Arabic in India: A Survey and Classification of Its Uses, Compared with Persian

Author(s): Tahera Qutbuddin

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 127, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 2007), pp. 315338
Published by: American Oriental Society
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Arabie in India:
A Survey and Classification
of ItsUses, Compared with Persian
Tahera
University

Qutbuddin
of Chicago

in India carries an almost absolute Islamic identity, to the extent that even the study
Arabic
of pre-Islamic pagan poetry is ascribed to a spiritual impetus. This is not surprising, for it is
generally acknowledged that theArabic language has a predominantly sacred character out
side theArabic speaking Middle East. However, the functionalmanifestation of the language
in the subcontinent has great historical significance and has not been systematically ex
x
plored. To this end, thispaper presents a survey of theuses of Arabic in India from its arrival
in the eighth century through the twentieth, under the following eight-part classification:
liturgy,teaching and study,nomenclature, inscriptions, vocabulary assimilation, composition

of religio-scholarly texts, composition of secular-scholarly texts, and marginal utilitarian

uses. Details of the uses of Persian?the
other major foreign language brought here by
Muslims, which flourished side by side with Arabic formany centuries?are offered here
as foil, inasmuch as they bring into sharper focus the scriptural face of Indian Arabic.

The first acquaintance of the residents of the Indian subcontinent with theArab people
came about when Arab sailors firstdocked at Indian ports in order to acquire spices in pre
Islamic times, perhaps as far in the past as 50 ce. This early trade contact occurred two

centuries before Arab was attested as a distinct language in theArabian Peninsula in the third
century. Trade contacts persisted, and at some point in time, throughArab traders, Indians
must have gained rudimentary acquaintance with theArabic language. In the seventh cen

tury,theArabian Peninsula witnessed the birth of Islam, and themajority of Arabs became
Muslim. One century later, in 711, theArab-Muslim Umayyad commander Muhammad b.
al-Q?sim al-Thaqaf? invaded and conquered the western Indian province of Sind. Arab

Muslims settled there, and with their colonization of Sind came India's first substantial and
sustained contact with both the religion of Islam and theArabic language. At this time,
Indians began to convert to Islam.2 The initial act required of any convert, the recitation of
the Islamic creed of faith, "/? il?h? IIIa (ll?h,muhammadun ras?lu 'll?h" (There is no god but
is themessenger of God), had an Arabic linguistic frame, which meant
God, Muhammad
that Indian converts to Islam came into contact with Arabic through theirvery first religious

1. For a brief overview of the features and history of Arabic in India, see my entry on "India" inEncyclopedia
and Linguistics, ed. Kees Versteegh (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 2: 325-31.
of Arabic Language
2. A detailed analysis of historical, political, social, and economic development of the Indo-Islamic world is
2nd ed.,
provided in Andr? Wink, Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World (Leiden: Brill, 1990-2004),
vols. 1-3; Annemarie Schimmel, Islam in the Indian Subcontinent (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980). See also S. Maqbul
Ahmad et al., "al-Hind," The Encyclopaedia
esp. sub-entries:
of Islam, 2nd ed. (El2) (Leiden: Brill, 1960-2004),
Aziz Ahmad, "Islamic Culture" and K. A. Nizami, "Islam." Short overviews of the Indo-Islamic world are Scott
of Islam and theMuslim World, ed. Richard Martin (Macmillan
Kugel, "South Asia, Islam in," in Encyclopedia
Reference USA,

2004),

2: 634-41;

Perween Hasan,

"South Asian Culture and Islam," 2: 641-44.

Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 127.3 (2007)

315

316 Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 127.3 (2007)

experience. Arabic also had religious prestige as the language of Islamic scripture, believed
to be inseparable from themessage;3 moreover, familiarity
by themajority of Muslims
was
with theArabic Qur5?n
deemed necessary for the correct ritual practice of Islam.4 For
these reasons, Indian exposure to theArabic language was primarily through themedium
of religion, and Arabic came to India as the language of Islam.

Non-sacred Arabic hegemony was promoted inmany parts of theworld by political,

social, and economic factors. So much so, that in some of the lands conquered by theArab
Muslims, such as Coptic-speaking Egypt,5 Arabic almost entirely displaced and replaced
the local languages. In India, however, this did not happen, mainly because Arab Muslims
did not have political control over more than thewestern provinces, and this control was for
a limited time.The major Muslim dynasties in India were of Turkic origin, and their cultural
language was, in themain, Persian. Other than the colony in Sind, Arab Muslim presence
in India was constituted by small and early Arab trader settlements of mostly Yemeni and
Basran descent on theMalabar coast (details in section VIII), by limited contingents of
Yemeni mercenary soldiers employed by various Muslim rulers, and by occasional Arab
visitors. Thus, Arab Muslims never really had a major presence in India. The locals continued

for themost part to use theirown Indo-European and Dravidian languages, with Arabic play
ing a subsidiary (albeit religiously significant) linguistic role.
Historically, Arabic has been used in India almost exclusively by itsMuslim population,
and has been a key force in delineating and shaping Indian Muslim identity.6Currently, it
is used almost solely by the 13.19 million Muslims who form 13.43 percent of the total
1.03 billion Indian population.7 Conversely, almost all Muslims
in India appear to have
some acquaintance with Arabic. From the early eighth century,Arabic in India has borne an

Islamic identity,which has continued to be elaborated and strengthened through the thirteen
centuries of its use under Muslim, Hindu, and British rule. The succeeding dynasties of
theGhaznavids, Ghurids, slave-Sultans, Khaljis, Tughlaqs, and
Muslim rulers?including
Lodis in and around Delhi, theBahmanis and Adil-Shahis in theDeccan, the Shah-Mirs in

3. A fundamental reason for this perception is the direct connection made by theQur'an
language. Cf. Qur'?n 26:192-95
(my translation and emphasis):

itself between

its reve

lation and theArabic

"Verily, it is the revelation of the Lord of all the worlds. The Trustworthy Spirit has descended with it upon your
so that you be among theWarners, in a clear Arabic tongue" See also Qur'?n 42:7 and 12:2:
heart [OMuhammad],
"an Arabic Qur5an." Kees Versteegh, in his study of theArabic language, remarks that "In all Islamic countries, the
influence of Arabic is pervasive because of the highly language-specific nature of Islam. Since the Revealed Book
was

inimitable, it could not be translated, and those who converted to Islam had to learn its language." He goes on
to discuss briefly the role of Arabic inAfrica, Iran, Ottoman Empire and Turkey, the Indian subcontinent, and East
Asia. See K. Versteegh, The Arabic Language
(Edinburgh: Columbia Univ. Press, 2001), 226ff. See also Arabic as
a Minority Language,
ed. Jonathan Owens (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2000).
4. One of themany authors arguing for the necessity of theArabic
lughat al-Qury?n (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Lubn?ni,

al-Jund?, al-Fush?

language

to the practice of Islam is Anwar

1982).
in other countries over which

did not entirely displace the local language

the Arabs held political
for lengthy periods, such as Persia. The reasons for the different reception of Arabic in Egypt and in
Persia have not been fully explored.
6. Cf. Muhammad
Qasim Zaman, "The Role of Arabic and theArab Middle East in theDefinition of Muslim
Identity in Twentieth Century India," The Muslim World SI.3/4 (2001): 272-98.
5. Arabic

dominion

1. Census
General

of India 2001: The First Report

and Census Commissioner
[2004]).

on Religion Data

(New Delhi:

Jayant Kumar

Banthia, Registrar

Qutbuddin:

Arabic

in India

317

the Ilyas-Shahis in Bengal, and the powerful Mughal

these dynasties, even though the
emperors who ruled the entire Indian subcontinent?all
language of their court administration was one of the Indian languages or Persian, con
tinued to patronize Arabic-Islamic scholars and to promote the study of Arabic for religious
purposes. In 1947, after India gained independence from British rule and was partitioned,

Kashmir,

the Sultans

in Gujarat,

as
Pakistan and later Bangladesh developed vis-?-vis Arabic in different directions?such
the proposals voiced in Pakistan by various political groups in the 1950s and 1970s that
Arabic be adopted as the national language8?which
fall outside the scope of this article. In
India, in the decades following Independence, Arabic usage was also modified inminor ways,
but its Islamic identitywas preserved and continues to be preserved today. Considering the
future of Arabic usage in India, among the factors inhibiting it is the decline of Persian and

Urdu and with it the decline of theArabic-script reading populace. Some positive influences
are India's growing economic prosperity (and subsequent rise in education) combined with
Islamic revivalist trends. Itwill be interesting to see how the conflicting forces play out.
Let us compare the history of Arabic in India to that of Persian.9 Persian flourished in

the subcontinent from the twelfth through the nineteenth centuries (especially from the late
sixteenth through the eighteenth), largely with court patronage. It had a prominent place in

Indian society at all levels, inboth itsMuslim and non-Muslim segments,with mainly literary
and government functions, as well as Sufi religious ones. The earliest formal relationship
between India and Persian was formedwith the establishment of Ghaznavid power inPunjab
in the early eleventh century,when a high literary traditionof Persian, primarily poetic, took

root.By the time of the conquest of north India in the twelfthcentury by theTurkish Gh?rids,
Persian had evolved as a literary language throughoutCentral Asia, and under the patronage
of theDelhi Sultans, Persian writers, scribes, and poets flourished through the early fifteenth
century,particularly when Sikandar Lodi (r. 1488-1517) completely Persianized the admin

invaded the Perso-Islamic world in the thirteenthcentury,

many Persian speakers migrated to northern India, and a coherent Perso-Islamic identity (in
opposition toArab culture) was linked positively with the term "cAjam." Under theMughals,
particularly Akbar (r. 1556-1605), therewas an efflorescence of Persian literary culture in
istration.When

Chingiz Khan

a large part of India, and Persian became the first language of the king and the court. Akbar
formally declared it the language of theMughal administration at all levels; it thusbecame an
important

tool

for career

advancement,

particularly

in the civil

service.

Persian

also

became

a second language, perhaps even something approaching a first language, formany Indians.
But with thewaning ofMughal power and patronage, Persian declined rapidly in India; par
ticularlywhen the rising British colonial power replaced itwith English as the language of
administration and education in India in 1835. Its use in the beginning of the twenty-first
century has narrowed to a tinynumber of scholars.

study and usage in Pakistan, see Arabic inPakistan, ed. Habibul Haq Nadvi, National
for
Promotion
of
in Pakistan (Karachi: Univ. of Karachi, 1975); and Tariq Rahman, "The Teaching
Arabic
Congress
of Arabic to theMuslims of South Asia," Islamic Studies 39.3 (2000): esp. 416ff.
8. For details of Arabic

9. For Persian
in Precolonial

in India until the advent of the British, see Muzaffar Alam, "The Culture and Politics of Persian
in Literary Cultures inHistory: Reconstruction from South Asia, ed. Sheldon Pollock

Hindustan,"

(Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 2003), 131-98. The brief outline here is culled from this
article. The best full-length history of Persian in India, according to Alam, isMuhammd
cAbdu'l Ghani, Pre
(Allahabad: Allahabad Law Journal Press, 1941); idem, A History of Persian Lan
Mughal Persian inHindustan
guage and Literature at theMughal

Court, vols.

1-3 (Allahabad:

The

Indian Press,

1929-30).

318

Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 127.3 (2007)

A word should be added here about the sources for this study. In addition to synthesizing
data from disparate multilingual secondary works such as those listingmadrasas (religious

schools) of India and bibliographies of Indian-Arabic texts, this paper stems from research
conducted in varied primary source materials. Some of these original sources are Arabic
books and poetry composed in India, manuscript catalogues of Indian libraries, madrasa
curricula, inscriptions on monuments and tombs, and catalogues of inscriptions and coins.
Additionally, I have included findings from field work conducted in India for brief periods
over the past several years, including interviews with Indian Muslim scholars of Arabic,
visits tomadrasas

and monument sites, observation of Muslim nomenclature, and exami

nation of Arabic vocabulary incorporation.
With brief remarks pointing out the analogous or divergent uses of Persian where relevant,
the following pages present a detailed survey and classification of theuses of Arabic in India.
I. liturgy:
DU(?\

ritual
prayer
qur^?n,
(sal?h),
AND
RELIGIOUS
POETRY
TASBlH,

One of themost common uses of Arabic

in India is liturgical. This includes Qur'anic

recitation, litanies (tasblh), prose prayers (du(?y), formulaic expressions connected with the
ritual prayer (sal?h), S?f? chants (dhikr), and the chanting of religious poetry (qaslda, na(t,
mun?j?t, and marthiya).
The recitation of theArabic Qur??n is considered byMuslims a meritorious act and forms
an importantpart of theirreligiosity. In India,Muslims recite theQur'an avidly, but generally

without understanding the literal meaning. Nevertheless, they still see it as an act that
brings the reciter closer toGod and wins him or her divine grace (baraka) and light (nur).
Qur5?nic recitation in India takes place in homes, masjids, madrasas, and other venues, at dif
ferent times of the day or night, individually or communally, at religious and social gather
ings or as part of a daily religious routine, throughout the year, but most especially during
themonth of Ramadan, audibly or inaudibly, in sophisticated and melodious recitation (tartll
or tajwld), or in plain, elementary recital. Since a significant number speak Urdu (in 2003,

roughly 25 million)10 or other Indian languages written in theArabic script, they can, if
facto read and write the
they are literate?thus, roughly half of all Indian Muslims11?de
Arabic script. Since Qur?anic recitation in the original Arabic is an integral part of theman
datory ritual prayer (sal?h), those who can read and those who cannot all consider it a re
ligious obligation tomemorize s?ras. They most commonly learn by heart the shorter s?ras,
including

al-f?tiha,

al-n?s,

al-falaq,

al-ikhl?s,

al-kawthar,

al-nasr,

and

al-qadr.

They

also

recite al-f?tiha for the benefit of a deceased soul and upon visits to the shrine of a saint.
Uniquely in the Indian subcontinent, Qur'?nic s?ras are subdivided into 557 thematic
ruk?c (lit. bowing). They are so named because they signal themoment of the ruk?( within

the tar?wlh prayer performed nightly by Sunni Muslims

inRamadan; through the course
of themonth, the prayer leader recites the entire Qur'?n, dividing his recitation according
one ruk?( per tar?wlh rak(a.12 Muslims outside South Asia
to these markers?roughly,

10. "Indian Languages"

(retrieved July 15, 2003, from http://www.indianchild.com/indian_languages.htm).
11. Literacy among Indians in general is 75.3% male, 53.7% female (2003 estimate); Muslim
literacy rates are
lower, at 67.6% male, 50.1% female. Census of India 2001. Until the twentieth century, literacy rates were some
times as low as 10-20%
12. The only person to have written about thetaravw/i-related division of the ruk?f appears
of theQur'an"
(retrieved July 15, 2004, from http://ilaam.net/PDF/QuranOrg.pdf).

"Organization

to be M. Amir Ali,
Some of the fol

Qutbuddin:

Arabic

in India

319

generally follow purely length-oriented hizb divisions. The ruk?( are also important in the
communal Qur??n dawr (lit. cycle or turn) recitation held in several Indian Muslim com
munities, where each person present audibly recites in turna ruk?( of theQur??n while the
audience listens and follows along. Ruk?( divisions are marked only in theQur??n editions
published in India and Pakistan, and they are denoted by the last letter of theword, cayn.
(A major Indian-Pakistani QurD?n publishing house is the Taj Company, and the ruk?(
divisions may be observed in theirQur??ns.)
Arabic litanies (tasblh or wird, pi. awr?d) are frequently employed. These include
Qur??nic verses, such as in kullu nafsin lamm? calayh? h?fiz (Each soul has a protector),
wa-idh? maridtu fa-huwa yashfln (If I become ill, He is the one who cures me), and al?
bi-dh?kf l-l?h1 tatmayinnu l-qul?b (Indeed, it is by remembering God that hearts are com
forted). They also take the form of pious, non-Qur5?nic invocations, such as l? hawla wa
l? quwwat? ill? bi-l-lah* l-'aliyy* l-(azlm (There is no strengthor power save throughGod

Most High Most Mighty) and all?humma salli (al? muhammadin wa-(al? ?P muhammadin
wa-b?rik wa-sallim (O God, bless Muhammad and the progeny of Muhammad and give
[them] grace and well-being). Invocations of thenames of Sufi saints are also used as litanies,

such as y? (Abd al-Q?dir (O cAbd ?l-Q?dir!), and in the case of Shicite Muslims
(par
ticularly, but not exclusively), the names of the Five Pure Ones, such as y? Muhammad
and y? cAll (O cAli!). Other common litanies are shortArabic phrases in
(O Muhammad!)

praise or supplication of God, such as subh?na l-l?h (May God be praised!), al-hamdu li-l?h
(All thanks and praise are due to God!), or astaghfir" l-l?h (I ask God for forgiveness).
These phrases and verses are repeated over and over, often forty,or one hundred, or one

thousand times, or in another number having symbolic significance. Sometimes, a rosary

(also called tasblh, like the verbal noun) is used to count the number of recitations; at other
times, the fingers of the right hand are used;13 occasionally, no count ismade.

The liturgical recitation of Arabic prose prayers (du(?y) composed by medieval Middle
Eastern savants and later, Indian ones, is a common practice. Both tasblh and du(?\ although
theymay be recited at any time during the day or night, aremost often performed at specific

times: (i) following the sal?h, (ii) as part of a morning liturgical ritual, or (iii) just prior to
sleeping at night. Before, within, and after the prayer ritual, worshippers recite formulaic
Arabic phrases. These expressions differ somewhat according to the denomination of the
worshipper. Before the sal?h is theArabic call to prayer (adh?n and iq?ma) that contains
phrases mostly culled from the shah?da; its gist is somewhat comprehensible even to the lay
person. After the sal?h, Arabic du(?y and tasblh are recited. These are considered optional
and

have

a wide

range.

lowing details are from his article, and are supplemented by data gleaned in an interview I conducted in June 2004
with a Mumbai-based
Qur'?n reciter. In the tar?wlh, Indian Sunni Muslims
complete the recitation of the entire

in twenty-seven nights. I surmise this is so because they consider the 27th to be Laylat al-Qadr, an auspicious
night inwhich to complete the recitation of theQur'an, and also because Ramadan could theoretically end anytime
after the 27th, at the sighting of the new moon. For the final remaining nights after the 27th, they repeat the last few
s?ras. The tar?wlh has twenty rak(as\ 20 multiplied by 27 yields 540, and thismeans that if one rukuc is recited per
rak(a, just seventeen rukii's are left over of the total 557 rukii's, and these seventeen are added on at any point in

Qur'?n

the recitation. Since

the rukuc divisions

Some details about the rukuc divisions

are based on theme, itwould be difficult to get an exact 540 part division.
are also provided by Hashim Amir Ali, "The Qur'an in Secular India," Islam

and theModern

Age 63 (1975): 83-84.

13. Fingertips and knuckles, front and back, make
final recitation makes one hundred.

thirty-three counts; done thrice, this yields ninety-nine; one

320

Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 127.3 (2007)

Chanting of Arabic religious poetry is customary in private or public gatherings, and at

various times. Most often, this religious poetry is composed in praise of the Prophet

Muhammad?in

Arabic and other languages14?and

is called na(t (lit. description), sal?m
or
(lit. greeting of peace),
qaslda (lit. ode). The birthday of the Prophet on the twelfthday
a
of Rabf al-Awwal is favorite occasion for recitation of nact. Arabic panegyrics are also

composed and sung for the Shica Imams and the S?fi saints.Another kind of religious poetry
that is often composed inArabic and chanted is themun?j?t (Arabic "private dialogue"). In
the D?^?d? Bohra (Shicite Ismac?l? Tayyib?) community, mun?j?t poems are composed to
commune with God and are often recited in Ramadan. In the Twelver Shicite and Niz?ri

communities, they also include poems addressed in a plea for succor to the Imam.
Poetry mourning Husayn (marthiya) is usually recited in Indian languages, but Arabic elegies

Khoja
are

also

performed.

Sufi orders such as theNaqshbandis and Chishtis often use Arabic in their ritual remem
brance of God (dhikr),which contains, among other things, repetitious recitation of thenames
of God and of certain s?ras, especially those which begin with theword "Say!" (qui). S?fi
orders also use a great deal of Persian poetry in theirdhikr sessions. They sing it in concert

in the courtyards of S?fi shrines, such as themausoleum of Sal?m Chisht? inAjmer. The
ghazah and mathnawls of R?mi, H?fiz, and J?m?,are also popular, as well as thePersian and
Urdu poetry of Indian S?fi shaykhs, particularly Amir Khusraw, and others such as Hamid

al-D?n N?gawr?, Am?r Hasan, and Nur Qutb-i c?lam. The S?fi-oriented Indian qaww?ll
(similar to sam?( in Central Asia and Turkey) is a musical recitation of poetry, usually in
Urdu and Punjabi, but sometimes fully in Persian, or containing opening verses in Persian
and Arabic. Am?r Khusraw

is credited with the founding of the qaww?ll genre in the late

fourteenth
century. Its repertoire includes songs of hamd (praise of God),
thirteenth/early
nact (praise of Muhammad), manqabat (praise of CAH),marthiya (elegy on Husayn), and
ghazal (love poem with two simultaneous registers, secular and spiritual).
Thus, the use of Persian in Indian Muslim liturgy ismostly S?fi and poetic, versus that
of Arabic, which, although making use of the poetic tradition, as well as prose prayers and
pious

litanies,

is based

primarily

on Quranic

scripture.

II. TEACHING OF ARABIC AS A LANGUAGE OF RELIGION

The religious need of IndianMuslims to learnArabic gave rise over the centuries to a large
number of religious schools catering only toMuslim students, called maktab and madrasa.15
(The terms are somewhat fluid, theword madrasa sometimes being used to denote a maktab;
other terms used are hifz-kh?na for Qur^an memorization schools, and j?mica or dar al

(ul?m for higher education institutes. In premodern times, the termmadrasa was also used for

14. See Ali Asani,

Poetry in Islamic Asia

"In Praise of Muhammad:

in Urdu and Sindhi," in Qasida
Indigenizing theArabic Qasida
and Africa, ed. S. Sperl and C. Shackle (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 1: 351-61.
in India: A Study
15. Two comprehensive works on themadrasas of India are Kuldip Kaur, Madrasa
Education
inRural and Industrial Development,
its
Past and Present (Chandigarh: Centre forResearch
1990), and Ziyaud
of
Din Desai, Centres of Islamic Learning in India (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and

ofMadrasa
Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1978). An encyclopedia on the subject is K. C. Sharma, Encyclopedia
Education
in India (New Delhi: Vista International, 2007), 5 vols. T. Rahman, "The Teaching of Arabic," provides
a useful overview of the chronological development of Arabic teaching in India and Pakistan. Of themultitude of

Urdu books on the subject, particularly useful are Muhammad

Qamar Ish?q, Hindustan ke ahamm mad?ris (New
Delhi:
Institute of Objective
ki dlnl darsg?hen
Studies, 1996); Qamar al-Din, Hindustan
(New Delhi: Hamdard
Education Society, 1996).

Qutbuddin:

Arabic

in India

321

secular schools with bothMuslim and Hindu students.)Maktabs imparted primary learning,
focusing on Qur??n recitation and memorization of s?ras, and, by extension, a basic knowl

edge of theArabic language, particularly the script.They also taught Sharica precepts, par
ticularly those relating to the ritual prayer (sal?h), the ritual purification (wud?y), the two
calls to prayer (adh?n and iq?ma), and formulae recited within the ritual prayer. At more

advanced levels, they taught some Qur??n interpretation and prophetic Traditions (Hadith).
continue to flourish in India today, inmasjids or independent institutions,with the
inclusion inmodem times of a rudimentary secular component, comprising basic arithmetic
and elementary literacy in the local vernacular.16 In addition, todaymany Muslim children
who otherwise go to secular school or do not go to school at all also receive part-time re

Maktabs

ligious education at home by professional mullas/maulvis or parents, or at after-school part

timemaktabs. This home instruction is entirely focused on religion, theQur?an, and Arabic.
Madrasas have generally been formore advanced religious learning and Arabic has been

an important component of their curriculum. Many have "Arabic madrasa" as part of their
name, such as theMadrasa
cArabiyya J?mica Imd?d al-cUl?m in Zaydpur, and Madrasa
cArabiyyaDar al-Tacl?m inMuhallapura S?f?pur, both inUttar Pradesh.17 By the tenthcen
tury, the first ad hoc madrasas in India were established in Sind in the towns of Mansura

and Multan, and were associated with the local masjids. In the last decade of the twelfth
century, theTurk invaderMuhammad Gh?ri (d. 1206, founder of realMuslim dominion in
India) established formalmadrasas in the town of Ajmer inNorth India. Soon thereafter,his
successor's successor Sultan Iltutmish (d. 1236) established the firstmadrasa inDelhi and
one in Badaun, and in the following decades, madrasas sprang up all over northern India.

Then, over the next seven centuries of partial or fullMuslim rule, until the deposition of
the lastMughal emperor Bahadur Sh?h Zafar in 1857 by theBritish, madrasas proliferated
in all parts of India into the hundreds, either associated with, or independent of,masjids. In

the nineteenth century, the new colonial power promoted Western-style secular education,
particularly English, and theArabic language (and Persian) diminished in importance.Many
madrasas were adversely affected, but several new ones such as Deobandh and thenNadwa

(details later)were institutedby Islamic salafl revivalists deliberately to counter the colonial
approach and bolster traditional religious education. Paradoxically, most of the important
madrasas existing todaywere established during theBritish Raj. In these institutions, in the
words of a modern scholar, "Arabic, being the language of the original sources of Islam,
was to be themajor focus of study. Itwas, so to speak, not only a language but themajor
linguistic symbol of Islamic identity and Muslim resistance tomodernity."18
The curriculum followed in thesemadrasas through the centuries focused on Islam as a
subject and Arabic as a tool. Until the fifteenth century, the principal subjects of study in
madrasas were the religious sciences (inArabic) of Qur??n exegesis, Hadith, jurisprudence,
S?fism, theology, history, the related subjects of Arabic grammar and literature, and some
logic and philosophy, also inArabic. Approximately the same curriculum was followed all
over India. The course was based on Arabic textswith works from the classical (Middle

16. See Kaur, Madrasa

Education, 253.
17. See Ish?q, Hindustan ke ahamm mad?ris, 25 (S?f?pur), 41 (Zaydpur).
18. T. Rahman, "The Teaching of Arabic," 411. This issue is addressed

in detail in Barbara Daly Metcalf,

in British India: Deobandh,
1860-1900
(Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1982). See also re
and Literature in the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent," Iqbal
marks on this subject by S. M. Yusuf, "Arabic Language
16.1 (1967): 61-62; S. A. H. Abidi, "Arabic and Persian Studies," in Oriental Studies in India, ed. R. N. Dandekar
Islamic Revivalism

and V. Raghavan

(New Delhi:

International Congress

of Orientalists,

1964), 53.

322 Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 127.3 (2007)

canon being studied, such as Tafslr Ibn Kathlr, Zamakhshari's Kashsh?f Tafslr
al-Bayd?wl, al-Muwattay, al-Sahlhayn, al-Hid?yafl al-fur?(, Talkhls al-mift?h, (Aw?rifal
ma<?rif Fus?s al-hikam, Hid?yat al-nahw, Sharh miyat (?mil, and al-K?fiya. A few modi
fications to this curriculum were made in the fifteenth century,when a couple of medieval
Arabic science textswere added, and again in the eighteenth century by Sh?h Wall Allah
(d. 1760). Some years later,Mulla Niz?m al-Din (of Sihali near Lucknow, d. 1748) pro
Eastern)

posed a new Arabic curriculum, later to become famous as theDars-i Niz?mi.19 He con
firmed several Arabic religious and grammatical texts already in use, and, for the first time
in Indian madrasa history, added Arabic texts on jurisprudence, logic and philosophy com
posed by Indian savants, such as Mulla J?wan of Amethi (d. 1718), Mir Muhammad Z?hid
al-Haraw? (d. 1700), and Mulla Mahmud Jawnp?ri. This curriculum was adopted almost

immediately all over India and continues to be used to this day with some amendments, in
cluding the addition of non-religious subjects such as mathematics and English. In the late
eighteenth century, salafl madrasas purged the syllabus of S?fi texts (Arabic and Persian).
Shicitemadrasas follow differentcurricula with regard to religious texts,but usually the texts
used for the study of Arabic grammar and rhetoric, perhaps even some literature and phi
losophy, are the same as those prescribed by theDars-i Niz?mi.
The number of full-timeArabic madrasas in 1996 was 757.20 The best known madrasas
of India today are in the northern part of the country in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Deo

bandh in this state is the home of the famous madrasa

named Dar al-cUl?m21 (founded

1866), which has around two thousand students from India and other countries of South and
East Asia, a large library (133,070 printed books and 1,563 manuscripts), and focuses almost
completely on religious education.22 A modern Indian scholar calls it a "mother institution"
for IndianMuslim

educational centers.23Another well-known madrasa

in this state is theDar

al-cUl?m Nadwat

al^Ulam?524 inLucknow25 (founded 1893), with 1,500 students, seventy

a
and
strong research orientation. It focuses on religious learning, particularly
professors,
some secular sciences as well. Its focus is on subjects, as opposed to
but
includes
Arabic,

the text-based approach of other, traditionalmadrasas. Both the above are Sunni institutions,
the Deobandh

madrasa

strongly

in the same town of Lucknow,

N?zimiyya27

salafl

one.

Two

important

Twelver

Shicite

are also

madrasas

theMadrasat al-W?cizin26 (founded 1919) and the J?mica

In
Western
India, the leading Muslim educational institution
(founded 1890).

19. For details of theDars-i Niz?mi, see Qamar al-D?n, Hindustan ki dlnl darsg?hen, 345-52; Desai,
and Islamic Culture
of Islamic Learning, 14-15; and Francis Robinson, The cUlama of Farangi Mahall
Asia (Delhi: Orient Longman, 2001), 48-50, 248-51.
20. Qamar al-D?n, Hindustan ki dlnl darsg?hen, 70.
on the Deobandh madrasa
isMetcalf,
important monograph
curriculum inKaur, Madrasa
121-24.
Education,
an institution devoted
22. Asaf Fyzee calls the Deobandh madrasa

21. An

Islamic Revivalism.

See

Centres
in South

the Deobandh

Arabic

"Islamic

Studies

in India," Melanges

Louis Massignon
57.

(Damascus:

23. Kaur, Madrasa

Education,
Ibid., 63-65. An international conference on Arabie

to "pure religious learning." A. Fyzee,

Institut fran?ais de Damas,
1957), 2: 204.

literaturewas held at theNadwa in 1981 ; its proceedings

were published as al-Adab al-Isl?mi: fikratuh? wa minh?juh?, ed. Abu al-Hasan cAl? al-Hasan? al-Nadw? (Lucknow:
al-Am?na al-D?Hma li-Nadwat al-Adab al-Isl?mi al-c?lamiya,
1981).
25. See F. U. Farooqi, Lucknow: A Centre of Arabie and Islamic Studies during theNineteenth Century (New
Delhi: Fal?h-e-D?rayn
Trust, 1999).
24.

26. Kaur, Madrasa

27. Ibid., 61.

Education,

67-68.

Qutbuddin:

Arabic

in India

323

is in Surat, the J?mica Safiyya28 (founded 1813) of the D?5?di Bohra Tayyibi Shica de
nomination, with 149 professors and 717 students (440 men, 277 women) from India and
outside India in 2006, and a large library. In Central India, the foremostmadrasa is theDar

al-cUl?m T?j al-Mas?jid29 (founded 1948) in Bhopal. South India, especially the states of
Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh, also contain several importantmadrasas.
The method of teaching Arabic in thesemadrasas is grammar-centered and text-oriented.
The focus is on reading and understanding classical Arabic texts. Speaking skills are not

emphasized, but stylized prose writing skills (insh?*) are given some attention. Generally,
modem proficiency-based techniques are not used, although there is a slow move towards
theirutilization. Rote memorization is favored over analysis.

The British colonial government in India de-emphasized religious madrasa education; they
focused on the creation of institutions of secular learning which they claimed would make
theworld's academic and scientific progress accessible to theMuslims of India. Arabic in
these institutionswas

initially somewhat marginalized

modified
curriculum. The change
method
and
teaching
reformers
rather than directly by
Muslim
modemist
by
Muslim universities (which were open to non-Muslim

and "orientalized," both in terms of

of direction was often administered

theBritish. Thus, threemodem-style

students) came into being: Aligarh
institution of secular learning, was founded in 1875

Muslim University,30 the firstMuslim

inAligarh, Uttar Pradesh, by the reformist Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan; it attained the status of
a university in 1921, and currentlyhas two full departments of Islamic Studies, viz., Arabic
studies and theology. The JamiaMillia Islamiyya31 has a more clearly Islamic bent, and aims

secular education simultaneously with religious education. Itwas founded in

1920 inAligarh, and moved toDelhi in 1925. The JamiaOsmania University32 inHyderabad,
Andhra Pradesh, was established in 1917 by theNiz?m of Hyderabad; ithas a department
of Islamic studies inwhich Arabic is taught, and where research in Islamic studies (mostly
is encouraged. The issues related to the teaching of Arabic in these univer
Arabic-based)
sities and in other institutions in India have been the subject of several conferences and
monographs.33 Furthermore, theArabic language is offered as an academic subject in a few
to offermodem

28. See on the Jamica Sayfiyya Tahera Qutbuddin, "The D?D?d? Bohra Tayyib?s: Ideology, Literature, Education
and Social Practice," in A Modern History of the Ismailis, ed. Farhad Daftary (forthcoming, J.B. Tauris, 2008). See
also Kaur, Madrasa
Education, 53-54.
29. See Kaur, Madrasa
Education, 71-72.
in India at the Crossroads: The Case of Aligarh," Pacific
30. Cf. Theodore P. Wright, Jr., "Muslim Education
Affairs 39.1/2 (1966): 50-63. An attempt to use modern teaching methods inArabic teaching can be observed in
An Introduction to Selected Teaching Materials
inEnglish
M. R. K. Nadwi and A. Ashfaq, Arabic Language:
(Including Audio-Visual Media)
(Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim Univ. Press, 1993). A textbook forArabic literature at
(Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim
Aligarh University isAnon., al-Muntakhab min al-shicr al-'arabl al-qadlm wa-al-hadlth
Univ. Press, 1990), an anthology with thirty-eight poets, classical and modern, biographies and poetry, including
poetry by seven Indian poets, mostly from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
inKaur, Madrasa
Education, 77-78.
University in ibid., 128-30.
33. See Mash?kil
taH?m al-lugha al-carabiyyafl al-ma(?hid al-hindiyya mac al-tarklz al-shadid (al? al-man?hij
ed. Muc?n al-D?n al-Aczam?, also titled Proceedings
wa-al-nuzum wa-al-ahd?f,
of the Seminar on theProblems of
31. See

theArabic

curriculum of the Jamia Millia

32. See

theArabic

curriculum of the Jamia Osmania

Islamiyya

Teaching Arabic in Indian Institutions with a Focus on Systems, Aims and Methods
(Hyderabad Deccan: Central
Institute of English and Foreign Languages,
1982); Us?l wa-turuq tadris al-lugha al-(arabiyya fi mukhtalifal
mustaway?t, ed. M. al-Aczam?, also titled Proceedings
of the all India Seminar/Workshop on the Principles and
Methods
guages,

of Teaching Arabic at Various Levels

Sali, A Diagnostic
1985); Muhammad

(Hyderabad Deccan: Central Institute of English and Foreign Lan

Study of theDifficulties of Pupils in the Learning of Arabic in the

324

Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 1113 (2007)

universities.34 This phenomenon is less significant from a sacred lan

of
view, but it is interesting to note that the students who leam Arabic in these
guage point
universities are most often heritage students who do so for religious reasons.
Let us take a quick, comparative look at the teaching of Persian in India. Increasingly from
non-denominational

the thirteenthcentury,Persian was taught inmaktabs and madrasas as well as Sufi kh?nq?hs
(lodges).35 Madrasa pupils studied thePersian literaryclassics, such as Sacdi's Gulist?n and

B?st?n, H?fiz's Dlw?n, J?mi's Y?sufwa Zulaykha, and R?mi's Mathnawl. They also read
ethical texts such as Nas?r al-D?n T?si's Akhl?q-i N?sirl, and historical works such as Abu
al-Fadl's Akbar-n?ma, as well as treatises on theology,medicine, tales, prosody, and rhetoric.

Epistolography was a key Persian language subject. At thepreliminary and secondary stages,
the study of Persian preponderated, and, in fact, themedium of instruction inmany madrasas
was Persian.36 From the time of Sikandar Lodi in the fifteenth/sixteenthcentury, the intro

duction of non-religious themes into the syllabi atmiddle levels had stimulated a wide appli
cation toPersian studies. Large numbers of Hindus joined madrasas to acquire training in the
Persian language and literature,with the intention of pursuing civil service careers.37 Sufi
kh?nq?hs also played a critical role in popularizing thePersian language.38 Devotees studied
Persian to be able to read S?fi texts, particularly the teachings of the S?fi masters called
malf?z?t. Some kh?nq?hs served almost as full fledged madrasas. There was provision for

teaching not only Persian and Arabic S?fi texts, but also texts in both languages on Hadith,
Qur??n exegesis, jurisprudence, logic, and grammar.39
In thenineteenth century,after the end of theMughal period, the study of Persian in Indian
madrasas declined rapidly.When English replaced Persian as the official administration lan
guage, the career incentives for studying the latterdisappeared. Madrasas which had earlier

combined religious and civil service trainingnow functionedmainly as religious institutions.

In contrast, the demand forArabic continued to be strong among IndianMuslims for spiritual
reasons. In a 1996 study of religious schools in India, the number of Persian madrasas in

India is listed as 12, compared to the 757 Arabic madrasas mentioned earlier. In a side com
parison, this study lists 264 Urdu madrasas and 2,275 Sanskrit pathsh?las.40 A glance at

Secondary Schools of Kerala, Ph.D. thesis (Kerala Univ., 1984); Ahmed Kutty, "Development of Arabic Education
inKerala. A Survey," Journal of Kerala Studies 56.9 (1984): 77-91.
34. Forty-one Indian universities out of a present total of around 194 offer Arabic at B.A., M.A.,
and Ph.D.
levels; students are normally permitted to register for an Arabic course, provided they can find an outside professor
to tutor them. See S. A. Rahman, "Arabic in India: Retrospects and Prospects," Muslim and Arab Perspectives
national Islamic Magazine
3 (1996): 157. See also theArabic curricula of these universities inKaur, Madrasa
cation, 124-26.
35. See the list of Persian
listed in Kaur, Madrasa

texts studied inAwrangz?b's

time from a 1688 work titledKhul?sat al-maktab
111-12. A list of themost common Persian texts studied inmadrasas

Education,
Mughal period is provided inAlam,
Learning, 16.

"The Culture and Politics

of Persian,"

163. See also Desai,

Inter
Edu
(MS),
in the

Centres of Islamic

36. Desai, Centres of Islamic Learning, 11; Kaur, Madrasa

112.
Education,
37. Alam, "The Culture and Politics of Persian," 162-63. Hindus might even have taught Arabic and Persian.
cAbd al-Q?dir Bada50n? (b. 1540) mentions an Arabic and Persian teacher of this period he calls by theHindu caste

name "Brahman"; Muntakhab

2: 323.

al-taw?rikh,

ed. Ahmad

cAli and Nassau

38. See Alam, "The Culture and Politics of Persian,"

39. Kaur, Madrasa
10.
Education,
40. Qamar

al-D?n, Hindustan

ki dlnl darsg?ben,

70-71.

147-48.

Lees

(Calcutta: Bibliotheca

India, 1869),

Qutbuddin:

Arabic

in India

325

some State Board madrasa curricula, as well as theCentral Waqf Board madrasa curriculum,
reveals the focus of the course to be on Arabic-related material in the fields of scripture
(and scripture-related), grammar, and belles-lettres; Persian texts on grammar, belles-lettres,
and poetry form a small, often optional part of the syllabus.41
III. ARABIC

ISLAMIC NOMENCLATURE

Side by side with names of Persian or Indian origin, Muslims in India and converts to
Islam often adopt Arabic personal names.42 In the vast majority of cases, these Arabic
names have a religious association: they are often names of important religious personages
such asMuhammad (orAhmad), CAH,and F?tima, or names having some religious context,
such as Tasn?rn (name of a river in Paradise). Other names such as Anjum (stars) or Rafiq
(companion) are not connected with religion. Parallel to the adoption of the name Maria

by women in Spain, many Indian Muslim males who are not named by one of the Prophet
Muhammad's names commonly adopt Muhammad as theirfirstname and another, relatively
less common one such as Hasan or Hal?m, as their second. They are usually called by both
names together (viz. Muhammad Hasan) or by the second name only.

Compound names are common, usually in an idafa construct, often with a "servant of"
first term, frequentlywith one of the names of God as the second part: cAbdull?h (servant
of Allah, male), Amatull?h (servant of Allah, female). Probably due to the fact thatmost
Indian Muslims do not understand Arabic grammar and vocabulary well, they sometimes
as Rahman (theMerciful) and Jabb?r (the
inadvertently adopt the names of God?such

a "servant of" prefix. In other compound names, the second term

Most Powerful)?without
name
is often the
of the Prophet Muhammad or one of his family, such as Ghul?m Ras?l
(servant of theMessenger), Banda-i-cAli (servant of CAH), or cAbd al-Husayn (servant of
Husayn). As seen in these examples, the terms for "servant" are either inArabic ("(abd" and
"ama") or in other languages such as Persian ("ghul?m" and, less commonly, "banda"),
with the result that there are several compound names formed from two languages. Some
times the first part is an active participle, such as Dh?kir-Husayn (one who remembers

Husayn, pronounced Z?kir-Husayn), or a verbal noun such as Fadl-al-Rahm?n (grace of the

Merciful, pronounced Fazlur-Rahman).
Also prevalent are pseudo-Arabic names that contain two Arabic words in a construct
formwhose semantic sense is unclear. The following are a few examples: Abu al-Kal?m,
the name of an Indian Muslim freedom fighter,meaning "Father of Speech"; Islam al-D?n,
the name of a man fromBihar, meaning "The Islam of religion"; Sami Allah, the name of
a man fromUttar Pradesh, meaning "God's namesake," or, if actually "Samic Allah" with an
(ayn, "The One Who Hears Allah."
In contrast, Persian first names are more often associated in India with the Pars! com
munity, Zoroastrians who migrated from Persia in the eighth century. They often select
names of ancient heroes such as Rustam and Jamshid from the Sh?hn?ma tradition, and of

the curricula of the Central Wakf Board and the State Boards of West Bengal and Bihar in Kaur,
Education, 355-98.
and often Arabic. Trade and place names are not distinctively
42. Given names are almost always Muslim,
and often, though not always, carry the relative adjectival suffix "w?/?" (lit., "belonging to"), such as
Muslim,
K?nchw?la
(glass trader), and Ujjainw?l?
(family originally from Ujjain).
41.

Madrasa

See

326

Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 127.3 (2007)

characters such as Shirin (sweet one) from poetic love mythology. They also use descrip
tive names with a literary substratum, such as Dilnaw?z
(gracious one) andMehr? (moon
faced one). Indian Muslims take some Persian names such as Shirin, but do not adopt the
names of the Persian kings.
Titles in India have frequently been inArabic. More prevalent than the few secular ones

as N?sir al-Dawla
(one who aids the state) and
adopted by kings and ministers?such
titles of religious significance. The Arabic word
Malik al-Sharq (king of the east)?are
"din" (religion) has been and continues to be used as a favorite second term of the com
pound title. It is also quite common in personal names, usually as a namesake of an earlier
savant. Religious titles include titles of kings and ministers, but mainly comprise ones con
ferred on Muslim

savants: Nizam al-D?n (order of religion), Far?d al-D?n (unique in re

al-D?n
Ghiy?th
(refuge of religion), Sayf al-D?n (sword of religion), Burh?n al-D?n
ligion),
of
and
Qutb al-D?n (pivot of religion).
(proof
religion),
In contrast, Persian titles of Indian rulers are usually related to sovereignty, such as

c?lamgir (conqueror of theuniverse), Jah?ngir (conqueror of theworld), Jah?npan?h (succor

of theworld), Sh?h Jah?n (king of theworld), Awrangz?b (ornament of the throne),Bahadur
Sh?h (brave king), and Thurayy? J?h (one with the lofty station of the Pleiades). Mughal
emperors often had both "something of din (religion)" titles inArabic and ones related to

kingship in Persian. Titles denoting nobility are often also in Persian, such as M?rza (prince,
noble), B?g (lord, prince), and B?gum (lady).
Thus, comparing Arabic and Persian nomenclature in India, Arabic names and titles are
most often related to religion and are from the religious tradition,whereas Persian ones are
more often kingly or literary.
IV. ARABIC

INSCRIPTIONS OF RELIGIOUS

SIGNIFICANCE:

QUR^?N VERSES AND OTHER

Indian Muslim
verses?on

masjids,

rulers utilized Arabic

mausoleums,

madrasas,

to inscribe religious texts?particularly

coins,

forts, palaces,

and

regal

Qur??n

paraphernalia.43

The common people also used Arabic for epitaphs, as well as for dedications and ornamen
tation on various religious buildings. Much of thismaterial has been catalogued.44

is provided by Burton-Page, "Kit?b?t (i) inscriptions (10) India," Ef.

Some catalogues of theArabic and Persian inscriptions of India are Qeyamuddin Ahmad, Corpus of Arabic
and Persian Inscriptions of Bihar (A.H 640-1200)
Institute, 1973); Ziyaud-Din
(Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research
List of Arabic, Persian and Urdu Inscriptions of South India (New Delhi: Sundeep Pra
Desai, A Topographical
43. An overview
44.

kashan, 1989); Abdul Karim, Corpus of the Arabic and Persian Inscriptions of Bengal (Dhaka: Asiatic Society of
1992); Subhash Parihar, "Arabic and Persian Inscriptions from Sirhind," Islamic Studies 38.2 (1999):
Bangladesh,
255-63; Asoke Kumar Bhattacharya, Cultural, Historical, and Political Aspects of Perso-Arabic Epigraphy in India
(Calcutta: Firma KLM Pvt. Ltd., 1999); idem, Arabic, Persian and Urdu Inscriptions ofWest India: A Topographical
List (New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 1999); Syed Abdur Rahim, Arabic, Persian and Urdu Inscriptions of Central
India: A Topographical List (New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 2000). Coin catalogues include R. B. Whitehead,
ed.,
Catalogue
of Coins in thePanjab Museum, vol. 2: Coins of theMughal Emperors (Lahore: Clarendon Press, 1914);
ed., Catalogue
of the Coins in the Indian Museum Calcutta, vol. 2: The Sultans of Delhi, Contem
in India (New Delhi: Indological Book Corporation,
porary Dynasties
1972); idem, ed., Catalogue
of the Coins in
the Indian Museum Calcutta, vol. 3: Mughal Emperors of India (Lahore: Clarendon Press, 1972); John Allan, ed.,
Catalogue
of the Coins in the Indian Museum Calcutta, vol. 4: Coins ofAwadh, Mysore, Bombay, R?jput?na and

Nelson Wright,

Central

India

(Lahore: Clarendon

Press,

1976).

Qutbuddin:

Arabic

in India

327

The earliest Arabic inscription in India is from the eighth century in a masjid inKovalam
(South India).45 The few earlyMuslim inscriptionswere solely inArabic. From the thirteenth
century, with the establishment of Persianate Muslim power in North India, Muslim in
scriptions,with Qur5?n verses and the like, began to proliferate. Other thanPersian mystical
poetry, the religious content continued to be inscribed inArabic, while secular components
such as names and dates were mostly replaced by Persian (and later,Urdu). In the twenty

communities continue to employ Arabic religious inscriptions.46

The thousands of monuments built byMuslims throughout India are lavishly adorned by
religious Arabic inscriptions, particularly Qur5?nic verses. These monuments include theTaj
Mahal at Agra (built 1630-1652) where the s?ra of Y?sln is inscribed, and themausoleum
first century,Muslim

Bohra D?ci Sayyidn? T?hir Sayf al-D?n, theRawdat T?hira inMumbai (built
1965), the only place in theworld where the entireQur??n is inscribed on marble in letters
of gold. Dedication plaques of masjids, mausoleums, madrasas, forts, and palaces usually
contain a verse or two from theQur5?n, often in elaborate tughra calligraphy. Plaques on re
ligious buildings are often entirely inArabic. Persian masjid dedications are also present, and
they typically contain the name of the builder and the date of construction. Fully secular

of theD?'?di

inscriptions are located on cannon guns, noting such things as the date of their
manufacture, and their capacity.
Arabic inscriptions on epitaphs and coins are also mostly religious. Epitaphs on mauso
leums and graves are regularly in Persian, Urdu, or another vernacular, but, as a rule, they
Persian

contain some Arabic religious texts, especially Qur'?n verses. Some of the religious content
of epitaphs is in Persian, particularly lines of S?fi poetry. Coins struck byMuslim rulers
often have a similarly dual, secular Persian and religious Arabic, component, The year and
denomination are often inPersian, whereas the Islamic creed of faith, the kalimat al-shah?da,
is in Arabic, as are optative phrases of prayer following the name of the ruler, such as
"khallad? all?hu sult?na mulkih1" (May God preserve the power of His kingdom forever).
V. ARABIC RELIGIOUS

VOCABULARY

INCORPORATED AND

INTERJECTED INTO INDIAN LANGUAGES

Much of theArabic vocabulary that has been incorporated into Indian languages over
the centuries has to do with religion, moral values, and issues discussed extensively in
theQur'?n.47 Heaviest absorption appears to be into languages used to a great extent by
Muslims, in particular Urdu. The following sample Arabic terms have been simultaneously
assimilated into four Indian languages, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, and Marathi: din (religion),
hajj (the Hajj pilgrimage), h?jjl (one who has made the hajj pilgrimage), Im?n (belief),
jannat (heaven), jahannam (hell), haqlqat (reality), haqq (right), hikmat (wisdom), duny?

Malik Dinar"
45. The text reads: "Ism?cil?109
[727]?b.
(in three lines). See M. Abdullah Chaghatai,
Tils?nin 1:51.
"Khatt (iv) InMuslim
India," El2, fromMajalla
46. Since Independence, the government of India appears to have deliberately de-emphasized
the Islamic Indian
as the Red Fort inDelhi?are
falling into decay due
heritage; several monuments with Arabic inscriptions?such
to inadequate maintenance.
47. Arabic words incorporated intoMarathi

are listed inMuhammad Ajmal Khan, "al-Kalim?t al-carabiyya wa

fi
13.1 (1962): 88-95; he has
4:
pt.
"al-lugha al-mar?thiyya," Thaqafatu'l-Hind
al-farisiyya
al-lugh?t al-hindiyya,"
I have been unable to locate?listing
the incorporation of Arabic into
earlier published similar articles?which
other Indian languages.

328

Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 127.3 (2007)

ris?la (message), sal?m (greeting), shayt?n (sat?n), sadaqa (alms), zulm

cad?lat
(justice), ghusl ([ritual] bath),fas?d (corruption), qabr (grave), qalam
(oppression),
mawt
(pen), kafan (shroud), ladhdhat (pleasure), m?tam (mourning), maq?m (station),
wa(da
(death), waf?> (loyalty), w?jib (mandatory),
(promise), yaqln (certainty).48
Persian religious vocabulary of non-Arabic origin has also been incorporated into Indian
a large number of
languages (such as r?za, fasting, and nam?z, ritual prayer) as well as
(this world),

secular Persian words (such as deh?t, villages, and gul, rose). Moreover, because all official
correspondence inMughal timeswas in Persian, people learned the polite forms of address
and phrases used in that language, and soon these Persian forms,whether in the original or

translated, came to be used in Punjabi, Gujarati, and other regional languages.49

Persian was so predominant that the integration of Arabic into Indian languages took
place primarily through itsmediation?thus Arabic vocabulary thathad earlier been absorbed
into Persian came into Indian languages as Arabo-Persian words. Evidence of Persian as a

assimilation is found in the fact that the Arabic vocabulary absorbed

into Indian languages sometimes has a modified lexical meaning not existing in the original
Arabic, but present in theArabo-Persian word (e.g., mak?n, meaning "house" rather than
"place," fursat, meaning "leisure time" rather than "opportunity"). Some scholars believe this
mediation to be absolute.50 The extra step in the transition, however, does not change the
vehicle for Arabic

fact that theArabic vocabulary incorporated intoUrdu or other Indian languages is heavily

religion-oriented.
Religious Arabic phrases are habitually interjected intoUrdu (and other Indian-language)
as al-hamdu Wll?h (praise
speech. These phrases usually contain an "Allah" component, such
m?
to
all?h
sh?y
be to God), shukr*"Wll?h (thanks be
(what [wonders] God has
God),
willed!), insh?* all?h (ifGod wills), and faz?k? 'll?h (may God reward you!). Additionally,
the introductoryparts ofMuslim speeches and sermons are often inArabic and may be brief,
one-sentence openings or longer,multi-paragraph ones. These typically contain the name and
praise of God (basmala and hamdala), and benedictions on the Prophet (tasliya); Qur??n
and Hadith quotations are used heavily in religious communications, both written and oral,
such

as

religion

classes

and

the Friday

sermon.

Many Arabic words which have more general meanings inMiddle Eastern Arabic take
on a religious connotation in India. Sahlfa, which can mean several things inArabic, in
cluding a leaf in a notebook, a page, a newspaper, or a prayer book, signifies here the last
sense only. Ziy?rat, which means visit, connotes here a visit to the shrine of a saint.Majlis,
which means sittingor assembly, indicates here a religious assembly. Other words of general
meaning, in both Arabic and Indian languages, can denote a religious meaning in the latter.
contrast to its dictionary meaning of the genre
An example is theword qasida, which?in
of monorhymed, monometered ode, whose themes include love, wine, and praise of political
patrons?is often used in India to denote a religious poem inArabic, particularly praise of
the prophet or Imams. (It also denotes a secular praise poem in Persian, Hindi-Urdu, and
Sindi.) Similarly, theword kit?b, which means any book, often represents here a religious
book, picking up on the designation of the Qur??n as The Book or Kit?b. In many cases,

the assimilation,
frequently accompanies
pronunciation
two consecutive consonants, or with doubled consonants (in Gujarati:
161.
49. Kaur, Madrasa
Education,
48. A modified

between

50. Versteegh, The Arabic Language,

237.

often with the addition of vowels

?
?
akkal; cumr
umar).
(aql

Qutbuddin:

Arabic

329

in India

Arabic words are automatically considered sacred by virtue of theirbeing Arabic. Particularly
for those who have not studied the language in depth?which constitutes themajority of
Arabic word or phrase is sacred, or, at the very least, belongs in the
Indian Muslims?any
incorporating Arabic (and Persian) words and phrases
sphere of the sacred. Moreover,
into Indian-language speech is considered by Muslims a mark of refinement and religious
learning.

VI. COMPOSITION

OF RELIGIOUS WORKS

IN ARABIC AND OF WORKS

IN INDIAN LANGUAGES BASED ON ARABIC RELIGIOUS

TEXTS

A glance at the contents of relevant bibliographies demonstrates that a large percentage

of the Islamic works composed in India are inArabic. Conversely, and more germane to the
topic, it also demonstrates that themajority of Arabic books in India have been composed
on subjects of religious import.51Approximately eighty-five percent of theArabic books of
India listed by Brockelmann,52 for example, are on the subjects of Qur5?n and Hadith studies,
jurisprudence, S?fism, theology, and the lives of saints,while only 15 percent are books on
these too are sus
secular subjects?philology, philosophy, belles-lettres, and medicine?and
tained by the Islamic ethos (as will be explained in section VII). In The Contribution of

Indo-Pakistan toArabic Literature, Zubaid Ahmad lists 360 Arabic books by Indian scholars
in the religious sciences (jurisprudence 87, theology 75, S?fism 74, Qur'?n 55, Hadith 45,
history and hagiography 24), and 217 in secular fields imbued with the Islamic heritage

(philology 99, philosophy 56, belles-lettres 22, medicine 22, and mathematics 18). The
Arabic-Islamic works take the form of original religious books, commentaries on classical
religious texts (usually on Qur??n and Hadith, and commonly in the form of glosses and
superglosses), and religious poetry. Some are by Arab immigrants, but themajority is by
scholars of Indian ethnicity, some of whom trained inMecca or Baghdad, andmany of whom
were Sufis. Also abundant are Indian-language commentaries on, and translations of, clas
sical Arabic religious texts.

51. Studies and bibliographies of Arabic Islamic literature in India include Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der
Literatur (GAL), Suppl. II (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1938), 309-12, 598-628, 849-64; S. Sabahuddin, "List
ofWorks on Hadith compiled in India inArabic, Persian or Urdu before 1857," Islamic Culture 20 (1946): 208-12;

Arabischen

1955); M. G.
Ishaq, India's Contribution to the Study of Hadith Literature (Dhaka: Univ. of Dacca,
to Arabic Literature (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad
Zubaid Ahmad, The Contribution of Indo-Pakistan
Ashraf, 1946/
1968); Annemarie Schimmel, Islamic Literatures of India, vol. 7, fase. 5 in series A History of Indian Literature,
ed. Jan Gonda (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz,
1973), 1-8, 48-52; Ismail K. Poonawala, Bibliography oflsmaili

Muhammad

(Malibu, Calif.: Undena Publications, 1977); Shahabuddin Ansari, "Islam and Islamic Studies: An Annual
14.4 (1983): 299-372;
15.4 (1984):
Bibliography of Articles," Islam and theModern Age 13.4 (1982): 252-303;
17.1/2 (1986): 33-131; Mohammed Haroon, Islamic Literature: Indian Contribution (New Delhi: Indian
209-300;

Literature

Bureau,
1996); Ali Asani, "India," in Encyclopedia
Bibliographies
P. Starkey (London: Routledge,
1998), 1: 395-96; S. A. Siddiqui,
Studies," The Muslim World League Journal 30 (2002): 34-39.

and
of Arabic Literature, ed. Julie Meisami
to Islamic
"Contributions of Indian Muslims

studies of the same include Jamil Ahmad, Harakat

al-taHlfbi al-lugha al-carabiyya fl al-iqllm al-shim?ll

Wiz?rat al-Thaq?fa, 1977); Shabb?r Ahmad
cashar
(Damascus:
al-hind?f? al-qarnayn
Q?dir?bi, cArabl zab?n o abad (ahd-i mughliyya min (Lucknow: Niz?mi Press, 1982); Athar Sh?r, (Arab? F?rs? awr
cul?m isl?miyya m?n Bih?r k? hissa (Patna: Id?ra-e Tahq?q-e cArab? o F?rs?, 1983); Zubayr Shams Tabriz Khan,
Urdu

al-th?min

(Arab? adab m?n Hindustan

Ahmad
Dar

al-F?r?qi, Mus?hamat

al-F?r?qi, 1990).
52. Brockelmann,

(ashar wa al-t?si(

k? hissa

(ahd-i saltanat-i Dihll

dar al-cul?m bi-Deobandf\

GAL, Suppl. 2, 309-12,

598-628,

men 1206

al-adab
849-64.

t? 1526

al-(arabi

(Lucknow: Niz?mi
hatt? c?m 1400H/1980CE

Press,

1989);
(New Delhi:

330

Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 127.3 (2007)

The best-known Indian Qur??n commentaries inArabic include the two volume Tafslr
al-rahm?n wa-tayslr al-mann?n (popularly known as Tafslr-i rahm?nl) by a scholar of Arab
Naw?'it descent, cAl?5al-D?n Mah?'imi
(d. 1431), and a four-volume commentary thatuses
undotted
Arabic
letters
only
following the Indian penchant for stylized Haririan Arabic
al-ilh?m
titled
Saw?tiy
writing,
by the court poet of theMughal emperor Akbar, Faydi
Several
d.
Arabic glosses on the Tafslr al-jal?layn were also com
(later Fayyad?,
1595).

posed.53 Qur'an commentaries in other languages include the sixteen-volume Urdu work
(d. 1979), and the firstPersian
Tafhlm al-Qur'?n of the reformistAbu al-cAl?5Mawd?di
commentary in India, al-Bahr al-maww?j of Q?d? Shih?b al-D?n Dawlat?b?di
(d. 1445).
Translations of the Qur??n include the Urdu Tarjam?n al-Qur'?n by the freedom fighter

Ab?l Kal?m ?z?d

(d. 1958),54 and the earlier Persian translation of Sh?h Wali All?h, con
sidered by thewell-known scholar ofMuslim South Asia, Annemarie Schimmel, to be one
of the best Qur'?n translations into Persian. Compilations of Hadith are also numerous.
Among themost important are a Hanafi tractwhich has attracted over a thousand commen
taries55 titledMash?riq al-anw?r by Hasan al-Sagh?ni of Lahore, and an encyclopedic col
lection of Hadith arranged according to subject that is still one of themost widely read

Hadith works in India titledKanz al-(umm?lfl sunan al-aqw?l wa-al-af(?l by the prolific
author cAl?al-Muttaq? (d. 1568) of Burhanpur. Additionally, several glosses were composed
on the Sahlhayn of Bukh?ri andMuslim and onMalik's Muwatta'.56
Among thebest-known
on
works
is
the
multi-authored
work
Hanafi
law
commissioned
fiqh
by theMughal emperor
Awrangz?b (r. 1754-1760), al-Fat?w? c?lamglriyya.51 The Tahqlq ar?dl al-hind by Shaykh
Jal?l Th?nesari deals with fiqh questions (on property and such) specific to India. Several
other works inArabic on the principles (us?l) and specifics (fur?() of jurisprudence were
also composed. In theology, an importantwork is theHujjat All?h al-b?ligha of Sh?h Wali

S?fi masters also composed theirKhil?fat-n?mahs in Arabic. Some Persian S?fi

works were translated intoArabic: Jacfaral-S?diq al-cAydar?s translated thework Saflnat
al-awliy?> of theMughal prince D?r? Shik?h (d. 1659), under the title Tuhfat al-asfiy?\
Of theArabic poetry thatwas composed in India,58 a large proportion was in praise
of the Prophet Muhammad and his family. The prolific poet and author Ghul?m cAli?z?d
Bilgram? (d. 1785) of Aurangabad in the south was given the honorific "Hass?n-i Hind"
(theHassan of India) in recognition of his lyrical panegyrics on theProphet in the tradition
of the Prophet's poet Hassan b. Th?bit, including a famous l?miyya.59 Several poets of the
Qutbsh?hi Twelver Shicite Deccan kingdom of Golconda in South India expended a large

All?h.

proportion of their literary energies in praising cAli b. Abi T?lib and the Shica Imams; the

53. E.g., Sal?mullah Dehlvi, al-Kam?layn h?shiyat al-jal?layn; Tur?b cAli, al-Hil?layn
54. Ab?l Kal?m ?z?d, Tarjum?n al-Qury?n, 3 vols. (Lahore, 1931-1936).
55. Schimmel, Islamic Literatures of India, 3.

h?shiyat al-jal?layn.

56. Cf. Siddiqui, "Contributions of Indian Muslims

to Islamic Studies," 38.
57. Compiled c. 1760 to 1828 by a group of scholars led by Shaykh Niz?m.
58. A comprehensive study of Arabic poetry in India is Ahmad Idr?s, al-Adab

shibh al-q?rra al
al-(arab?fi
hindiyya hatt? aw?'il al-qarn al-Hshrln (Cairo: cAyn lil-Dir?s?t wa-al-Buh?th
1998).
al-Ins?niyya wa-aHjtim?ciyya,
Other studies include M. A. Muid Khan, The Arabian Poets ofGolconda
(Bombay: Univ. of Bombay Press, 1963);
M. A. K. Masumi,
"Nazra cal? singara' al-carabiyya f? al-hind," Thaqafatu'l-Hind
17 (1966): 91-114; Muhammad
Yousuf

in Carnatic
1710-1960
Kokan, Arabic and Persian
(Madras: Hafiza House,
1974); Muhammad
F?r?q
Bukh?ri, Kashmir men carabl shicr o adab (Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, 1993).
59. Diwan
Cf. Masumi,
"Nazra cal? shucar?5 al-carabiyya f? al-hind,"
(MS), Asafiyyah library, Hyderabad.
98-112.

Qutbuddin:

Arabic

331

in India

poet Sayyid cAli b. Macs?m (d. 1705), whose family immigrated to theQutbsh?hi
kingdom, composed panegyrics onMuhammad and CAH.60InWestern India, several of the
religious leaders of theD?'?di Bohra Tayyibi community, especially theD?cis cAbd cAli Sayf
al-D?n (d. 1817) and T?hir Sayf al-D?n (d. 1965),61 were notable poets, and composed poetry
the Imams, and theD?cis, elegies forHusayn, and
in praise of the Prophet Muhammad,
called
in
communion
with
God
mun?j?t. A poem by T?hir Sayf al-D?n titled "The
poetry
of
the
intellect"
(falsafat al-'aql) is an eloquent exposition of the rational human
philosophy

Hij?zi

being's need for divine guidance.

A large number of libraries62 in India house Arabic

(and Persian) works by Indian and

Eastern scholars, including thousands of manuscripts, some very valuable. Some
libraries are affiliatedwith madrasas and universities, or with shrines of saints (darg?h), and
others are independent, public or private. Some of themost important inNorth India are the

Middle

Rampur Raza Library in Rampur (6,000 Arabic mss), Mawl?n? ?z?d Library, Aligarh
Muslim University, Aligarh (c. 12,000 Persian and Arabic mss), and Kutubkh?na-i N?siriyya
(Twelver Shicite), Lucknow (c. 30,000 Persian and Arabic mss). Eminent libraries inWestern
India are theRajasthan Oriental Research Institute,Tonk, J?mica Sayfiyya Library (D?'?di
Bohra), Surat, Hadrat Pir Muhammad Sh?h Darg?h Library, Ahmedabad, and inMumbai,
the J?micMasjid Library, theLibrary of Bombay University, and theTayyibi D?5?di Bohra
Dacwat library. In Eastern India, important libraries include the Khud? Bakhsh Oriental

Public Library,63 Patna, the Library of theAsiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, and the
Oriental Public Library,64 Bankipore. In South India, three inHyderabad are notable: the
S?l?r JungMuseum Library (Twelver Shicite), the State Central Library, and theKutubkh?na
i-Sac?diyya.Many smaller libraries also exist, and some that existed through the centuries
of Muslim rule in India have been dismantled or absorbed into other institutions.65
Several publishing houses take a special interest in publishing editions of Arabic and

Persian texts.66 The foremost such publisher is theD?5irat al-Mac?rif al-cUthm?niyya,

(founded 1888). Institutions that sponsor publishing houses include the
Hyderabad-Deccan
Institute of Islamic Studies, Muslim University Aligarh, Osmania University, Hyderabad;
Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras,67 Government of Bihar Institute of
Post-Graduate Studies and Research inArabic and Persian, Patna; a few are associated with
madrasas, such as theDar al-Musannifin (also called Shibli Academy), Azamgarh (founded
1915). Presses of theUniversity of Lucknow, University of Delhi, and Madras University
also publish studies on Arabic works. Two well-known English-language academic journals

121-22.
60. Khan, The Arabian Poets ofGolconda,
61. Sayyidn? T?hir Sayf al-D?n, Diwan: Jaw?hir al-bal?gha

1414H [1993]).

al-ladunniyya,

2 vols. (Dubai: Anjuman-i Najmi,

62. For details about most of the existing libraries named here in the text, see Desai,

ing, 95-125.
63. See Catalogue of theArabic and Persian Manuscripts
(Patna: The Library, 1970ff.).
64. See Catalogue
of the Arabic and Persian Manuscripts
(Patna: Superintendent, Govt. Print., Bihar, 1908ff.).

Centres of Islamic Learn

in theKhuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, 37 vols.

in theOriental Public Library at Bankipore,

34 vols.

"Libraries during theMuslim Rule in India," pt. 1, Islamic Culture 19.4 (1945):
pt. 2, Islamic Culture 20.1 (1946): 3-20.
66. For details, see Abidi, "Arabic and Persian Studies."
67. See A. Zaibunnisa,
ed., A Descriptive Catalogue
pt. 2: "Arabic manuscripts"
of the Islamic Manuscripts,
(Madras: Government Oriental Manuscript Series, 1995), 10-52.
65.

329-47;

See S. A. Zafar Nadvi,

332

Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 127.3 (2007)

related to Islamic

studies are published

in India: Islamic Culture6* and the Journal of

Islamic History.69
Original Islamic compositions in Persian are mostly in the S?fi domain. The "malf?z?t?
utterances of S?fi masters (shaykhs) recorded by their disciples, comprise a new genre of
Persian mystical literature.70Although some compilations of S?fi utterances had been made
earlier in other lands, Hasan Sijzi of Delhi gave the genre a definite literary form. His
Faw?'id al-fu'?d, a summary of what he had heard from his master, Niz?m al-D?n Awliy?\
inspired masters of many differentmystical orders, and a considerable body of malf?z?t
literature appeared throughout India. Persian S?fi poetry was also composed by Indians,
including S?fi savants andMughal courtiers; some of these have been listed in the section on

liturgy.A smaller (in volume) oral genre, not specifically S?fi, was thatof sermons (tadhklr)
delivered in good Persian prose, studded with classical poetry, in the courts of kings as well
as in army camps and bazaars. The fable (d?st?n) was also a spiritual,moral genre inPersian.
Additionally, some Hindu spiritualworks were translated into both Arabic and Persian, such

as theHathagoya, a work on bodily and spiritual discipline.

Comparing Arabic and Persian Islamic writing in India, Persian works comprised com
mentaries and translations of Arabic texts, and a copious body of poetic and malf?z?t S?fi
texts; religious composition was one of themany parts of the Indian Persian library.Arabic
works, on the other hand, comprised all the above genres, but also contained works on
Hadith, jurisprudence, and theology, as well as religious poetry of a non-Sufi bent. Religious
composition formed the larger part of the Indian Arabic
VIL SECULAR-SCHOLARLY

USAGES

library.

INFLUENCED BY RELIGION

Secular-scholarly and secular-literary uses of Arabic in India that are manifested in the
production and study of non-religious Arabic works are also underpinned by a religious
motivation. The proto-Wahh?bi Damascene theologian Ibn Taymiyya had remarked that "the
Arabic language is not just the communicative medium of Islam; it is also an expression of
the rational, ethical and belief systemswhich Islam embodies."71 In theperception of Indian
Muslims, since Arabic is the sacred language of theQur??n, anything composed inArabic
is religious, and therefore part of religious learning. Accordingly, non-religious Arabic
learning in India also stems from its religious essence. Arabic scholarship is equated with
Islamic scholarship, and experts in theArabic language are often the same scholars consid
ered authorities in religion. As such, both the language and its scholars are regarded with
veneration, and theArabic literaryheritage is deemed to be the Islamic literaryheritage.72

68. Islamic Culture, Hyderabad Deccan,

quarterly, 1927ff.; first published by the Nizam's
government; from
from 1997, published by theAcademic and Cul
1948, published by the Islamic Culture Board, Hyderabad, Deccan;
tural Publications Charitable Trust, Hyderabad; currently edited by Shahid Ali Abbasi; articles inEnglish on Islamic
cultural issues, including topics related to Arabic language and literature, by scholars from India and worldwide.
Includes

some editions and translations of texts.

69. Journal of Islamic History, Delhi, publication of the Institute of Islamic and Arab Studies, Society of Islamic
History, 1995ff.; papers in English and Arabic on Islamic history, from early Islam tomodern times; articles by
contributors from India and outside India, particularly from scholars affiliated with universities in theMiddle East.
the Persian mal?z?t
literature of India, see K. A. Niz?mi, "Malfuz?t," EP; idem, "Historical Significance
India (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal,
Literature," in his On History and Historians
ofMedieval
1988), 163-97; Ziyauddin Desai, Malfuz Literature as a Source of Political, Social, and Cultural History of Gujarat
and Rajasthan
in 15th Century (Patna: Khuda Bakhsh Library, 1991).
70. On

of theMalfuz

71.

Ibn Taymiyya,

72.

See

quoted in al-Jundi, al-Fush?

lughat al-Qur}?n, 256.
the editorial detailing this aspect in the first issue of the journal Islamic Culture.

Qutbuddin:

Arabic

333

in India

Indian litterateurs explicitly connect their secular Arabic literary efforts to Islam. In his
study of Arabic belles-lettres in India, Ahmad Idris explains that since Arabic scholarship
developed around Islamic studies, authors presented theirwork as a service for religion, con
necting the subject of thebook with religion in one way or another.73He quotes the following
(somewhat convoluted) remarks by the poet Ahmad al-Ras?lp?ri in the introduction to his
poetic Dlw?n,

explaining thathis (secular) poetry is a religious effort:

It is not concealed thatthe science of Arabic is among the sciences of the Islamic religion,just
as it is not concealed thatfromthe earliest times, theMuslims of India expended effortin the
path of studyingtheArabic language and publishing literarydata.Why ever not,when between
Islam

and knowledge

knowledge

of religion

of

the Arabic

and Sharica

there is a relationship
language
cannot do without.74

any person

who

wishes

it is the religious scholars in India who have produced the (relatively much
of
smaller) body
non-religious Arabic literature,presumably as part of their religious effort.
the
centuries, and in addition to their religious compositions, theyhave continued
Through
to compose Arabic literaryworks that are not overtly influenced by religion: elegies, pane
Moreover,

gyrics, and love lyrics (ghazals) in the field of poetry,75 and quasi-picaresque novels called
maq?m?t in the field of prose, such as al-Maq?m?t al-hindiyya by Abu Bakr b. Muhsin
(d. 1715)76 and al-Man?qib al-haydariyya (maq?m?t) by Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Sh?w?n?.
They have composed innumerable works inArabic on other subjects, such as medicine,77

philosophy, and grammar.78

Indian Muslims also consider the study of all texts Arabic to be a religious exercise.
Madrasa students pay particular attention to the study of Arabic grammar and rhetoric as

these are vital in deciphering the Islamic scriptures and theological texts. They also read
poetry and bellettrist prose, as this promotes understanding of the literary features of the
Qur??n and its "miraculous" nature. They particularly favor the collected Dlw?n of al
Mutanabbi and theHam?sa anthology of Abu Tamm?m, and oftenmemorize many or all of
theMaq?m?t of al-Harir?. They have also translatedArabic secular works such as theKallla
wa Dimna into Indian languages, and also intoPersian, and written studies on earlier Arabic
belles-lettres in different Indian languages, particularly Urdu.79 They continue to study
Arabic works on various secular subjects such as philosophy, logic, medicine, mathematics,
and history, considering these to be important for promoting religious understanding, being
part of the Islamic ethos. In his monograph on Indian madrasas, Ziyauddin Desai discusses
the religious orientation of the curriculum, the subjects studied, and the role of Arabic, as
follows:
Idris, al-Adab

73.

al-(arabifl

shibh al-q?rra

al-hindiyya,

15-16.

74.

Ibid., 1,my translation.

75. See examples of such poetry in Idris, al-Adab al-carabifl shibh al-q?rra al-hindiyya.
inR. Y. Ebeid and M. J.L. Young, "Arabic Literature in India: Two
76. See translations of two Indian maq?mas
of Abu Bakr al-Hadram?," Studies in Islam 15.1 (1978): 14-20.
Maq?m?t
77. See, for example, anon., Unpublished Arabic and Persian Books on Graeco-Arab Medicine written in India
and Medical Research,
from 634/1236 to the end of 19th Century (New Delhi: Institute of History of Medicine
in the Libraries of
[1969]); M. Azeez Pasha, ed., Union Catalogue
of Arabic and Persian Medical Manuscripts
1966).
Hyderabad
(Hyderabad, Deccan: Osmania Medical College,
78. For example, Q?di Shih?b al-D?n Dawlat?bi
(d. 1249) Kafiya;
(d. 1445) wrote a commentary on Ibn H?jib's
he also composed al-Irsh?dfl al-nahw, which later became a standard grammar book in Indian madrasas.

studies by Indian scholars on Middle Eastern Arabic literature are cAliAhmad Rifcat, Arabl
al-R?bic al-Hasan? al-Nadw?, al-Adab al-carabi bayna card
Urdu Academy,
1962); Muhammad
(Lucknow: Maktabat Dar al-cUl?m li-Nadwat al-cUlam?5, 1965); Ihtish?m Ahmad Nadw?, Jad?d <arab?
wa-naqd
adab ka irtiq?> (Rai Breli District: Masud-ul-Hasan,
1969).
79.

adab

Some Urdu

(Bhadalpur:

334
By

Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 127.3 (2007)

the very

position?the

nature

of

Quran

the curriculum

being

considered

in which
the source

sciences
religious
and fountain-head

the prominent
occupied
of Islamic
learning?

Arabic not only formedone of the importantsubjectsof studybut in thehigherclasses even the
prescribed

on non-religious

text books

sciences

were

in Arabic.

Thus, most

of the text books

in

Quranic Commentary,Tradition,Theology and IslamicLaw (Fiqh) as well as on Logic (Mantiq),

Philosophy and similar subjectswere inArabic. This emphasis necessitated theaccent tobe laid
on the study of Arabic Grammar
and Syntax.
a place;
selected
books
nevertheless,

nent

The Arabic

belles-lettres

on Arabic

literature

did not occupy

were

taught

that promi

as part

of

the

course.80

Furthermore, theArabo-Persian nastaHlq or (less commonly) naskh script is used towrite

various Indian languages.81 Sometimes it is adopted by the entire language user group, as in
the case of Urdu, Kashmiri (Purik), Pashto, and Sindhi, and at other times by particular user
groups, as in the case of Gujarati (Lis?n al-Dacwat), Tamil (Arwi), Malayalam
(Mappila),

Punjabi, Konkani, and Sanskrit, the latter for a short time in the nineteenth century. This
usage has a religious association as well, being confined for themost part toMuslims?in
the case of Urdu to a large extent, and in the case of languages like Tamil and Gujarati almost

exclusively.
The production of Persian non-religious work in India, literary and otherwise, was an
enormous enterprise. Some of the genres thatproliferated were works on history, philology,
and lexicography (sixty-six dictionaries produced between the tenth and nineteenth cen
turies). Persian poetry (panegyric or qaslda, and love poetry or ghazal) was a particularly

important part of the cultural landscape, and therewere no booksellers inAgra, Delhi, and
Lahore inMughal timeswho did not sell anthologies and collections of Persian poetry.With
its expanding territory,Persian writing was gradually Indianized. Much has been written
about the sabk-i hindl (Indian Style) of Persian literature,but the discussion has centered on
rhetorical issues to the exclusion of religious ones. In the lateMughal period, literary salons
formed an integral part of Indian culture. Comparing Persian and Arabic non-religious com

position in India, the composition and study of secular Arabic works appear to be limited
(relative to the explicitly religious), and linked to religious ends, whereas the composition
and study of Persian works appear to stemmostly from cultural motives.
VIII. MARGINAL NATURE OF NON-RELIGIOUS,
PURELY UTILITARIAN USAGES OF ARABIC
There do exist in India a small number of purely secular, utilitarian usages of Arabic, but
these are so limited in application thatwe can consider themmarginal.
For a brief period from the eighth century forward,Arabic was the spoken language of
a small Arab migrant community called the Naw?'it or Naityas (from the Arabic n?tl,

80. Desai,

Centres of Islamic Learning, 11.

81. For details on the use of theArabic script towrite Indian languages, see Suniti Kumar Chatterji, "Sanskrit in
Perso-Arabic Script: A Side-Light on theMedieval Pronunciation of Sanskrit inKashmir and Northern India," Indian
Linguistics 1 (1939): 317-40; N. S. Gorekar, "Indian Vernaculars in theArabico-Persian
Script," Indica 2.1 (1965):
as Mimicry," Islamic Studies
35-46; M. M. M. Mahroof, "Arabic-Tamil in South India and Sri Lanka: Language
"The Progress of Hindi," pt. 1: "The Development
of a Transregional
32.1 (1993):
169-89; Stuart McGregor,
Idiom," in Literary Cultures inHistory: Reconstructions from South Asia, ed. Sheldon Pollock (Berkeley and Los
Angeles:

Univ. of California

Press, 2003),

chap.

16.

Qutbuddin:

Arabic

335

in India

meaning mariner).82 They settled on the southwesternMalabar or Konkani coast of India in

the areas which today fall south ofMumbai, in the state ofMaharashtra, northernKarnataka,
and Goa. These Arab settlers soon became culturally and linguistically assimilated into the
fabric of Indian society without really influencing the use of Arabic in India. For many
generations, they have spoken Daldi, which is a sub-dialect of Konkani, which, in turn, is

a dialect of Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language; they are not more familiar with Arabic than
their neighbors of Aryan and Dravidian descent. The Mappillas of Kerala went the same
route, now speaking Malayalam, as well as theHappais or Labbais of Tamil Nadu, who now
speak Tamil.
From the late twentieth century, another small group gained an interest in learning basic

Arabic for communication purposes, viz., Indians (bothMuslim and non-Muslim) who work
in theArabian Gulf countries.83 Connected to theGulf States phenomenon, another some
what curious usage of Arabic in India is thepublication since 1957 of a non-religious Arabic

journal, Thaq?fatu'1-Hind (Indian Culture), by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations
(incidentally, from 1968, theCouncil has had a Hindu President). The purpose of the journal
is political and economic, to address the growing financial interestof India in theArab Gulf
States through the promotion of cultural understanding. The cover page of the journal states
that"the objects of the Indian Council, as laid down in its constitution, are to establish, revive

and strengthen cultural relations between India and other countries by means of (1) pro
moting a wider knowledge and appreciation of their language, literature and art; (2) estab
lishing close contacts between the universities and cultural institutions; and (3) adopting all
othermeasures to promote cultural relations." Thaq?fatu'1-Hind publishes articles on such
diverse topics as Indian Muslim history, Shakespeare, Gandhi, Nasser, and theHindu scrip
tures. It has also published several articles on relations between India and theArab world.84
Almost all its articles have been translated by its editors intoArabic from other languages
such as English or Urdu.
In comparison with themarginal use of secular Arabic, non-religious, non-scholarly
usages of Persian were strong from the thirteenthcentury.As early as the fourteenth cen

tury,Amir Khusraw remarked thatPersian speech and idiom enjoyed uniformity of register
throughout the four thousandparasangs of India.85 Particularly during the reign of the em
peror Akbar, and until the end of Mughal rule (thus from the sixteenth through the nine
teenth centuries), Persian flourished inmundane and intellectual, cultural and bureaucratic,
milieus almost throughout the entire subcontinent. As the officially sponsored language of
theMughal court and its administration, Persian was a second language for a large percentage
of Indians living inMughal

India, Hindu and Muslim

82. See details on these groups in Nawab Aziz Jang Bahadur,

1902/1976); M. M. Alwaye, "al-Mar?kiz al-?l?li'1-thaq?fa

alike.

T?r?kh al-Naw?Ht

(Hyderabad, Deccan:

Villa

15.4
al-carabiyyaf? al-hind," Thaqafatu'l-Hind
(1964): 55-64; R. E. Miller, "Mappilla," El2; M. Mines, "Labbai," El; I. Poonawala,
"Naityas," El2; G. Bouchon,
s.)," Pur?
(XII-XVIe
aspects de l'islamisation des r?gions maritimes de l'Inde ? l'?poque m?di?vale
"Quelques
s?rtha 9 (1986): 29-36; Mohammad
Koya, "Muslims of Malabar with Special Reference to theirDistinctive Char

Academy,

acter" (Ph.D. thesis, Calicut Univ., 1988); Wink, Al-Hind, 1: 67-86.

83. Cf. T Rahman, "The Teaching of Arabic," 158-61.
84. Some of these articles, all published in Thaqafatu 'l-Hind, are: Humayun Kabir, "al-cAl?q?t al-hindiyya al
Ahmad, "Bim?-dh? tadin al-hind li'l-carab?" 18.2 (1967): 18-26; Tara
carabiyya," 19.2 (1968): 57-61; Maqbool
Chand, "al-cAl?q?t al-hindiyya al-carabiyya qawiyya mundhu fajr al-isl?m," 14.4 (1963): 1-11; Yahy? al-Khashsh?b,
al-carab? wa-al-hind,"
15.4 (1964): 48-54.
a special
85. Am?r Khusraw, "Dib?cha-i
ghurrat al-kam?l," in Khusraw-n?ma,
f?rs?, ed. Sharif Husayn Q?simi (Delhi: Dept. of Persian, Delhi Univ., 1988), 173.
"al-c?lam

issue of Majalla-i

tahqiq?t-i

336

Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 127.3 (2007)

ARABIC AND PERSIAN USAGES
Usage

Arabic

1. Liturgy

recitation.

Qur^an

and

Fields

Theology.

and madrasas)

Niz?mi,

(names

and

titles)

Prose

Invocations.

prayers.

S?fi poetry: Ghazah.

Qawwalh.

S?fi dhikr

of study: Qur^an
exegesis.
S?fi texts. Curriculum:

Study (maktabs
3. Nomenclature

Persian

Litanies.

poetry.

Religious
2. Teaching

IN INDIA COMPARED

Hadith.
Dars-i

Fields of study:S?fi texts.

Poetry. History.

Ethics.

Used byMuslims only.Usually have

Used

and Muslims.

association.
religious
Names:
Religiously

Names:

18th c. ff.

early

important

personages.

Quranic.
Titles:

Often

in the form ".

.. of
religion

by Parsis

Association.

Literary

Titles: Usually linked to

sovereignty.

(dlnT
4. Inscriptions

secular:

Usually

Islamic creed of faith (shah?da).

Some S?fi poetry.

etc.)

epitaphs,

Much

5. Vocabulary
(assimilated

into

languages)

(and

religious

some

words

secular)

incorporated.

Religious Arabic phrases interjectedinto

everyday
speech and formal prose.
Some Arabic words with general dictionary
have
meanings
connotations.
Mark

6. Composition
of
religious works

special,

of refinement

Assimilation

largely

Theology.

1. Study and
composition
of
secular-scholar

incorporated.
Mark
of refinement

Hadith.
Exegesis.
Poetry. Commentaries

Fields

of study and composition:

Grammar.
Belles-Lettres.
Given

Malf?z?t. S?fi poetry.

Translations

on

theological
commentaries

Philosophy.
religious

History.

religious

in 8th, 9th c. on Malabar

coast.

Migrant workers toGulf States in 20th c.

language

to interest

in study of Arabic
of communication.

as a

scripture
and

thereupon.

Philology.
Grammar.
cultural,

Poetry.
some

complexion.

From 16thc. to 1835, official

language
stration,

of Mughal
admini
thus most of Indian

subcontinent.
culture,
almost

PrimarilyReligious

works,

of study and composition:

Lexicography.
Given mostly

First language for tinygroups of Arab

leading

of Arabic

and

Fields

complexion.

settlers

and

learning.

learning.
through Persian.

works

8. Utilitarian

secular words

and

85% of all Arabic composition religious.

Fields:

and

Religious

religious

Jurisprudence.
texts. S?fi works.
religious

Overall

dates,

etc.

provenance,

coins,

masjids,

Indian

verses.

Qur'an

(monuments,

of high
Language
spoken and studied by
all educated
elite.

Primarily Cultural/
Bureaucratic,

Secondarily

Religious (Sufi)

Qutbuddin:

Arabic

CONCLUDING

in India

337

REMARKS

The Mughal scholar Jamal al-D?n Inj? (d. c. 1686) had placed Persian alongside Arabic
as the language of Islam.86 However, unlike the case of Arabic with itsbroad, multiple, but
almost solely religious usages, the religious significance of Persian in India was mainly

confined to the sphere of S?fi writings and rituals. Moreover, its limited Islamic identitywas
by its use as the language of high culture and government administration.

overshadowed

The dichotomy in the Indian usage of Persian and Arabic along the lines of religion vs. cul
ture/bureaucracybecomes even clearer when it is known thatmany Mughal litterateurswho
composed in both Arabic and Persian used Arabic for religious writings and Persian for
secular ones. An example isAkbar's court poet Faydi, who wrote his Qur??n commentary

inArabic, as mentioned earlier, and his love-epic Nal-Daman

in Persian. What ismore, the
cultural hegemony of Persian ended definitively with the end of theMughal Empire in the
nineteenth century, a milestone year in its decline being 1835, when theBritish replaced it
with English in public administration.
The religious S?fi use of Persian in India had earlier suffered a blow in the lateMughal
period itself,with the reformulation of S?fism.87 Akbar's (r. 1556-1605) syncretic religious
policies had evoked an orthodox reaction, represented by theologians like cAbd al-Haqq
Dihlawi (d. 1642), who reintroduced in India an emphasis on the study of Hadith; and

Naqshbandiyya Sufis like Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1624), who brought Indian S?fism
close to non-Sufi Sunni Islam. The conflict of eclectic and orthodox trendsofMughal culture
is to some extent reflected in the essentially personal trial of strengthbetween D?r? Shik?h
and Awrangz?b, resulting in the latter's victory and the establishment of a theocratic regime.

The Awrangz?bian de-emphasizing of S?fi Islam was furtherbolstered when, from the
late eighteenth century onward, parts of the IndianMuslim populace came under the growing
influence of Arabian Wahhab? salafl thought. Indian scholars such as Sayyid Ahmad Bar?lw?

(1786-1831) and Sh?h Wal? All?h traveled to theHij?z for theHajj, studied there for a while,
and returned bearing this influence.88 The salafls emphasized a return to "pure" (Qur??n
and Hadith-oriented, Arabic) Islam, and rejected what they perceived as impure accretions.
Among these professed heresies were practices connected with S?fism. Since S?fi scholar

ship and ritual in India were linked with Persian literature,certain IndianMuslim reformers,
even while using Persian in their own writings, began discouraging the study of Persian as
something alien to Islam. They contrasted itnegatively with Arabic, which they venerated
as the language of the Islamic scripture.At the end of his novel Tawbatun Nas?h (A Tme

Repentance), the Urdu writer Nazir Ahmad (d. 1912) had his protagonist repent of his
worldly ways, this repentance being manifested in his burning of all his Persian books. But
thebest example is perhaps thatof the influential early eighteenth-century intellectual Sh?h
Wali All?h, who, afterhis fourteen-month trip toArabia, shiftedhis scholarly focus squarely
to (Arabic) Hadith. Even though a S?fi master himself, he appears to have become puristic
in this second stage of his life, and he was the inspiration for the formation of the salafl

86. Farhang-i Jah?nglrl, ed. Rah?m cAf?f?(Mashhad: Mashhad Univ. Press, 1975), 1: 16.
87. Cf. some details inAziz Ahmad, "Hind: Islamic Culture," Ef.
b. cAbd al-Wahh?b of Najd,
lived from 1703-1791.
The
88. The founder of this movement, Muhammad
became the dominant religious and political force in the Arabian Peninsula around 1746, when the
Wahh?bis
family of Sac?d combined their political force with Wahhab?
teachings. In 1773, the Principality of Riyadh fell to
as the strongest religio
the Sac0d family, and ushered in the era of the first Saudi state, establishing Wahh?bism
political force in theArabic Peninsula. For details, see Ayman al-Yassini, "Wahh?b?yah," in The Oxford Encyclo
pedia of theModern Islamic World, ed. John Esposito (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995), 4: 307-8.

338

Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 127.3 (2007)

school (his son's students were among its founders).89 In his Luminous Essay
(al-Maq?la al-wadiyya), he writes the following strongwords:90

Deobandh

for us, are sources of pride, because

lineage and the Arabic
language?both,
they bring us
... Thanks
to
to the best of prophets and apostles
be
rendered
God
for
this
may
great favor
were
not
customs
and
traditions
of
the
first
who
the
the
Arabs,
[forefathers of the
by
abandoning

Arab

closer

Prophet]_
Among

us

[Indians],

he

is fortunate who

cultivates

an association

with

the Arabic

language,

who obtains an understandingof theHadith

[its]morphology, syntax,and works of literature;
and
error

the Qur5an.
As
for Persian
...
the
[At
very least], one

and
should

Indian
realize

works...
them is error upon
language
reading
that what they contain is worldly knowledge....

The difference in the relative perceptions of Arabic and Persian in the nineteenth cen
tury?the first through the lens of scriptural religion, the second through the combined lens
of S?fi Islam andMughal high culture/administration?is themain reason why, after the end
of theMughal period, Persian almost disappeared in South Asia,
guage of learning, while Arabic maintained its position.

89. Paradoxically, Sh?h Wall Allah was

the secular reformists.
90.

Sh?h Wall

Muhammad

Allah,

The work?ironically?is
of theModern

Encyclopedia

also the inspiration for the founding of Aligarh Muslim

lan

University

by

was?y? arabca, ed.

al-wadiyya fi al-nasiha wa al-wasiyya," inMajmifa-ye
(Hyderabad Sind: Sh?h Wall Allah Academy, 1964), 51, 53; Urdu translation, 81, 83-84.
in Persian. On his life and works, see Marcia Hermansen, "Wall Allah, Sh?h," in Oxford

"Al-Maq?la

Ayy?b Q?diri

even as a classical

Islamic World, 4: 311-12.