the Islamic religion, a Persian cultural tradition and its Indian offspring, the Urdu language and the tradition of Muslim political supremacy in north India, especially during Mughul rule. Added to this is a sense of political and cultural dispossession, the legacy of British rule which resulted in the creation of a separate Muslim political consciousness and ultimately the establishment of Pakistan.
Migration was important in the early history of north Indian Muslims as well as in their more recent quests for political autonomy and economic opportunity. This factor helps to account for their ethnic diversity. Muslims in north India are ethnically differentiated by their descent from immigrant groups of Arab merchants and soldiers who entered the subcontinent in small numbers as early as the eighth century of the Christian calendar. Others descended from Turks, Persians and Pushtun who came as conquering armies beginning in the eleventh century and who established political dominance in the area lasting from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Among these immigrant groups were both Sunni and Shi‘a Muslims, adding a sectarian dimension to their diversity. The Turkish sultans of Delhi, the Mughul emperors who succeeded them and smaller regional princes patronized the emigre Muslim culture in all its heterogeneity: Islamic jurists of the Hanafi school, Persian literati who were Ithna Ashari Shias and Sufis of several orders, including Chishti, Qadiri and Naqshbandi. The Sufi orders were particularly instrumental in converting Indian Hindus to the new faith.
Indian converts to Islam ultimately outnumbered immigrant Muslims and were similarly diverse in origin. Conversions came from among both high and low Hindu castes, were made for reasons varying from conviction to convenience and continued from the earliest period
of contact with Islam down to the present. Sunnis generally outnumbered Shias, although there were concentrations of Shia populations in areas where the princely ruler was Shia (such as Luknow). Ismailism was embraced by entire castes of coastal merchants such as the Khojas and Bohras, who came into contact with Islam through the Indian Ocean trade. Such merchant groups, while Gujarati speakers, often used Urdu as their language of commerce. Another element of diversity among north Indian Muslims was the phenomenon of incomplete conversion, such as the persistence of Hindu rituals and caste identities even after formal acceptance of Islam.
Ethnic diversity has been offset somewhat over time by intermarriages among the different groups and by periodic reform movements aimed at Islamizing ritual practice and spreading knowledge and observance of Islamic personal law. Nevertheless, endogamous groups remain today among the Urdu-speaking Muslims who identify themselves according to their claimed immigrant origins: Sayyids (descendants of Muhammad or his family), Shaikhs (Arabs or Persians), Mughals (Central Asian Turks) and Pathans (Pushtun).
Members of these four grops are known as ashraf (nobles), and their claimed foreign origin places them at the top of the Indo-Muslim social ladder. Nobility (sharafat) implies not only noble lineage but also cultivation in the cultural sense. Hence a man may acquire ashraf status if he maintains a certain style of life and is a magnanimous host, charitable towards those less fortunate, pious -- but not to a fault -- and able to sprinkle his conversation with extemporaneous Urdu couplets.
Beneath the ashraf are ranged the ajlaf, Indian convert groups which retain their Hindu caste or occupational names. Headed by the Rajputs (warriors and landholders who, because of their high status in Hindu society, often successfully claim ashraf status), they include other occupational groups such as the Momin Julahas (weavers), Qassabs (butchers), Darzis (tailors) and many more, with Muslim “untouchables” at the bottom. These Muslim groups function in society very much as Hindu caste groups. They are endogamous (although there are some hypergamous marriages among ashraf) with interdining prohibitions and restricted mobility. Despite the often quoted adage concerning the greater degree of social mobility among Muslims than among Hindus (“We used to be butchers and now we are Shaikhs; next year if the harvest prices are good for us, we shall be Sayyids”), the fact remains that there is considerable social stratification based upon birth and a corresponding continuity of occupation based upon caste identity.
While among the ashraf, religious identity is marked by a cultivated style incorporating certain Islamic virtues, among the ajlaf Islamic identity is expressed through popular piety. Examples of this include discipleship of Sufi saints and pilgrimages to their dargahs or tombs. The ritual at Sufi shrines, with offerings of food, flowers and incense, resembles similar rituals at Hindu temples. These syncretic observances, in which an essentially Hindu ritual has been endowed with Islamic meaning, give vital evidence of the process of conversion to Islam in India. These practices are not found uniquely among convert groups, for the ashraf also participate in them as both patrons and as worshippers.
The ashraf enjoyed a sense of political entitlement derived from a long tradition of military and administrative service, first to the various Indo-Muslim rulers and then, after the collapse of the Mughal Empire, to the British. It has often been claimed that Muslim officials were ruined by the British takeover, but this was far from the case in north India. The Urdu-speaking ex-Mughal officialdom retained its prominence in the legal profession and in education in the Uttar Pradesh and the Punjab until the beginning of the twentieth century. Under the guidance of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Aligarh College, the Urdu-speaking Muslim elites of north India sought to retain their position of political and administrative importance by reconciling their Islamic and Mughal culture with English education.
The Aligarh movement was a political as well as an educational movement. Through the medium of English education, the Muslim elite sought access to the new corridors of power in order to maintain not only their material intersts but also their cultural heritage, including the Islamic religion and Urdu language and literature.
A somewhat different educational movement was led by the ulama of Deoband, who founded a religious school designed to revitalize Islamic learning among north Indian Muslims. They also sought to Islamize the religious practices of all strata of Muslim society via an active program of proselytization and Urdu publication.
Aligarh and Deoband both gave currency to Urdu as a medium of modern communication. Urdu is an Indo-Iranian language developed during the 500 year period of Muslim rule from the Hindi vernacular spoken in the Delhi region, heavily laden with Persian and Arabic words and written in the Persian script. Persian was the language of the court, but Urdu was the lingua franca, providing a means of communication among the court, the army (Urdu means “language of the camp”) and the population. As the Mughal court declined, so, too, did the use of Persian, and Urdu gradually gained standing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, becoming the language of polite society and of local administration throughout northern India. It gained a body of distinguished literature, especially poetry, written in the forms and with the imagery of Persian poetry.
Urdu was of great symbolic importance to the education of the Muslim elite, who perceived any opposition to the use of the Urdu script as a threat, not only to their professional positions but also to Muslim culture in general. This threat became a reality in the late nineteenth century when the advocates of Hindi pushed the claim of that language to equal recognition with Urdu as a judicial language, first in Bihar and then in Uttar Pradesh (Hindi is a language very close to Urdu in its spoken form but written in Devanagari-Sanskrit script and laden with vocabulary of Sanskrit origin. Hence it is of symbolic religious importance to Hindus.) The Hindi-Urdu controversy at that time was crystallized into a Hindu-Muslim rivalry which overshadowed more serious misunderstandings to come.
The role of the Urdu in the creation of Muslim political self-consciousness in the early twentieth century was significant. Urdu-speaking Muslims formed numerous anjumans, or associations, for the improvement of Muslim education and the regeneration of the Muslim community in India, a community whose identity was only beginning to emerge from the welter of ethnic, sectarian and regional groupings of which it was composed. These early Muslim associations formed the nucleus for the All-India Muslim League, founded in Dacca in 1906 at the annual meeting of the Muhammadan Educational Conference.
As Muslim politics developed in the period before 1947, the Urdu speakers of north India became the leaders of the Muslim League, which aimed at establishing itself as the major spokesman for a united Indo-Muslim constituency. This emerging nationalism centered around the symbols of Islam, past Muslim supremacy, the Urdu language and, after 1940, a territorial demand. Pakistan was to be the new homeland for Indian Muslims in the areas where Muslims were already in a majority: Sind, Baluchistan, the Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province in the west; and Bengal in the east. The irony was that the heartland of the Mughal heritage and of Urdu lay in the Uttar Pradesh, an area of fervent political support for the Muslim League which would not be a part of Pakistan. The holocaust which accompanied the partition of the Punjab and Bengal has been held up as proof both of the need for a territory for the political and cultural survival of Indian Muslims and of the needless sundering of a cultural heritage which belonged to all North India.
Muhajir see Urdu-speaking peoples
Ethnic diversity has been offset somewhat over time by intermarriages among the different groups and by periodic reform movements aimed at Islamizing ritual practice and spreading knowledge and observance of Islamic personal law. Nevertheless, endogamous groups remain today among the Urdu-speaking Muslims who identify themselves according to their claimed immigrant origins: Sayyids (descendants of Muhammad or his family), Shaikhs (Arabs or Persians), Mughals (Central Asian Turks) and Pathans (Pushtun).
Members of these four grops are known as ashraf (nobles), and their claimed foreign origin places them at the top of the Indo-Muslim social ladder. Nobility (sharafat) implies not only noble lineage but also cultivation in the cultural sense. Hence a man may acquire ashraf status if he maintains a certain style of life and is a magnanimous host, charitable towards those less fortunate, pious -- but not to a fault -- and able to sprinkle his conversation with extemporaneous Urdu couplets.
Beneath the ashraf are ranged the ajlaf, Indian convert groups which retain their Hindu caste or occupational names. Headed by the Rajputs (warriors and landholders who, because of their high status in Hindu society, often successfully claim ashraf status), they include other occupational groups such as the Momin Julahas (weavers), Qassabs (butchers), Darzis (tailors) and many more, with Muslim “untouchables” at the bottom. These Muslim groups function in society very much as Hindu caste groups. They are endogamous (although there are some hypergamous marriages among ashraf) with interdining prohibitions and restricted mobility. Despite the often quoted adage concerning the greater degree of social mobility among Muslims than among Hindus (“We used to be butchers and now we are Shaikhs; next year if the harvest prices are good for us, we shall be Sayyids”), the fact remains that there is considerable social stratification based upon birth and a corresponding continuity of occupation based upon caste identity.
While among the ashraf, religious identity is marked by a cultivated style incorporating certain Islamic virtues, among the ajlaf Islamic identity is expressed through popular piety. Examples of this include discipleship of Sufi saints and pilgrimages to their dargahs or tombs. The ritual at Sufi shrines, with offerings of food, flowers and incense, resembles similar rituals at Hindu temples. These syncretic observances, in which an essentially Hindu ritual has been endowed with Islamic meaning, give vital evidence of the process of conversion to Islam in India. These practices are not found uniquely among convert groups, for the ashraf also participate in them as both patrons and as worshippers.
The ashraf enjoyed a sense of political entitlement derived from a long tradition of military and administrative service, first to the various Indo-Muslim rulers and then, after the collapse of the Mughal Empire, to the British. It has often been claimed that Muslim officials were ruined by the British takeover, but this was far from the case in north India. The Urdu-speaking ex-Mughal officialdom retained its prominence in the legal profession and in education in the Uttar Pradesh and the Punjab until the beginning of the twentieth century. Under the guidance of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Aligarh College, the Urdu-speaking Muslim elites of north India sought to retain their position of political and administrative importance by reconciling their Islamic and Mughal culture with English education.
The Aligarh movement was a political as well as an educational movement. Through the medium of English education, the Muslim elite sought access to the new corridors of power in order to maintain not only their material intersts but also their cultural heritage, including the Islamic religion and Urdu language and literature.
A somewhat different educational movement was led by the ulama of Deoband, who founded a religious school designed to revitalize Islamic learning among north Indian Muslims. They also sought to Islamize the religious practices of all strata of Muslim society via an active program of proselytization and Urdu publication.
Aligarh and Deoband both gave currency to Urdu as a medium of modern communication. Urdu is an Indo-Iranian language developed during the 500 year period of Muslim rule from the Hindi vernacular spoken in the Delhi region, heavily laden with Persian and Arabic words and written in the Persian script. Persian was the language of the court, but Urdu was the lingua franca, providing a means of communication among the court, the army (Urdu means “language of the camp”) and the population. As the Mughal court declined, so, too, did the use of Persian, and Urdu gradually gained standing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, becoming the language of polite society and of local administration throughout northern India. It gained a body of distinguished literature, especially poetry, written in the forms and with the imagery of Persian poetry.
Urdu was of great symbolic importance to the education of the Muslim elite, who perceived any opposition to the use of the Urdu script as a threat, not only to their professional positions but also to Muslim culture in general. This threat became a reality in the late nineteenth century when the advocates of Hindi pushed the claim of that language to equal recognition with Urdu as a judicial language, first in Bihar and then in Uttar Pradesh (Hindi is a language very close to Urdu in its spoken form but written in Devanagari-Sanskrit script and laden with vocabulary of Sanskrit origin. Hence it is of symbolic religious importance to Hindus.) The Hindi-Urdu controversy at that time was crystallized into a Hindu-Muslim rivalry which overshadowed more serious misunderstandings to come.
The role of the Urdu in the creation of Muslim political self-consciousness in the early twentieth century was significant. Urdu-speaking Muslims formed numerous anjumans, or associations, for the improvement of Muslim education and the regeneration of the Muslim community in India, a community whose identity was only beginning to emerge from the welter of ethnic, sectarian and regional groupings of which it was composed. These early Muslim associations formed the nucleus for the All-India Muslim League, founded in Dacca in 1906 at the annual meeting of the Muhammadan Educational Conference.
As Muslim politics developed in the period before 1947, the Urdu speakers of north India became the leaders of the Muslim League, which aimed at establishing itself as the major spokesman for a united Indo-Muslim constituency. This emerging nationalism centered around the symbols of Islam, past Muslim supremacy, the Urdu language and, after 1940, a territorial demand. Pakistan was to be the new homeland for Indian Muslims in the areas where Muslims were already in a majority: Sind, Baluchistan, the Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province in the west; and Bengal in the east. The irony was that the heartland of the Mughal heritage and of Urdu lay in the Uttar Pradesh, an area of fervent political support for the Muslim League which would not be a part of Pakistan. The holocaust which accompanied the partition of the Punjab and Bengal has been held up as proof both of the need for a territory for the political and cultural survival of Indian Muslims and of the needless sundering of a cultural heritage which belonged to all North India.
Muhajir see Urdu-speaking peoples
‘Urfi, Jamal al-Din
‘Urfi, Jamal al-Din (Jamal al-Din ‘Urfi) (Urfi Shirazi) (Mohammad ibn Badr-al-Din) (1555/1556 - 1590/1591). Persian poet from Shiraz. He emigrated to India where the Mughal emperor Akbar I took him into his service. He enjoyed great popularity in his time in India, especially for his qasidas.
Mohammad ibn Badr-al-Din, mostly known by his pen-name Urfi or Urfi Shirazi, was a 16th-century Persian poet. He was born in Shiraz and in his youth, he migrated to India and became one of the poets of the court of Akbar the Great. He is one of the most prominent Persian poets of Indian style.
Jamal al-Din 'Urfi see ‘Urfi, Jamal al-Din
Urfi Shirazi see ‘Urfi, Jamal al-Din
Mohammad ibn Badr-al-Din see ‘Urfi, Jamal al-Din
Shirazi, Urfi see ‘Urfi, Jamal al-Din
‘Urfi, Jamal al-Din (Jamal al-Din ‘Urfi) (Urfi Shirazi) (Mohammad ibn Badr-al-Din) (1555/1556 - 1590/1591). Persian poet from Shiraz. He emigrated to India where the Mughal emperor Akbar I took him into his service. He enjoyed great popularity in his time in India, especially for his qasidas.
Mohammad ibn Badr-al-Din, mostly known by his pen-name Urfi or Urfi Shirazi, was a 16th-century Persian poet. He was born in Shiraz and in his youth, he migrated to India and became one of the poets of the court of Akbar the Great. He is one of the most prominent Persian poets of Indian style.
Jamal al-Din 'Urfi see ‘Urfi, Jamal al-Din
Urfi Shirazi see ‘Urfi, Jamal al-Din
Mohammad ibn Badr-al-Din see ‘Urfi, Jamal al-Din
Shirazi, Urfi see ‘Urfi, Jamal al-Din
‘Urwa ibn al-Zubayr ibn ‘Awwam
‘Urwa ibn al-Zubayr ibn ‘Awwam (Urwah ibn Zubayr) (Urwah ibn al-Zubayr) (c. 645 - c. 710/713). One of the earliest and foremost authorities on tradition in Medina. His mother Asthma’ was a daughter of Abu Bakr, and his father a nephew of the Prophet’s wife Khadija. The famous anti-caliph ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr was his brother.
Urwah ibn al-Zubayr was among the seven fuqahaa (jurists) who formulated the fiqh of Medina in the time of the Tabi‘in and one of the first Muslim historians. He was the son of Asma bint Abi Bakr and Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, the brother of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr and the nephew of Aisha bint Abu Bakr. His son was Hisham ibn Urwa.
He was born in the early years of the caliphate of Uthman, and lived through the civil war which occurred after Uthman's murder. Although his brother Abd-Allah ibn al-Zubayr wrested the rule from Abd al-Malik, it is unknown if he assisted him. He devoted himself to the study of fiqh and hadith and is reputed to have had the greatest knowledge of hadiths narrated from Aishah.
Urwah wrote many books but, fearing they might become sources of authority alongside the Qur'an, destroyed them the day of the Battle of al-Harrah. He later he regretted that, saying "I would rather have them in my possession than my family and property twice over."
He is also known to have written one of the first writings in the area of the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, known as the Tract of Seerah by Urwa Ibn Az Zubayr.
Urwah ibn Zubayr see ‘Urwa ibn al-Zubayr ibn ‘Awwam
Urwah ibn al-Zubayr see ‘Urwa ibn al-Zubayr ibn ‘Awwam
‘Urwa ibn al-Zubayr ibn ‘Awwam (Urwah ibn Zubayr) (Urwah ibn al-Zubayr) (c. 645 - c. 710/713). One of the earliest and foremost authorities on tradition in Medina. His mother Asthma’ was a daughter of Abu Bakr, and his father a nephew of the Prophet’s wife Khadija. The famous anti-caliph ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr was his brother.
Urwah ibn al-Zubayr was among the seven fuqahaa (jurists) who formulated the fiqh of Medina in the time of the Tabi‘in and one of the first Muslim historians. He was the son of Asma bint Abi Bakr and Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, the brother of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr and the nephew of Aisha bint Abu Bakr. His son was Hisham ibn Urwa.
He was born in the early years of the caliphate of Uthman, and lived through the civil war which occurred after Uthman's murder. Although his brother Abd-Allah ibn al-Zubayr wrested the rule from Abd al-Malik, it is unknown if he assisted him. He devoted himself to the study of fiqh and hadith and is reputed to have had the greatest knowledge of hadiths narrated from Aishah.
Urwah wrote many books but, fearing they might become sources of authority alongside the Qur'an, destroyed them the day of the Battle of al-Harrah. He later he regretted that, saying "I would rather have them in my possession than my family and property twice over."
He is also known to have written one of the first writings in the area of the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, known as the Tract of Seerah by Urwa Ibn Az Zubayr.
Urwah ibn Zubayr see ‘Urwa ibn al-Zubayr ibn ‘Awwam
Urwah ibn al-Zubayr see ‘Urwa ibn al-Zubayr ibn ‘Awwam
Usama ibn Munqidh
Usama ibn Munqidh (Majd ad-Dīn Usāma ibn Murshid ibn ʿAlī ibn Munqidh al-Kināni) (Usamah ibn Munqidh) (Ousama ibn Munqidh) (July 4, 1095 – November 17, 1188). Arab knight, courtier and man of letters. Throughout his life, he was in constant relations with the Franks, sometimes hostile, sometimes friendly; quite a number of the Templars were among his friends. He spent nine years (1129-1138) in the army of ‘Imad al-Din Zangi I, and six years (1138-1144) at the court of the Burids in Damascus. Between 1144 and 1154 he was in Egypt, becoming involved in political intrigues during the last phase of Fatimid rule. On the way from Cairo to Damascus, he lost his entire library, which contained over 4,000 manuscripts. From 1154 to 1164 he undertook many campaigns against the Franks with Nur al-Din Mahmud Zangi. Another ten years (1164-1174) were spent in Hisn Kayfa, ruled by the Artuqid Qara Arslan of Diyarbakr (r.1144-1167). The fame of Saladin brought him for the third time to Damascus. His fame rests above all on his Memoirs, called Book of Instruction by Example, composed or dictated in 1183. It gives a vivid picture of his time.
Usāma ibn Munqidh was a medieval Muslim poet, author, soldier, and diplomat from the Banu Munqidh dynasty of Shaizar in northern Syria. His life coincided with the rise of several medieval Muslim dynasties, as well as the arrival of the First Crusade and the establishment of the crusader states.
He was the nephew of the emir of Shaizar and probably expected to rule Shaizar himself, but he was exiled in 1131 and spent the rest of his life serving other leaders. He was a courtier to the Burids, Zengids, and Ayyubids in Damascus, serving the famous Zengi, Nur ad-Din, and Saladin over a period of almost fifty years. He also served the Fatimid court in Cairo, as well as the Artuqids in Hisn Kayfa. He often meddled in the politics of the courts in which he served, and he was exiled from both Damascus and Cairo.
During and immediately after his life he was most famous as a poet and adib (a "man of letters"). He wrote many poetry anthologies, such as the Kitab al-'Asa ("Book of the Staff"), Lubab al-Adab ("Kernels of Refinement"), and al-Manazil wa'l-Diyar ("Dwellings and Abodes"), and collections of his own original poetry. For modern readers, however, he is most well-known for his Kitab al-I'tibar ("Book of Learning by Example" or "Book of Contemplation"), which contains lengthy descriptions of the crusaders, whom he visited on many occasions, and some of whom he considered friends, although he generally saw them as foreign barbarians.
Most of his family was killed in an earthquake at Shaizar in 1157. He died in Damascus in 1188, at the age of 93, a remarkably advanced age for the time.
Majd ad-Dīn Usāma ibn Murshid ibn ʿAlī ibn Munqidh al-Kināni see Usama ibn Munqidh
Usamah ibn Munqidh see Usama ibn Munqidh
Ousama ibn Munqidh see Usama ibn Munqidh
Usama ibn Munqidh (Majd ad-Dīn Usāma ibn Murshid ibn ʿAlī ibn Munqidh al-Kināni) (Usamah ibn Munqidh) (Ousama ibn Munqidh) (July 4, 1095 – November 17, 1188). Arab knight, courtier and man of letters. Throughout his life, he was in constant relations with the Franks, sometimes hostile, sometimes friendly; quite a number of the Templars were among his friends. He spent nine years (1129-1138) in the army of ‘Imad al-Din Zangi I, and six years (1138-1144) at the court of the Burids in Damascus. Between 1144 and 1154 he was in Egypt, becoming involved in political intrigues during the last phase of Fatimid rule. On the way from Cairo to Damascus, he lost his entire library, which contained over 4,000 manuscripts. From 1154 to 1164 he undertook many campaigns against the Franks with Nur al-Din Mahmud Zangi. Another ten years (1164-1174) were spent in Hisn Kayfa, ruled by the Artuqid Qara Arslan of Diyarbakr (r.1144-1167). The fame of Saladin brought him for the third time to Damascus. His fame rests above all on his Memoirs, called Book of Instruction by Example, composed or dictated in 1183. It gives a vivid picture of his time.
Usāma ibn Munqidh was a medieval Muslim poet, author, soldier, and diplomat from the Banu Munqidh dynasty of Shaizar in northern Syria. His life coincided with the rise of several medieval Muslim dynasties, as well as the arrival of the First Crusade and the establishment of the crusader states.
He was the nephew of the emir of Shaizar and probably expected to rule Shaizar himself, but he was exiled in 1131 and spent the rest of his life serving other leaders. He was a courtier to the Burids, Zengids, and Ayyubids in Damascus, serving the famous Zengi, Nur ad-Din, and Saladin over a period of almost fifty years. He also served the Fatimid court in Cairo, as well as the Artuqids in Hisn Kayfa. He often meddled in the politics of the courts in which he served, and he was exiled from both Damascus and Cairo.
During and immediately after his life he was most famous as a poet and adib (a "man of letters"). He wrote many poetry anthologies, such as the Kitab al-'Asa ("Book of the Staff"), Lubab al-Adab ("Kernels of Refinement"), and al-Manazil wa'l-Diyar ("Dwellings and Abodes"), and collections of his own original poetry. For modern readers, however, he is most well-known for his Kitab al-I'tibar ("Book of Learning by Example" or "Book of Contemplation"), which contains lengthy descriptions of the crusaders, whom he visited on many occasions, and some of whom he considered friends, although he generally saw them as foreign barbarians.
Most of his family was killed in an earthquake at Shaizar in 1157. He died in Damascus in 1188, at the age of 93, a remarkably advanced age for the time.
Majd ad-Dīn Usāma ibn Murshid ibn ʿAlī ibn Munqidh al-Kināni see Usama ibn Munqidh
Usamah ibn Munqidh see Usama ibn Munqidh
Ousama ibn Munqidh see Usama ibn Munqidh
Usama ibn Zayd ibn Haritha al-Kalbi
Usama ibn Zayd ibn Haritha al-Kalbi (d. c. 673). Son of the Abyssinian freedwoman Baraka Umm Ayman. He is reckoned among the Prophet’s freedmen. Hadith records many instances of the Prophet’s fondness for him as a child. He was among those who prepared the Prophet’s body for burial. The election of ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan to the caliphate in 644 took place in the house of his wife Fatima bint Qays al-Fihriya, and after the murder of ‘Uthman in 656, Usama refused homage to ‘Ali.
Usama ibn Zayd ibn Haritha al-Kalbi (d. c. 673). Son of the Abyssinian freedwoman Baraka Umm Ayman. He is reckoned among the Prophet’s freedmen. Hadith records many instances of the Prophet’s fondness for him as a child. He was among those who prepared the Prophet’s body for burial. The election of ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan to the caliphate in 644 took place in the house of his wife Fatima bint Qays al-Fihriya, and after the murder of ‘Uthman in 656, Usama refused homage to ‘Ali.
Ustad Muhammad Akbari
Ustad Muhammad Akbari. Head of the Shi‘a Hizb-i Wahdat’s (the Unity Party’s) political committee who lost in a power struggle with Abdul Ali Mazari and joined Rabbani’s Jam’iat-i Islami. Sayyid Husain Alimi Balkhi, a member of his party, was appointed in July 1996, minister of commerce in Prime Minister Hekmatyar’s government until they were evicted from Kabul and Bamian by the Taliban.
Ustad Muhammad Akbari. Head of the Shi‘a Hizb-i Wahdat’s (the Unity Party’s) political committee who lost in a power struggle with Abdul Ali Mazari and joined Rabbani’s Jam’iat-i Islami. Sayyid Husain Alimi Balkhi, a member of his party, was appointed in July 1996, minister of commerce in Prime Minister Hekmatyar’s government until they were evicted from Kabul and Bamian by the Taliban.
Ustadsis
Ustadsis. Leader of a religious movement in Khurasan, directed against the ‘Abbasids. The rising began in 767 and spread rapidly. Ustadis represented himself as a prophet and exhorted the people to unbelief (in Arabic, kufr). The movement was suppressed by Khazim ibn Khuzayma.
Ustadsis. Leader of a religious movement in Khurasan, directed against the ‘Abbasids. The rising began in 767 and spread rapidly. Ustadis represented himself as a prophet and exhorted the people to unbelief (in Arabic, kufr). The movement was suppressed by Khazim ibn Khuzayma.
Usuli
Usuli. School of Shi‘ite jurisprudence that asserts the permissibility of recourse to rational methods (usul) and exertion (ijtihad) in order to deduce legal ordinances (ahkam) from the scriptural sources of the law -- the Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet and the twelve imams. The school is said to have originated with Abu Ja‘far al-Tusi (d. 1067), who was the first Shi‘ite scholar to expound the permissibility of qiyas (analogical reasoning). Usulism, however, was in its origin less an organized school than a current of jurisprudential thought that generally enjoyed majority support, with the exception of a period of Akhbari supremacy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The Usuli positions were systematized by Agha Muhammad Baqir Bihbahani and definitively elaborated by Shaikh Murtaza Ansari (d. 1864) and Akhund Khurasani (d. 1911). The Usulis hold that the Shi‘ite community (in the continuing absence of the twelfth imam) consists of mujtahids -- those technically qualified to practice ijtihad -- and muqallids -- those who, unable to do so, are obliged to follow the rulingsof the former. This analysis has bestowed on the Shi‘ite religous scholars a claim to loyalty and obedience that has been decisive for the history of Iran.
Usuli is a school of law relying on a series of rational processes, the Usuliyah has been almost universally accepted by Shi‘a Muslims for the past two centuries. Its designation “Usuliyah,” derived from the expression usul al-fiqh (“principles of jurisprudence”), is not encountered before the mid-twelfth century, but there can be little doubt that the application of rational methods to the deduction of the specific ordinances of the law from its sources was known already during the lifetime of the imams. Clearly rationalist in tendency was Shaykh al-Mufid (d. 1022), who rejected with great polemical vigor the view of his traditionist opponents (the forerunners of the Akhbariyah) that traditions narrated by only one line of transmission were acceptable sources of law. His positions were developed, with some modification, by Shaykh al-Ta’ifah al-Tusi (d. 1067), Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (d. 1277), and ‘Allamah al-Hilli (d. 1326). The last took the crucial step of recognizing the principle of ijtihad (disciplined reasoning based on the shari‘a) that was to become central to the Usuliyah. He is therefore sometimes regarded as the first Usuli sensu stricto. This gradual clarification of the bases of rationalist jurisprudence in Shiism owed much to earlier developments in Sunni law, something that did not go unnoticed by the Akhbari adversaries of the Usuli doctrine.
When the Safavids set about propagating Shiism in Iran, creating for the first time the conditions for the application of Shi‘a law in a major Islamic society, representatives of the Usuli position -- such as ‘Ali al-Karaki (d. 1534) and Muhaqqiq Ardabili (d. 1585) -- were initially in the ascendant. In the mid-seventeenth century, however, there was a late blossoming of the Akhbari school under the auspices of Mullah Muhammad Amin Akhbari (d. 1624). It succeeded in gaining the loyalty of many of the major intellectual figures of the day and came to enjoy nearly complete control of the ‘atabat in Iraq by the mid-eighteenth century. The supremacy of the Usuliyah was definitively re-established toward the end of the century by Aqa Muhammad Baqir Bihbahani (d. 1791) by means of both vigorous public debate in the madrasahs of Karbala and the composition of treatises on usul al-fiqh. His numerous associates and students consolidated this triumph in both Iraq and Iran, and the Usuli positions were from that time virtually co-terminous with Shi‘a law as such.
Bihbahani not only reasserted the legitimate or even obligatory nature of ijtihad but also made it incumbent on all who had not attained the qualifications for ijtihad to follow, in matters of religious law, those who had. This process is known as taqlid (“imitation”), and the scholar practicing ijtihad who is selected for imitation is called the marja’ al-taqlid (“source of imitation”). The structuring of the Shi‘a community that this implied, with obedience to a practitioner of ijtihad made a matter of religious duty, greatly elevated the status of the religious jurists and had a profound impact on Iranian history and society. It paved the way for the political activism of the Shi‘a ‘ulama’ throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and may even be regarded as an ancestor of the Islamic Revolution of 1978-1979.
The principles of the Usuli school were further refined by Shaykh Murtada Ansari (d. 1864), who had stress on the necessity of choosing as marja’ al-taqlid the most learned jurist available, and by Akhund Muhammad Kazim Khurasani (d. 1911). The doctrine of wilayat al-faqih (“the vice-regency of the jurist”), according to which a jurist may claim full governmental powers, may be regarded as a radical but nonetheless logical working out of the implications of Usuli doctrine. In elaborating it, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989) was able to cite indications scattered in the works of earlier Usuli scholars.
Usulis are the majority Twelver Shi'a Muslim group. They differ from their now much smaller rival Akhbari group in favoring the use of ijtihad, i.e. reasoning in the creation of new rules of fiqh; in assessing hadith to exclude traditions they believe unreliable; and in considering it obligatory to obey a mujtahid when seeking to determine Islamically correct behavior.
After the crushing of the Akhbaris in the late 18th century, the Usuli became the dominant school of Twelver Shi'a and formed an overwhelming majority within the Twelver Shia denomination.
The Usuli believe that the Hadith collections contained traditions of very varying degrees of reliability, and that critical analysis was necessary to assess their authority. In contrast, the Akhbari believe that the sole sources of law are the Qur'an and the Hadith, in particular the Four Books accepted by the Shia. Everything in these sources is in principle reliable, and outside them there was no authority competent to enact or deduce further legal rules.
In addition to assessing the reliability of the Hadith, Usuli believe the task of the legal scholar is to establish intellectual principles of general application (Usul al-fiqh), from which particular rules may be derived by way of deduction: accordingly, legal scholarship has the tools in principle for resolving any situation, whether or not it is specifically addressed in the Qur'an or Hadith.
The dominance of the Usuli over the Akhbari came in last half of the 18th century when Muhammad Baqir Behbahani led Usulis to challenge Akhbari dominance and completely routed the Akhbaris at Karbala and Najaf, to the point that only a handful of Shi'i ulama have remained Akhbari to the present day.
An important tenet of Usuli doctrine is Taqlid or "imitation", i.e. the acceptance of a religious ruling in matters of worship and personal affairs from someone regarded as a higher religious authority (e.g. an 'ālim) without necessarily asking for the technical proof. These higher religious authorities can be known as a "source of imitation" (Arabic, marja taqlid; Persian, marja) or less exaltedly as an "imitated one" (Arabic, muqallad). However, the muqallad's verdicts are not to be taken as the only source of religious information and the muqallad can be always corrected by other muqalladeen (the plural of muqallad) which come after him. Obeying a deceased taqlid is forbidden in Usuli.
Taqlid has been introduced by scholars who felt that Quranic verses and traditions were not enough and that ulama were needed not only to interpret the Quran and Sunna but to make new rulings to respond to new challenges and push the boundaries of Shia law in new directions. Critics also say a major motive behind introducing this was to collect Islamic taxes.
Usuli. School of Shi‘ite jurisprudence that asserts the permissibility of recourse to rational methods (usul) and exertion (ijtihad) in order to deduce legal ordinances (ahkam) from the scriptural sources of the law -- the Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet and the twelve imams. The school is said to have originated with Abu Ja‘far al-Tusi (d. 1067), who was the first Shi‘ite scholar to expound the permissibility of qiyas (analogical reasoning). Usulism, however, was in its origin less an organized school than a current of jurisprudential thought that generally enjoyed majority support, with the exception of a period of Akhbari supremacy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The Usuli positions were systematized by Agha Muhammad Baqir Bihbahani and definitively elaborated by Shaikh Murtaza Ansari (d. 1864) and Akhund Khurasani (d. 1911). The Usulis hold that the Shi‘ite community (in the continuing absence of the twelfth imam) consists of mujtahids -- those technically qualified to practice ijtihad -- and muqallids -- those who, unable to do so, are obliged to follow the rulingsof the former. This analysis has bestowed on the Shi‘ite religous scholars a claim to loyalty and obedience that has been decisive for the history of Iran.
Usuli is a school of law relying on a series of rational processes, the Usuliyah has been almost universally accepted by Shi‘a Muslims for the past two centuries. Its designation “Usuliyah,” derived from the expression usul al-fiqh (“principles of jurisprudence”), is not encountered before the mid-twelfth century, but there can be little doubt that the application of rational methods to the deduction of the specific ordinances of the law from its sources was known already during the lifetime of the imams. Clearly rationalist in tendency was Shaykh al-Mufid (d. 1022), who rejected with great polemical vigor the view of his traditionist opponents (the forerunners of the Akhbariyah) that traditions narrated by only one line of transmission were acceptable sources of law. His positions were developed, with some modification, by Shaykh al-Ta’ifah al-Tusi (d. 1067), Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (d. 1277), and ‘Allamah al-Hilli (d. 1326). The last took the crucial step of recognizing the principle of ijtihad (disciplined reasoning based on the shari‘a) that was to become central to the Usuliyah. He is therefore sometimes regarded as the first Usuli sensu stricto. This gradual clarification of the bases of rationalist jurisprudence in Shiism owed much to earlier developments in Sunni law, something that did not go unnoticed by the Akhbari adversaries of the Usuli doctrine.
When the Safavids set about propagating Shiism in Iran, creating for the first time the conditions for the application of Shi‘a law in a major Islamic society, representatives of the Usuli position -- such as ‘Ali al-Karaki (d. 1534) and Muhaqqiq Ardabili (d. 1585) -- were initially in the ascendant. In the mid-seventeenth century, however, there was a late blossoming of the Akhbari school under the auspices of Mullah Muhammad Amin Akhbari (d. 1624). It succeeded in gaining the loyalty of many of the major intellectual figures of the day and came to enjoy nearly complete control of the ‘atabat in Iraq by the mid-eighteenth century. The supremacy of the Usuliyah was definitively re-established toward the end of the century by Aqa Muhammad Baqir Bihbahani (d. 1791) by means of both vigorous public debate in the madrasahs of Karbala and the composition of treatises on usul al-fiqh. His numerous associates and students consolidated this triumph in both Iraq and Iran, and the Usuli positions were from that time virtually co-terminous with Shi‘a law as such.
Bihbahani not only reasserted the legitimate or even obligatory nature of ijtihad but also made it incumbent on all who had not attained the qualifications for ijtihad to follow, in matters of religious law, those who had. This process is known as taqlid (“imitation”), and the scholar practicing ijtihad who is selected for imitation is called the marja’ al-taqlid (“source of imitation”). The structuring of the Shi‘a community that this implied, with obedience to a practitioner of ijtihad made a matter of religious duty, greatly elevated the status of the religious jurists and had a profound impact on Iranian history and society. It paved the way for the political activism of the Shi‘a ‘ulama’ throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and may even be regarded as an ancestor of the Islamic Revolution of 1978-1979.
The principles of the Usuli school were further refined by Shaykh Murtada Ansari (d. 1864), who had stress on the necessity of choosing as marja’ al-taqlid the most learned jurist available, and by Akhund Muhammad Kazim Khurasani (d. 1911). The doctrine of wilayat al-faqih (“the vice-regency of the jurist”), according to which a jurist may claim full governmental powers, may be regarded as a radical but nonetheless logical working out of the implications of Usuli doctrine. In elaborating it, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989) was able to cite indications scattered in the works of earlier Usuli scholars.
Usulis are the majority Twelver Shi'a Muslim group. They differ from their now much smaller rival Akhbari group in favoring the use of ijtihad, i.e. reasoning in the creation of new rules of fiqh; in assessing hadith to exclude traditions they believe unreliable; and in considering it obligatory to obey a mujtahid when seeking to determine Islamically correct behavior.
After the crushing of the Akhbaris in the late 18th century, the Usuli became the dominant school of Twelver Shi'a and formed an overwhelming majority within the Twelver Shia denomination.
The Usuli believe that the Hadith collections contained traditions of very varying degrees of reliability, and that critical analysis was necessary to assess their authority. In contrast, the Akhbari believe that the sole sources of law are the Qur'an and the Hadith, in particular the Four Books accepted by the Shia. Everything in these sources is in principle reliable, and outside them there was no authority competent to enact or deduce further legal rules.
In addition to assessing the reliability of the Hadith, Usuli believe the task of the legal scholar is to establish intellectual principles of general application (Usul al-fiqh), from which particular rules may be derived by way of deduction: accordingly, legal scholarship has the tools in principle for resolving any situation, whether or not it is specifically addressed in the Qur'an or Hadith.
The dominance of the Usuli over the Akhbari came in last half of the 18th century when Muhammad Baqir Behbahani led Usulis to challenge Akhbari dominance and completely routed the Akhbaris at Karbala and Najaf, to the point that only a handful of Shi'i ulama have remained Akhbari to the present day.
An important tenet of Usuli doctrine is Taqlid or "imitation", i.e. the acceptance of a religious ruling in matters of worship and personal affairs from someone regarded as a higher religious authority (e.g. an 'ālim) without necessarily asking for the technical proof. These higher religious authorities can be known as a "source of imitation" (Arabic, marja taqlid; Persian, marja) or less exaltedly as an "imitated one" (Arabic, muqallad). However, the muqallad's verdicts are not to be taken as the only source of religious information and the muqallad can be always corrected by other muqalladeen (the plural of muqallad) which come after him. Obeying a deceased taqlid is forbidden in Usuli.
Taqlid has been introduced by scholars who felt that Quranic verses and traditions were not enough and that ulama were needed not only to interpret the Quran and Sunna but to make new rulings to respond to new challenges and push the boundaries of Shia law in new directions. Critics also say a major motive behind introducing this was to collect Islamic taxes.
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