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 OUR INDIAN MUSALMANS :

ARE THEY BOUND IN CONSCIENCE TO

REBEL AGAINST THE QUEEN ?

W. W. HUNTER .
600018529V
T
 WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

THE ANNALS OF RURAL BENGAL .

VOL. I.-THE ETHNICAL FRONTIER.
FOURTH EDITION.
' One ofthe most important as well as most interesting works which the records of
Indian literature can show. .. Yellow-stained volumes from each District Treasury
in Bengal, family archives from the stores of Rajas, local information collected by
Pandits specially employed for the purpose, folk-lore supplied by the laborious in-
quisition of native gentlemen, manuscripts in London, Calcutta, and Bengal, have
all been laid under contribution ; and, as the initial result, we have the first volume
of what promises to be a delightful and valuable history.'-Westminster Review.
' If Mr. Hunter does not ultimately compel recognition from the world as a histo-
rian of the very first class -of the class to which not a score of Englishmen have
ever belonged- we entirely mistake our trade. . · He has executed, with admir-
able industry and rare power of expression, a task which, so far as we know, has
never yet been attempted : he has given life and reality and interest to the internal
history of an Indian Province under British rule-to a history that is without battles,
or sieges, or martial deeds of any sort.'-Spectator.
' It is hard to over-estimate the importance of a work whose author succeeds in
fascinating us with a subject so generally regarded as unattractive, and who, on
questions of grave importance to the future destiny of India, gives the results of
wide research and exceptional opportunities of personal study, in a bright, lucid,
forcible narrative, rising on occasion to eloquence.”—Times.
' Mr. Hunter, in a word, has applied the philosophic method of writing history
to a new field. The grace, and ease, and steady flow of the writing almost
make us forget, when reading, the surpassing severity and value of the author's
labours.'-Fortnightly Review.
' Mr. Hunter has written a book which gives promise of a historian scarcely infe-
rior in scholarship, intellectual power, and literary skill to Mr. Froude or Mr. Free-
man.'-British Quarterly Review.
' A work of the greatest talent, and one which will make an epoch in Indian liter-
ature. The facts are set forth with the scrupulous exactness of an honest and im-
partial judge, the scientific details are clothed in a dress at once clear and picturesque ;
and it is not too much to compare Mr. Hunter, as a writer, to Lord Macaulay. '
-Revue Bibliographique Universelle.

A DICTIONARY OF THE NON- ARYAN LANGUAGES

OF INDIA AND HIGH ASIA :
BEING A GLOSSARY OF 139 LANGUAGES BASED UPON THE
HODGSON PAPERS, OFFICIAL RECORDS, AND MSS.
WITH A DISSERTATION.

(The Author withdraws some of the Linguistic Inductions. )

' We trust that this book will be the starting-point in a new era for our Indian
empire, and that the course recommended in it will immediately engage the atten-
tion of our Indian statesmen.'-Athenæum .
'A prodigious work -the conception of which was courageous, the execution
laborious in the extreme.'-Saturday Review.
The primitive Non-Aryan population of India has seldom been the subject of
European research. The ignorance of their habits and views inevitably brings forth
mistakes in dealing with them, and the Editor traces their chronic hostility to the
British power in a large measure to this source. He discloses the means for putting
an end to this unhappy state of things, and for utilizing the tribes as soldiers and
reclaimers of the soil. Besides this very practical aim, Mr. Hunter's Dictionary
will bring the important ethnological questions, which he has propounded in his
Dissertation, nearer to a definite solution.'-Literarisches Centralblatt.
A
 WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR- continued.

A DISSERTATION,

POLITICAL AND LINGUISTIC,

ON THE

NON - ARYAN RACES OF INDIA :

TAKEN FROM THE NON - ARYAN DICTIONARY.'

(The Author withdraws some of the Inductions in the Linguistic Part, but not one
word in the Political.)
' Mr. Hunter has prefixed to the body of his work a Dissertation which it is within
our competence to appreciate, and which we unhesitatingly pronounce to contain one
of the most important generalizations from a series of apparently isolated facts ever
contributed to Indian history. . . . It is between these [ Non- Ayran ] masses and the
British Government that Mr. Hunter hopes by his book to establish a lasting link ;
and whatever the result of his linguistic labours, in this one labour of mercy he has,
we believe, succeeded. Non-Aryans will not again be shot down on the faith of state-
ments from Hindu settlers, who first seize their lands, and then bind them down,
under the Indian law of debt, into a serfdom little removed from slavery.'-Spectator.
The political value of Mr. Hunter's new book is this, that he has put before the
public, official and non-official, such a view of the character and capacities of the
Non-Aryan tribes, and of our gross mismanagement of them in the past, that no
one, whether the Government or the Christian Church, will dare to withhold from
them the civilisation which will convert at least twelve millions of frank, truthful,
industrious races, into the most loyal of our subjects, aggressive for good, and check-
ing such evil as Hinduism and Muhammadanism so plentifully bring forth.'-Friend
ofIndia.
' It is a singular good fortune for the aboriginal tribes of India to have drifted into
the favour of so brilliant a writer and so accomplished a scholar. Their connection
with Mr. Hunter was one of those accidents in history which are the mother of great
events.'-Hindu Patriot.

THE UNCERTAINTIES OF INDIAN FINANCE .

PAMPHLET. - CALCUTTA 1869.

SEVEN YEARS OF INDIAN LEGISLATION.

PAMPHLET. - CALCUTTA 1870.

IN THE PRESS.

ORISSA ;

OR,
THE VICISSITUDES OF AN INDIAN PROVINCE UNDER

NATIVE AND ENGLISH RULE .

BEING VOL. II. OF THE ANNALS OF RURAL BENGAL.'

‫ ނ‬Y
 THE

INDIAN MUSALMANS :

ARE THEY BOUND IN CONSCIENCE TO

REBEL AGAINST THE QUEEN ?

BY

W. W. HUNTER, LL.D.

OF HER MAJESTY'S BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE ;

ONE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL, HONORARY FELLOW OF

THE ETHNOL. SOC. LONDON, and oF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF
NETHERLANDS INDIA AT THE HAGUE, ETC.

D
BO L
M I NA
S
DOM

LONDON :

TRÜBNER AND COMPANY.

1871.

226. i. 235.
 MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH,
PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.
 DEDICATION.

SIMLA, 23d June 1871 .

MY DEAR HODGSON,

I DEDICATE this little book to you in

acknowledgment of the benefit which I have derived from

your labours. You, of all the scholars whom our Service

has produced, have most fully recognised the duty of

studying the people . The greatest wrong that the English

can do to their Asiatic subjects is not to understand

them . The chronic peril which environs the British

Power in India is the gap between the Rulers and the

Ruled . In these pages I have tried to bring out in clear

relief the past history and present requirements of a

persistently belligerent class-of a class whom successive

Governments have declared to be a source of permanent

danger to the Indian Empire.

I am,

Yours sincerely,

W. W. HUNTER.

BRIAN HOUGHTON HODGSON, Esq.,

Alderney Grange, Gloucestershire .
15
 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE REBEL CAMP ON OUR FRONTIER, 9

CHAPTER II.

THE CHRONIC CONSPIRACY WITHIN OUR TERRITORY, 44

CHAPTER III.
THE DECISIONS OF THE MUHAMMADAN LAW DOCTORS, 106

CHAPTER IV.
THE WRONGS OF THE MUSALMANS UNDER BRITISH RULE, 143

APPENDIX .

I. DECISION OF THE MECCA LAW DOCTORS, 213

II. DECISION OF THE LAW DOCTORS OF NORTHERN INDIA, . 214

III. DECISION OF THE CALCUTTA MUHAMMADAN SOCIETY, • 215

 THE INDIAN MUSALMANS .

CHAPTER I.

THE REBEL CAMP ON OUR FRONTIER.

THE Bengal Muhammadans are again in a strange

state. For years a Rebel Colony has threatened
our Frontier ; from time to time sending forth fanatic
swarms, who have attacked our camps, burned our vil-
lages, murdered our subjects, and involved our troops in
three costly Wars. Month by month, this hostile Settle-
ment across the border has been systematically recruited
from the heart of Bengal. Successive State Trials prove
that a network of conspiracy has spread itself over our
Provinces, and that the bleak mountains which rise beyond
the Panjab are united by an unbroken chain of treason-

depots with the tropical swamps through which the

Ganges merges into the sea. They disclose an organiza-

tion which systematically levies money and men in the

Delta, and forwards them by regular stages along our
high-roads to the Rebel Camp two thousand miles off.
Men of keen intelligence and ample fortune have embarked
in the plot, and a skilful system of remittances has re-
duced one of the most perilous enterprises of treason to
a safe operation of banking.
ΙΟ THE LATE MUSALMAN AGITATION.

While the more fanatical of the Musalmans have

thus engaged in overt sedition, the whole Muhammadan

community has been openly deliberating on their obliga-
tion to rebel. During the past nine months, the leading
newspapers in Bengal have filled their columns with dis-

cussions as to the duty of the Muhammadans to wage

war against the Queen. The collective wisdom of the
Musalman Law Doctors of Northern India was first

promulgated in a formal Decision (Fatwah) . Next the

Bengal Muhammadans put forth a pamphlet on the ques-

tion ; and even the Shiah sect, a comparatively small

body in India, have not been able to restrain themselves
from print. For some months the Anglo - Indian Press
was inclined to smile at the pains which the more loyal
sort of the Musalmans were taking to ascertain whether
they could abstain from rebellion without perdition to
their souls . But the universal promulgation of formal
Legal Decisions by the Muhammadan Law Doctors, soon
convinced our countrymen that the subject might have a
serious as well as a ludicrous aspect. The cumulative
papers now published-papers drawn up and issued by
the Muhammadans themselves- leave not a shadow of

doubt as to the danger through which the Indian Empire

is passing. They will convince every reasonable mind,
that while the more reckless of the Musalmans have for

years been engaged in overt treason, the whole community

has been agitated by the greatest State Question that
ever occupied the thoughts of a people. The duty of
rebellion has been formally and publicly reduced to a
nice point of Muhammadan Law. Somehow or other,

every Musalman seems to have found himself called

upon to declare his faith ; to state, in the face of his co-

religionists, whether he will or will not contribute to the
 THE THREEFOLD ASPECT OF THE CASE. II

Traitors ' Camp on our Frontier ; and to elect, once and

for all, whether he shall play the part of a devoted fol-
lower of Islam, or of a peaceable subject of the Queen.
In order to enable the Muhammadans to decide these

points, they have consulted not only the leading Doctors

of their Law in India, but they have gone as far as Mecca
itself. The obligation of the Indian Musalmans to rebel
or not rebel, hung for some months on the deliberations

of three Suni priests in the Holy City of Arabia.

I propose to exhibit this spirit of unrest among our

Musalman subjects in the threefold form which it has

assumed. I shall briefly narrate the events which led to
the formation of the Rebel Colony on our Frontier, and
lay before the reader a few of the chronic disasters in
which it has involved the British Power. In my second
chapter I shall explain the treasonable organization by
which the Rebel Camp has drawn unfailing supplies of
money and men from the interior Districts of the Empire.
I shall then unfold the legal discussions to which this
anomalous state of things has given rise, -discussions
which disclose the Muhammadan masses eagerly drinking

in the poisoned teachings of the Apostles of Insurrection,

and a small minority anxiously seeking to get rid of the
duty to rebel by ingenious interpretations of their Sacred
Law. But if I were to end here, I should have only told
half the truth . The Musalmans of India are, and have
been for many years, a source of chronic danger to the
British Power in India. For some reason or other they
have held aloof from our system, and the changes in
which the more flexible Hindus have cheerfully acqui-

esced, are regarded by them as deep personal wrongs.

I propose, therefore, in my fourth chapter, to inquire

into the grievances of the Muhammadans under English

12 SAYYID AHMAD, BANDIT AND PREACHER, 1820.

Rule ; to point out their real wrongs, and the means of

remedying them.
The Rebel Camp on the Panjab Frontier owes its
origin to Sayyid Ahmad ,' one of those bold spirits whom
our extermination of the Pindari Power scattered over
India half a century ago. He began life as a horse
soldier in the service of a celebrated freebooter, ² who for

many a year harried the rich opium-growing villages of

Malwa. The stern order which the rising power of Ranjit

Singh imposed on his Musalman neighbours , made the

trade of a Muhammadan bandit a perilous and an un-
profitable one. At the same time, his strict Hinduism
fanned the zeal of the Muhammadans of Northern India

into a flame. Sayyid Ahmad wisely suited himself to

the times , gave up robbery, and about 1816 went to study
the Sacred Law under a Doctor of high repute in Dehli.³
After a three years ' noviciate he went forth as a preacher,
and by boldly attacking the abuses which have crept into
the Muhammadan faith in India , obtained a zealous and
turbulent following .The first scene of his labours lay
4
among the descendants of the Rohillas, for whose exter-
mination we had venally lent our troops fifty years be-

fore, and whose sad history forms one of the ineffaceable

blots on Warren Hastings' career. Their posterity have,

during the past half century , taken an undying revenge,

and still recruit the Rebel Colony on our Frontier with
its bravest swordsmen. In the case of the Rohillas, as

in many other instances where we have done wrong in

India, we have reaped what we sowed . During 1820

1 A native of the British District of Rai Bareli. Born in the sacred month
Muharram of 1201 A.H. , or 1786 A.D.
2 Amir Khan Pindari, afterwards Nawab of Tonk.
3 Shah Abdul Aziz, of whom more hereafter.
* In the Jagir of Faizulla Khan, towards Rampur in Rohilkand.
 PROGRESS OF THE APOSTLE, 1820-1824. 13

the Apostle journeyed slowly southwards, his disciples

rendering him menial services in acknowledgment of his
spiritual dignity, and men of rank and learning running
like common servants, with their shoes off, by the side
of his palanquin. A protracted halt at Patna so swelled
the number of his followers as to require a regular system
of Government. He appointed regular agents to go

forth and collect a tax from the profits of trade in all the
large towns which had lain on his route. He further
nominated four Caliphs, ' or Spiritual Vicegerents, and a
high priest, by a formal Deed such as the Muhammadan

Emperors used in appointing governors of provinces .

Having thus formed a permanent centre at Patna, he
proceeded towards Calcutta, following the course of the
Ganges, making converts and appointing agents in all
the important towns by the way. In Calcutta the masses
flocked to him in such numbers, that he was unable even

to go through the ceremony of initiation by the separate

laying on of hands. Unrolling his turban, therefore, he
declared that all who could touch any part of its ample

length became his disciples. In 1822 he made a pil-

grimage to Mecca ; and having thus completely covered
his former character as a robber beneath the sacred garb
of a pilgrim, he returned in October of the following year,
by Bombay. Here his success as a preacher was as great
as it had been in Calcutta. But a more congenial field lay
before the freebooter-saint than the peaceful population

of an English Presidency town . On his way back to

2
Northern India, he enlisted a vast turbulent following in
his native District of Bareli ; and in 1824 made his ap-

¹ Maulavi Wilayat Ali ; Maulavi Inayat Ali ; Maulavi Murhum Ali ; and
Maulavi Furhat Husain ; besides Shah Muhammad Husain as chief priest.
2 Who had been recruited by his high priest, Shah Muhammad Husain.
14 HOLY WAR AGAINST THE SIKHS, 1827.

pearance among the wild mountaineers of the Peshawar

Frontier, preaching a Holy War against the rich Sikh

towns of the Panjab.

The Pathan tribes responded with frantic enthusiasm
to his appeal . These most turbulent and most supersti-
tious of the Muhammadan races were only too delighted

to get a chance of plundering their Hindu neighbours

under the sanction of religion . The Apostle assured
them that those who survived would return laden with
booty, while those who fell would be translated in a
moment to Heaven as martyrs of the Faith . He travelled
through Kandahar and Cabul, raising the country as he
went along, and consolidating his influence by a skilful
1
coalition of the tribes. Their avarice was enlisted by

splendid promises of plunder ; their religion, by the as-

surance that he was divinely commissioned to extirpate
the whole Infidel world, from the Sikhs even unto the
Chinese. To the grave political leaders of the mountains,
the worldly - minded heads of tribes, he expatiated on

the necessity of checking the rise of the adjoining Sikh

Power, bitterly remembering his early debt of hatred
against the Hindu Ranjit Singh. After thus arranging
for the success of a religious manifesto, he issued, in the
name of God, a formal summons to all devout Musalmans

to join the Holy War. ' The Sikh nation , ' runs this
curious document, ' have long held sway in Lahore and
other places . Their oppressions have exceeded all bounds.
Thousands of Muhammadans have they unjustly killed ,

and on thousands they have heaped disgrace. No longer

1 The Yusafzais and Barakzais were his staunchest followers. The Chief
of Panjtar (Fathi Khan) afterwards joined him, and the important principality
of Swat. He also established himself in the State of Amb. The Nawab of
Tonk, his former leader, always remained a source of supplies both in money
and recruits.
 THE CALL TO HOLY WAR. 15

do they allow the Call to Prayer from the mosques, and

the killing of cows they have entirely prohibited . When

at last their insulting tyranny could no more be endured ,

Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad (may his fortunes and blessings
ever abide ! ) , having for his single object the protection
of the Faith, took with him a few Musalmans, and, going
in the direction of Cabul and Peshawar, succeeded in
rousing Muhammadans from their slumber of indifference,
and nerving their courage for action . Praise be to God,
some thousands of believers became ready at his call to
tread the path of God's service ; and on the 21st De-
cember 1826 , ¹ the Jihad against the Infidel Sikhs begins. '
Meanwhile the holy man's emissaries carried the Call to
War throughout all the cities of Northern India where he

had made disciples ; and the above proclamation is taken

from a tract published in the far inland Province of Oudh."
A fanatical War, of varying success, against the Sikhs
followed. Both sides massacred without mercy, and the
bitter hatred between the Muhammadan Crescentaders
and the Hindu Sikhs lives in a hundred local traditions.

Ranjit Singh strengthened his Frontier by one of the

skilful generals whom the breaking up of the Napoleonic
armies had cast loose upon the world . The name of an
Italian soldier of fortune, General Avitabili, ³ is still on

the lips of the Peshawar peasantry. The Muhammadans

burst down from time to time upon the plains, burning
and murdering wherever they went. On the other hand,

the bold Sikh villagers armed en masse, beat back the hill
fanatics into their mountains, and hunted them down like

1 The 20th Tamadi -ul-Sani, 1242 Hijra.

2 The Targhih-ul-Jihad, an incitement to religious war by a Maulvi of
Kanauj. Official Proceedings, 1865.
³ I give the spelling of his name and his nationality according to local
tradition.
16 THE PANJAB OVERRUN, 1828-30.

beasts . The fierce passions of the time have left behind

a land-tenure of a horrible nature-a Tenure by Blood.
The Hindu borderers still display with pride a Grant for
their village lands on payment of a hundred heads of the
Husainkheyl tribe as yearly rent.
In regular engagements the tumultuous Army of the

Crescent proved no match for the disciplined cohorts of

the Sikhs. In 1827 the Prophet led his bands against
one of their entrenched Camps, and was repulsed with
great slaughter . But the lowland general dared not
follow up his success. The fanatical bands fell back across

the Indus into the mountains, and so increased their fame

by guerilla successes, that the Sikh chief found himself

compelled to buy the alliance of the very tribes who had

been foremost in the raids . In 1829 the lowlanders

trembled for the safety of Peshawar itself, their Frontier

Capital, and the Governor¹ basely attempted to put an
end to the war by poisoning the Prophet. This rumour
inflamed the zeal of the Muhammadan highlanders to
a red heat. They burst down in fury on the plains,
massacred the Infidel Army, and mortally wounded its
general. Peshawar was only saved by a force under
Prince Sher Singh and General Ventura. The Prophet's
influence had now spread as far as Cashmir, and troops
from every discontented prince of Northern India flocked

to his camp . Ranjit Singh, the head of the great Sikh

confederacy, hurried up a force under his most skilful

lieutenants . In spite of a reverse in June 1830,2 the

Apostolic Army occupied the plains in overwhelming
force ; and before the end of the year, Peshawar itself,
the Western Capital of the Panjab, had fallen .

¹ He was a Muhammadan, but the mere creature of Ranjit Singh.

2 By the Sikh Army under General Allard and Hari Singh Nalwa.
 CLIMAX OF THE APOSTLE'S FORTUNES, 1830. 17

This marks the culminating point in the Prophet's

career. He proclaimed himself Caliph, and struck coins
bearing the legend, ' Ahmad the Just, Defender of the
Faith ; the glitter of whose scimetar scatters destruction
among the Infidels. ' But the dismay caused by the fall

of Peshawar brought the matchless diplomacy of Ranjit

Singh into the field . The wily Sikh detached the petty
Muhammadan Principalities from the Army of the Crescent
by separate appeals to their self- interest, and the Prophet
found himself compelled to abandon the city on condition
of a ransom being paid. The internal dissensions among
his followers soon defied all control . His regular troops

consisted of Hindustani fanatics, Muhammadans from the

Indian Provinces, who accepted his fortunes for good or
for evil, and who, in fact, would have found it impossible
to desert him. The Army of the Crescent, however, was
swollen with hosts of Frontier Pathans, who, with all

the valour, possessed also the pride and avarice, of moun-

taineers. On one occasion, an important tribe of these
borderers had deserted on the eve of battle, ¹ and the
fanatics had afterwards taken a severe retribution. The

Prophet felt the necessity of liberality to the Hindustani

followers, on whom he could always depend . At first he
confined himself to levying tithes for their support from
his Frontier adherents. This they bore with little re-

luctance, as a religious contribution to the cause of the

Faith. But after both sides had been inflamed by such
exactions, the Prophet began to lose ground . His talents
were rather those of a fanatical incendiary than of an
impartial ruler of a great coalition, and the wonderful
influence which he had acquired over the Frontier tribes,
soon showed signs of melting away. As he found his

1 The Barakzais, at the engagement with the Sikhs near Saidu.

B
18 HIS DEFEAT AND DEATH, 1831 .

power waning, he had more frequently recourse to severi-

ties, and at length wounded the feelings of the moun-
taineers in their most tender point. He entered upon an

ill- advised effort to reform the marriage customs of the

highlanders, who practically sold their daughters in wed-
lock to the highest bidder ; and as his Indian followers
had left house and home, and were without wives, he

issued an edict that every girl not married within twelve

days should become the property of his lieutenants . The
tribes rose and massacred his Hindustani retinue, and
the Prophet himself narrowly made his escape.' But his
reign was over ; and in 1831 , while aiding as a volunteer
to one of his former lieutenants who had set up for him-
self, the Prophet was surprised by a Sikh Army under
Prince Sher Singh, and slain.²

The religious character of the movement belongs to

a later portion of this Work. Neither in India nor any-
where else can a religious leader stir the hearts of a people
without a genuine belief in the goodness of his cause.
In my next chapter I shall unfold the nobler aspects
of Sayyid Ahmad's career. Meanwhile I have dwelt at

some length upon the origin of the Fanatical Settlement,

because I propose very briefly to dismiss its further his-
tory, till it emerges in its present phase as a Rebel Camp
on our own Frontier. Among the chief lieutenants of
the Prophet were two brothers, grandsons of a notorious.

1 From Panjtar to the Valley of Pakli.

2 At Balakot, in May 1831. I have collected the foregoing Account of
Sayyid Ahmad from the Records of the Foreign Office and Home Department
Government of India, along with the evidence that has come out in the suc-
cessive State Trials from 1852 to 1870 , and from a valuable memorandum by
Mr. T. E. Ravenshaw, late Judge of Patna. Several of the details will be
found in Captain Cunningham's Work on the Sikhs . A writer, who has ap-
parently used some of the same materials, has put forth a good account of the
Wahabis in the Calcutta Review, vols. c., ci. , and cii.
 THE FANATIC CAMP FORMED, 1832. 19

murderer¹ who had fled for his life to the mountains be-

yond the Indus, and there established himself as a hermit

at Sittana. The refugee ascetic gradually acquired the
veneration of the mountaineers, who made over to him
the lands on which his hermitage stood, as an asylum and
a neutral ground, -a very convenient provision among
tribes constantly engaged in blood-feuds . One of his

grandsons, who had served as Treasurer to the Prophet,

succeeded to the Village of Refuge at Sittana, and invited
thither the remnants of the Apostolic Host .
About the same time, the religious head of the Prin-

cipality of Swat, having taken alarm at the progress of

the British Power, determined to strengthen himself by
establishing a firm regal Government. He accordingly
3
invited the other grandson of the hermit to the Swat
valleys, and made him King. By this means he fortified

the natural valour of his subjects, by the assurance that,

having now a hero of the Crescentade at the head of their

troops, all who might fall in the apprehended conflict

with the English or Hindu Infidels would enjoy the
eternal rewards of martyrdom. The fears of the Swat
tribes were not, however, destined to be realized ; and
their King reigned till 1857 , when he died, and no suc-
cessor was elected. His son, now the head of the family,
claims both the leadership of the Fanatical Host at Sittana,
and asserts a wavering pretension to the realm of Swat.
In this way the fanatics firmly established a two-fold
power upon the Frontier, and by their emissaries among
the superstitious border tribes, constantly kept alive the
embers of the Holy War. During intervals of many

1 Zamin Shah, a native of Takhtaband in Bonair.

2 Sayyid Umar Shah. 3 Sayyid Akbar Shah.
4 Sayyid Mubarak Shah .
20 THE FANATIC CAMP, 1833-46.

years they sank to the insignificance of border freebooters,

but every now and then fired up into a fierce Army of the
Crescent. They perpetrated endless depredations and
massacres upon their Hindu neighbours before we an-
nexed the Panjab. During this period their Camp was
steadily recruited by Muhammadan zealots from our own
Districts. No precautions were taken to prevent our

subjects flocking to a Fanatical Colony which spent its

fury on the Sikhs, an uncertain coalition of tribes,
sometimes our friends and sometimes our enemies . An

English gentleman, who had large Indigo concerns in

our North-Western Provinces, tells me that it was cus-

tomary for all the more pious Musalmans in his employ

to lay aside a fixed share of their wages for the Sittana
Encampment. The more daring spirits went to serve
for longer or shorter periods under the fanatic leaders.
As his Hindu overseers every now and then begged for
a holiday for the annual celebration of their father's
obsequies, so the Muhammadan Indigo bailiffs were wont
between 1830 and 1846 to allege the religious duty of

joining the Crescentaders as a ground for a few months'

leave.

For the remissness which thus permitted our subjects

to join the fanatic host against our Sikh neighbours, we

were destined to pay dear. The Prophet' had established
a regular system of Apostolic Successors, both in our
territories and upon the Sikh Frontier. The movement
was thus placed beyond the contingencies of the life or
death of any of the individual leaders, and his own decease
had been converted by the zeal of his followers into an

1 By the ' Prophet ' I invariably mean Sayyid Ahmad. Technically he was
an Imam (Leader) from the political point of view, and a Wali (Prince) from
the theological one. Strictly speaking, the line of the true Prophets ended
with Christ and Muhammad.
 OUR SUBJECTS RECRUIT IT. 21

apotheosis for the further spread of the Faith. Two of

the Caliphs or Vicegerents whom he appointed at Patna
in 1821 made a pilgrimage to the Frontier, and ascer-
tained that their leader's disappearance was a miracle ;

but that he was still alive, and would manifest himself

in due time at the head of a Holy Army, with which
he would expel the English Infidels from India. His
Deputies continued therefore to levy money and men,
but especially money, in the chief towns along the
valley of the Ganges where the Prophet had preached
on his journey to Calcutta in 1820-22 . A perennial
stream of malcontents thus flowed from our territory to

the Fanatic Colony. Absconding debtors, escaped con-

victs, spendthrifts too ruined to be at peace with social
order, traitors too guilty to hope for mercy from the
law, all flocked from the British Plains to this cave of
Adullam in the North. There were also refugees of a

nobler sort, and every Muhammadan religionist too zea-

lous to live quietly under a Christian government, girded

up his loins and made for the Sittana Camp. Their hand
fell heaviest upon the Sikh villages, but they were always
happy to get a chance of inflicting a blow upon the
English Infidel. They sent a great force to help our
enemies in the Cabul War, and a thousand of them re-
mained stedfast against us to the death. In the fall

of Ghazni alone, three hundred obtained the joys of

martyrdom from the points of English bayonets.
On our annexation of the Panjab, the fanatic fury,
which had formerly spent itself upon the Sikhs, was
transferred to their successors. Hindus and English

were alike Infidels in the eyes of the Sittana Host, and

as such, were to be exterminated by the sword . The
disorders which we had connived at, or at least viewed
22 THE FANATICS TURN AGAINST US, 1847.

with indifference, upon the Sikh Frontier, now descended

as a bitter inheritance to ourselves.
The records of the Patna Court show that the Vice-
gerents ' early established a character for themselves on
the Frontier as fanatical firebrands. In 1847, Sir Henry
Lawrence recorded a proceeding to the effect that they
were well known as fighters for religion in the Panjab ;
and as such, they were forwarded under custody to their
homes in Patna. The Magistrate there took security

from them, and from two other of the most wealthy mem-
bers of their sect, for their future good conduct. But
in 1850 they were again found preaching sedition in the
Rajshahi District of Lower Bengal, where they had also
to give bonds to keep the peace, and on the repetition of
their offence were twice turned out of the District. In

1851 , the same Vicegerents," or successors of the Prophet,

although bound, so far as parchment bonds and sureties

could restrain them, to remain at their homes in Patna,

6
were found disseminating treason on the Panjab Frontier.
In 1852 they deemed their plans ripe for execution .
Money and men from our territory had been poured into
the Sittana Camp, and a treasonable correspondence with
our troops was seized by the Panjab authorities. A
skilful attempt had been made to tamper with the 4th
Native Infantry, stationed at Rawal Pindi, conveniently

near to the Fanatic Colony, and one of the first Regi-

ments which, on their invading our Province, would have
been sent to act against them. The letters distinctly proved

1 Inayat and Wilayat Ali.

2 Magistrates' Records , dated 13th April 1847.
3 Ghazis or Jihadis. Their title of Wahabi belongs to a later period, and
will be explained in Chapter II.
+ Proceedings of the Magistrate of Rajshahi, dated 23d February 1850.
5 Inayat and Wilayat Ali.
• Proceeding of Board of Revenue, dated 12th May 1851 .
 FANATIC COLONY BECOMES A REBEL CAMP. 23

that a regular organisation had been established for pass-

ing up men and arms from Bengal to the Rebel Camp. At
the same time the Patna Magistrate reported¹ that the
rebel sect were upon the increase in that City. Sedition
was openly preached by the leading inhabitants of this

capital of a British Province. The police were in league

with the fanatics ; and one of their leaders² had assembled
seven hundred men in his house, and was prepared to

resist any further investigation of the Magistrate by force

of arms .

The British Government could no longer shut its

eyes to the existence of a great treasonable organisation

within its territories for supplying money and men to the

Fanatical Camp on the Frontier. During the autumn of

1852, Lord Dalhousie recorded two important Minutes
on the subject. By the first he directed the internal
organisation to be closely watched . The second had to
deal with a proposition for a Frontier War against the
border tribes, whose superstitious hatred to the Infidel
the Hindustani fanatics had again fanned to a red heat.
In the same year they attacked our ally, the Chief of the
Amb State, and necessitated the despatch of a British
force. In 1853, several of our native soldiers were con-

victed of correspondence with the traitors.

I do not propose to trace in detail the insults, in-
roads, and murders which led to the Frontier War of

1858. During the whole period the fanatics kept the

border tribes in a state of chronic hostility to the British
Power. A single fact will speak volumes. Between

1850 and 1857 we were forced to send out sixteen distinct

expeditions, aggregating 33,000 Regular Troops ; and be-

tween 1850 and 1863 the number rose to twenty separate

1 On the 19th of August 1852. 2 Maulavi Ahmadulla.

24 FANATIC WAR OF 1858.

expeditions, aggregating 60,000 Regular Troops, besides

Irregular Auxiliaries and Police. During this time the
Sittana Colony, although stirring up a perpetual spirit
of fanaticism along the Frontier, had wisely avoided direct
collision with our troops. But in 1857 they tried to form
a general coalition against us, ¹ and had the audacity to
insist upon the British authorities aiding them in collect-
ing their Black Mail . Incensed by our refusal, they came
boldly down upon our territory, and made a night attack
on the camp of Lieutenant Horne, the Assistant Commis-

sioner, who scarcely escaped with his life. Retaliation

could no longer be delayed, and General Sir Sidney Cotton
2
entered the hills with an Army of 5000 men . As this is
only the first of several Wars into which the Fanatic

Camp has plunged our Frontier, I propose to dismiss it

briefly and to take the second-that of 1863 - as an

illustration of such campaigns. After some difficulties ,

Sir Sidney Cotton's Column burned the villages of the
rebel allies, razed or blew up the two most important
forts, and destroyed the Traitor Settlement at Sittana.
The fanatics, however, merely fell back into the fastnesses.
of the Mahában mountain ; and so little was their power

shaken, that a new Settlement at Mulka was immediately

granted them by a neighbouring tribe.³
The Fanatic Camp had other enemies, however, be-
sides the British troops. Every now and then, in an
access of religious self-confidence , they tried to levy tithes
from the adjoining highland clans . According to the
individual influence of the preacher who acted as the tax-

gatherer, these exactions were submitted to, or evaded , or

¹ Particularly of the Yusafzai and Panjtar Tribes.

2 Artillery, 219 ; Cavalry, 551 ; Infantry, 4107 ; total, 4887 Regular Troops.
3 The Amazais.
 DISSENSIONS IN THE CAMP, 1859-61 . 25

refused. A constant source of irritation was thus kept

alive among the mountaineers. We have seen how it

alienated their hearts from the Prophet himself, and led

to his desertion and death in 1831. When a clan refused

tithes, the Fanatic Colony descended en masse, cut the

crops of the recalcitrants, and carried off the harvest. In

1858 the tribal resistance against this religious taxation

culminated in an attack upon Sittana itself, in which the

fanatic leader¹ was slain . The Rebel Settlement thus

weakened, both by Sir Sidney Cotton's campaign and

by the defection of its firmest allies , remained quiet for
about two years. We made over the Sittana lands to an
2
adjoining tribe, who had resisted the tithing emissaries
and slain the Fanatic chief. From this, and another im-
3
portant clan, we took engagements that they would never
allow the fanatics to re-enter their territory, and that they
would resist any third tribe which should endeavour to
bring them in. They were also to prevent the fanatics
and other desperate characters from passing through
their country to commit depredations within the British
Frontier.

But scarcely two years elapsed before the Rebel Colony

had regained its influence among the superstitious high-
land races . In 1861 they advanced from Mulka, the

interior retreat upon the Mahában, into which Sir Sidney

Cotton had driven them in 1858, and fortified themselves *
just above their old Settlement of Sittana . From this
stronghold they burst down upon our villages ; and the
very tribes who had pledged themselves to prevent their
ingress, gave them free passage through their territory on
their kidnapping raids . As if to announce the return of

1 Sayyid Umar Shah, killed by the Atmanzai tribe.

2 The Utmanzais. 3 The Jaduns. 4 At Siri.
26 A SECOND WAR NECESSARY, 1862.

the old state of things with a note of triumph, the fanatics

descended upon our Rawal Pindi District, and murdered

two merchants in open day upon the high road , and

almost within sight of a strong Police Station.¹ Three
weeks later they again came down upon our territory,
carried off three wealthy persons, and coolly entered into
a correspondence with our officers, demanding a ransom
of Rs. 1550 for our captive subjects . Of this sum the
fanatic leader was to receive one half. Another kidnap-
ping inroad took place immediately after, in April 1861 .
The Frontier authorities reported that things had returned
to the old disgraceful turbulence of 1858. It was in vain
that the British officers appealed to the faith and to the
fears of our allied tribes. Although several of their vil-
lages lay at our mercy, they cast in their lot with their
co-religionists, and no course remained but retribution .
We accordingly established a strict blockade of the
offending tribes, completely cutting off their communica-
tion from the outside world, and taking prisoner any of
them that ventured across the line. This brought them
to reason. They again entered into engagements, and
forced the Rebel Colony to retire from the Sittana terri-
tory to its interior fastness at Mulka.

Nevertheless our disloyal Hindustani subjects con-

tinued to flock to the Traitors' Camp ; and in 1862 their
numbers had so increased , that the Panjab Government
felt compelled to advise a second Frontier War. Indeed,
things had now reached such a height, that the Secretary
of State declared his belief that the rebels would have,
sooner or later, to be expelled by force of arms, and that
they were a lasting source of danger so long as they
remained on our border. It was, however, impossible to

1 On the 14th February 1861 . 2 Despatch of 7th April 1862.

 FANATIC ATTACKS IN 1863 . 27

undertake an expedition on the moment, and early in

April 1863 we again find them murdering and plundering
within our territory. In July of that year they boldly
re-occupied their Sittana Settlement, and sent threatening
messages to our feudatory, the Chief of Amb. The neigh-
bouring tribes again sacrificed their fidelity to their
fanaticism, and scattered their engagements with us to
the winds. The Traitor Colony was once more supreme
upon the Frontier. On the 7th September 1863 the

Fanatic Host came down upon British territory, and by a

night attack upon the camp of our Guide Corps, gave the
signal for open war. A week later they invaded our Amb
Feudatory, destroyed his villages upon the Black Moun-

tain, and gave battle to his outposts . In the same month

they burst down on our friendly levies of Tanawal, cutting
up a native officer with a party of men. Not content

with attacking our allies, they fired on our own pickets

upon the banks of the Indus, ' and in a formal manifesto

declared war against the English Infidels, and summoned

all good Musalmans to the Crescentade.
We had therefore arrived at precisely the same state
of affairs as that which in 1827-30 ended in the occupa-

tion of the Panjab by the Fanatic Host, and the fall of

the Frontier Capital. It became impossible any longer

to avoid a War. Frontier campaigns, however, are little

instructive as military performances, and they can shed
but small lustre upon the stronger Power. The ultimate
issue of a conflict between a vast military Empire like
British India, and a coalition of savage tribes, however
brave and however strongly supported by religious zeal,
cannot be doubtful. There is, moreover, a sameness

about such operations, and a certainty in the severe retri-

1 At Nawagiran.
28 DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY. 1

bution in which, sooner or later, they end, almost sicken-

ing to a Christian man. I shall therefore select only one

of our expeditions against the Fanatic Colony for detailed

description. It will be found, that as the Traitor Camp
has been for years a cause of disgrace to our Frontier
during peace, so it became a prolific source of disaster to

our Armies in time of War. So long as we left it alone,

it steadily sent forth bands to kidnap and murder our
subjects and our allies : when we tried to extirpate it by
arms, it baffled our leaders, inflicted severe losses on our
troops, and for a time defied the whole Frontier Force of
British India.

It is easy to understand how a Settlement of traitors

and refugees, backed by the seditious and fanatical masses

within our Empire, could, in an access of bigoted hatred,
throw down the gauntlet. But it is difficult to compre-

hend how they could, even for a time , withstand the

combined strategy and weight of a civilised Army. In
order to explain this, it becomes necessary to briefly

describe the country in which their Prophet had fixed the

Headquarters of his militant sect.
In the extreme north of the Indus Valley, upon the
boundary of the last tribe which owes allegiance to the
British Crown, rises the Sacred Peak of the Hindus. The
Mahában, literally the Great Forest, seems to have im-
pressed the early Aryan immigrants more deeply than
any other physical phenomenon which they met with on
their primeval southern journey. It gave the name to
the mountain itself ; and the cluster of peaks and ranges,

which tower to the height of 7400 feet on the west bank

of the Indus, is still known as Mahában- the Great
Forest. These peaks became to their race what Sinai
was to the Jews . Sanskrit poetry has crystallised the
 DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY. 29

veneration of the primitive time, and for ages the

Mahában continued a place of pilgrimage among the
devout Hindus . It was amid those solemn heights that

Arjuna fought single-handed with the Great God , ¹ and,

although defeated like Jacob of old , won the Irresistible
Weapon from the Deity. Happy was the ancient hermit
who could lay his bones beneath the shadows of the Great
Forest, where tradition affirmed that even the lesser
divinities themselves were wont, by fasting and solitude,
to cleanse such delicts as celestial natures may be capable
of.2

In this retreat of primitive Hindu piety, a number of

violent and superstitious Muhammadan tribes now dwell .
Petty Principalities, not less fierce or less fanatical ,
occupy the Black Mountain on the other side of the

Indus to the east, and demand the constant surveillance

of an advanced British force at Abbottabad. The question
of tithes, and similar spiritual exactions, prevent any per-
manent coalition with the Fanatical Settlement ; but the
tribes are liable to bursts of religious excitement, and are

always delighted to get a chance of plundering the rich

Hindu villages within our Frontier. The Spiritual Prin-
cipality, or, as it may be called , Muhammadan See of
Swat, contains alone a population of 96,000, every man
of whom is bred up in a hereditary apprehension of a
British invasion, and in a conviction that if he must fight
against the Infidels, it is wise to have a religious leader
whose banner will confer the joys of martyrdom to those

who fall. The Campaign of 1863 taught us to our cost

that an expedition against the Fanatical Encampment

1 Mahadeva.
2 Here, and in Chapter II., I have made use of an article which I put forth
seven years ago in the Calcutta Quarterly Review .
 30 THE CAMPAIGN OF 1863.

may mean a War with a coalition of 53,000 fighting men¹

of the bravest races in the world. The inaccessible cha-

racter of the country renders the temper and the internal

relations of the tribes a matter of uncertainty with our
Frontier officers ; and whenever the Rebel Settlement
suffers a defeat, it has merely to fall back deeper into the
recesses of the Mahában.

On the 18th October 1863, a British Army of 7000

2
men, under General Sir Neville Chamberlain , moved out
with a train of artillery, and a supply at its command of
4000 mules and other beasts of burden, for which the
whole Panjab had been ransacked. Next evening a

column entered, by a night march, the defile overgrown

with brushwood and overhung by trees, disastrously

known as the Ambeyla Pass. Our base of operations was

3
held by a strong cordon of troops, and behind these were
4
the heavily-garrisoned Frontier Stations, filled with
Cavalry, Infantry, and Artillery. It was fortunate that
1 I give the number of fighting men which each tribe can, without difficulty,
turn out :-Husainzais, 2000 ; Akazais, 1000 ; Chigazais , 6000 ; Madakheyl,
4000 ; Amazais, 1500 ; Jaduns, 4000 ; Khudakheyl, 2000 ; Bonairs, 12,000 ;
Bajours, 3000 ; Ranizais , 2000 ; Dher Clan , 6000 ; Swat tribes, 10,000—Total,
53,500. I have taken these numbers from the Foreign Office Records, verified
as far as possible by reference to Colonel Macgregor, who is engaged in the
Frontier Gazetteer. The actual number in the field against us in 1863 rose at
one time to 60,000.
2 Infantry, Regulars, 5150 ; Cavalry, Regulars, 200 ; Artillery, 280 ; above
1000 Irregulars under the Civil Commissioner, and 13 guns.
At Darband, 350 European Infantry, 250 Native Infantry, and 3 guns.
At Torbela, one squadron of Native Cavalry, and details of Native Infantry.
At Topi, 150 Native Cavalry, 250 Native Infantry, and 2 guns. At Abbotta-
bad, one company of the 93d Highlanders, depots of the 5th Gurkhas and 1st
Panjab Infantry, 50 Native Cavalry, and 3 guns. At Rustam Bazar, 300
Native Cavalry, and details of Native Infantry. At Mardan, a depot of the
Guide Corps.
4 At Peshawar, besides several batteries of Artillery, there were 1 Regiment
of Hussars, 1 Regiment of European Infantry, 2 Regiments of Bengal Cavalry,
and 3 Regiments of Native Infantry—the last weak in effective men, and having
to hold outposts, which took up one Regiment. At Rawal Pindi, 1 Regiment
of Native Infantry, out of which 120 men were at Mari ; 1 Battery of Artillery,
 THE CAMPAIGN OF 1863. 31

the invading force was thus supported ; for on the 20th

the General found that the tribes whom he had con-

sidered friendly were wavering, and two days afterwards

he telegraphed to Government that the force had had to

come to a halt. On the 23d the opposition of the tribes

declared itself. The Bonairs attacked a reconnoitering

party, and a few days later the Spiritual Head of the

1
Swat Principality threw in his lot with the enemy.
Meanwhile, telegram after telegram reached the Govern-

ment from the Frontier, begging for more and yet more
troops. A wing of the Firozpur Regiment was ordered
up. Another Regiment of Infantry had to be hurried
westwards from Peshawar. The 93d Highlanders ad-
vanced by forced marches from Sialkot, and the 23d and
24th Native Infantry from Lahore. Before three weeks
were over, the Panjab Stations had been so denuded of
troops, that the officer commanding at Mianmir could

with difficulty supply a guard of twenty-four bayonets for

the Lieutenant- Governor.
Meanwhile the tribes were closing in upon our little

Army. To advance was impossible ; to move backward

would have been worse than defeat. Our position gave
every advantage to clans trained from boyhood in moun-
tain War ; and the following extract from the Journal of
an officer, gives a fair idea of the disasters to which our
troops were exposed :-

' The 20th , after recalling their outlying parties, re-

1 Company of the 93d Highlanders, and depots of the 51st and 101st. At
Kohat, 2 guns, 2 squadrons Native Cavalry, and 2 Regiments Panjab Infantry,
but weak. At Banu, 2 guns, 1 Regiment Panjab Cavalry, and 1 Regiment
Panjab Infantry. At Dehra Ismael Khan, 2 guns, 1 Regiment Panjab Cavalry,
and 1 Regiment Panjab Infantry.
1 An ascetic chief named Abdul Ghafur, who had long exercised a super-
stitious ascendency over the Yusafzai clans, and who is regarded with reverence
by the Pathan tribes in general.
32 OUR ARMY COOPED IN THE PASS.

tired, fighting the whole way into Camp, which they did
not reach till long after dark. The enemy were in some

strength, and tried to force their way into the lines ; but
by this time every one was ready for them, and they
were met by a sharp file- fire from the Enfield rifles, and
grape from the mountain-train guns . The night attack
formed a curious and picturesque scene, the dark line of

the jungle to the front, and right and left the two port-
fires of the mountain -train shining like stars , whilst be-
tween them a dim line of Infantry stretched across the
valley. Suddenly comes a wild shout of Allah ! Allah !
the matchlocks flash and crack from the shadows of the

trees ; there is a glitter of whirling sword -blades, and a

mob of dusky figures rush across the open space, and

charge almost up to the bayonets. Then comes a flash

and a roar, the grape and canister dash up the stones
and gravel, and patter amongst the leaves at close range.
The whole line lights up with the fitful flashes of a sharp
file-fire, and as the smoke clears off, the assailants are

nowhere to be seen ; feeble groans from the front, and

cries for water in some Pathan patois, alone tell us that
the fire has been effectual. Presently comes another
shot or two in a new direction . A few rolling stones on
the hill inform the quick ears of the native troops that
the enemy is attempting to take us in flank, and they
push up to meet them at once : and so the line of fire ,
and sharp cracking of our rifles, extends gradually far up
the dark and precipitous hill-side ; and the roar of battle,
multiplied a thousand-fold by the echoes of the moun-
tain, fills the long valley from end to end. Then there
is another shout and charge, more grape and musketry,
which ends as before ; but this time a dark group,
which moves slowly through our line, and carries ten-
 THE FATAL AMBEYLA PASS, 1863 . 33

derly some heavy burden, tells us that their shooting too

has told.

' Presently from near the centre of the line comes a

voice so full of command, that all stop to listen and pre-
pare to obey. The order is, " Cease firing ; let them
charge up to the bayonet, and then "- The rest is lost,

but every soldier knows well how the sentence ended,

and stays his hand, waiting in deep silence, which con-
trasts strangely with the previous uproar, for what is to
follow. High up on a little knoll well to the front we
see the tall form of the General towering above his staff,
and looking intently into the darkness before him.
Apparently, however, they had had enough, and but a

few straggling shots from time to time told that an

enemy, of whose numbers we could form no idea, still

lay in the jungle before us. Presently these also ceased ;

but long afterwards we could hear their footsteps, and
the stones rolling on the hills as they retired, and judged
that they must be carrying off their dead and wounded,
or they would have moved more quietly.'¹
Every day's delay encouraged the hopes and strength-
ened the fanatical zeal of the enemy. In spite of the re-
inforcements, our General found it impossible to advance.
The British Army lay for weeks, to all appearance cowed
within the Pass, not daring to advance into the Chumla
Valley, where the enemy, now swollen with the Bajour
tribes, threatened us simultaneously in front, on our left
flank, and our rear communications. The Panjab Govern-
ment anxiously inquired on the 8th November, if the
General, on receiving a reinforcement of 1600 Infantry,
would advance to destroy the Fanatic Colony at Mulka.
On the 12th the answer came that 2000 Infantry and
1 Calcutta Review , vol. lxxix. p. 201.
C
34 THE FATAL AMBEYLA PASS, 1865.

some guns would be needed in order to render any for-

ward movement practicable, and with the dispiriting in-
timation that the General deprecated any advance on
Mulka until the intermediate tribes could be brought to
terms.
The whole Frontier was now in a flame . On the

4th November the Panjab Government found its military

line so dangerously stripped of troops, that it borrowed a
part of the escort belonging to the Viceroy's Camp, and
hurried forward the 7th Fusiliers to the Frontier. A

strong body of military police, horse and foot, were also

sent to protect the rear communications, which the enemy
had threatened. For the transport equipage, 4200 camels
and 2100 mules were pressed in hot haste, and at an
enormous cost, from our Panjab Districts. ' By the 14th
November things had assumed a still more serious aspect,
and the Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in

India hurried up to Lahore, and assumed the direction

himself.

The truth is, that the Plan of the Campaign had

completely failed. The original idea was, by a sudden
march through the Pass to occupy the open valley be-
2
yond. The Imperial Government had ordered that the

whole operations should be completed by the 15th No-

vember. On the 14th, however, our Army still found it
impossible to advance ; and instead of a series of opera-
tions in an open valley, where the resources of civilised
war could come into play, we had to undertake the de-

1 Panjab Government Letter of 18th February 1864, para . 67.

2 Letter of the Panjab Government, dated Lahore, 1st February 1864 ,
para. 78. This document is the one which I have chiefly used for my account
of the expedition. I can scarcely hope that the Narrative of so disastrous a
campaign will escape hostile criticism, but I can only say that every state-
ment I make is based upon the most carefully verified Official Reports.
 OUR PICKETS DRIVEN IN, NOVEMBER 18. 35

fence of a very extended position in the hills . On the

same day the Panjab Government begged that an ad-
ditional Brigade of 1500 men should be sent to the

Frontier ; and on the 19th, a telegram from General

Chamberlain gave rise to most serious apprehensions as
to whether the reinforcements would not arrive too late.

On the 18th the enemy had attacked us in force, taking

one of our pickets, and driving us back with a loss of 114
men, killed and wounded, besides officers . Next day the
enemy again captured a picket, subsequently retaken
after a bloody struggle, in which our General was him-

self severely wounded, and 128 men, besides officers, left

killed or hors de combat. On the 20th the sick and

wounded, whom it had become absolutely necessary to

send away, amounted to 425. The General's telegram of
the 19th concluded as follows :-'The troops have now
been hard worked both day and night for a month, and
having to meet fresh enemies with loss is telling. We
much need reinforcements. I find it difficult to meet the

enemy's attacks and provide convoys for supplies and

wounded sent to the rear. If you can give some fresh

corps to relieve those most reduced in numbers and dash ,

the relieved corps can be sent to the plains and used in
support. This is urgent.'
A great political catastrophe was now dreaded. Our
Army, wearied out with daily attacks, might at any mo-
ment be seized with a panic, and driven back pell-mell,
with immense slaughter, through the Pass. Such a mis-
adventure, although costing fewer lives than a single
great battle, would have ruined our power on the Fron-
tier, and entailed political disasters, the end of which
it was impossible to foretell. The Panjab Government
accordingly decided that, if General Chamberlain found it
 ER
36 STILL IN THE PASS, DECEMB 1863 .

needful , the whole force should retreat to Permouli . But

the caution of the Panjab Statesmen had underrated the

unyielding persistence of British Troops. On the 22d

came a telegram, stating that our Army was determined

to hold its position , and that, although the difficulties

were great, the General was sure of ultimate success .
Next day a wing of the 23d Native Infantry, with
some European details, reached Camp. The enemy had
already put out his utmost strength, and the arrival of

our fresh troops struck the tribes with fear. They began
to realise what it is to be engaged against the inex-
haustible resources of a vast Military Empire , and the
next Friday (the day of the week which the Fanatics
generally chose for battle) passed without an attack.
Still we were unable to advance ; and on the 28th No-

vember the Panjab Government in vain recorded a

Minute, deploring the stationary attitude of the force,
and urging some forward movement . As our reinforce-

ments arrived, fresh tribes poured down from the moun-

tains, one chieftain¹ alone bringing in 3000 men, and a
2
single ascetic contributing 500 Fanatics determined .
upon martyrdom or victory.
On the 5th December our whole reinforcements had

arrived, and an advance was again strongly urged . We

had now 9000 Regular Troops , including several picked
regiments, such as the 93d Highlanders, besides Irregu-
lars ; and it seemed hard to believe that a powerful British
Army should thus remain cooped within the Pass week
after week, harassed by the attacks of the enemy, and
unable to strike a blow. But we had altogether under-

rated the hold which the Fanatical Colony had acquired

1 Faiztalal Khan of Bajour.

2 The Hajji , or Pilgrim, of Kunhar.
 THE COALITION BEGINS TO MELT. 37

over the Frontier tribes. Those who joined them for

the sake of the Faith were burning with the hopes of

plunder or of marytrdom, while the less bigoted clans
were worked upon by the fear of their territory being
invaded by the British or made the scene of the War.
The clansmen, thus fired by zeal and rivalry, scorned all
the efforts of a civilised Army, and an eye-witness thus
describes the Frontier in the second week of December:-

' The excitement was spreading far and wide. The Mom-
ands on the Peshawar border were beginning to make
hostile demonstrations at Shabkadr for the first time

since their signal defeat near the same place in 1852 by

the late Lord Clyde. Rumours were also reaching me
from Kohat of expected raids by the Waziris and the
Utmankheyl ; emissaries from Cabul and Jellalabad were
with the Akhund (the Spiritual Head of the Swat tribes) ,
who had also been further reinforced by Ghazan Khan,
the Chief of Dher, and 6000 men. On the 5th Decem-
ber the Momands made a raid into our territory near
Shabkadr. "¹
• But a coalition of mountain tribes is always capri-

cious ; and what our arms had failed to accomplish, dis-

sensions and diplomacy began to effect. As early as the
25th November, the Commissioner of Peshawar succeeded
in drawing off certain clans of the Bonairs. He also

induced another contingent, to the number of 2000, to

return to their homes, and persuaded the Swat leader to
disperse his immediate followers. Several minor chiefs ,
scenting the defection, withdrew, leaving the seeds of
mutual distrust among those who remained. By the

10th December this distrust seemed ready to bear fruit.

The great council of the Bonair Tribes suddenly came in

1 Major James, Commissioner of the Peshawar Division.

38 THE EXPEDITION RETURNS, DECEMBER 25.

to the Commissioner, but failed to arrange terms . On

the 15th we hastened their deliberations by a night

attack on Lalu, the enemy losing 400 men. On the 16th

we burned the village of Ambeyla, and left 200 of the

clansmen dead or wounded on the field. Before next

day the Bonair tribes had made up their minds, and pre-
senting themselves before the Commissioner, asked for
orders . This defection was the death-blow to the hopes
of the Fanatics . Every moment, some clan or another

took itself off. The people from Bajour and Dher fled .
The whole of the Swat troops held themselves in instant
readiness to desert. The coalition dissolved like a moun-

tain mist, and the Bonair tribes, on whom the Rebel

Settlement had chiefly depended, entered into an engage-
ment with us to burn them in their den. In less than

a week a strong British brigade, reinforced and guided

by the Bonairs, advanced in perfect safety through the
mountains to the Fanatical Settlement at Mulka, and
reduced it to ashes . The force returned to the ill-fated

Ambeyla Pass on the 23d December, and on the 25th

the whole Army once more reached the plains, not a shot
being fired on its homeward march.

Meanwhile we had left the fatal Defile thickly

planted with the graves of British soldiers. Our loss
amounted to no less than 847 men killed and wounded,

or close on one-tenth of the total strength of the Army

when it was eventually raised to 9000 Regular troops.
This was in the Pass alone, and irrespective of men
invalided from exposure or who died of disease. The

Panjab Government, in summing up the results of the

Campaign, declared that on no former occasion has the
fighting in the hills been of so severe or sustained a
character. ' That the Fanatics had effected a formidable
 THE FANATICS QUIET, 1864-67. 39

combination of tribes, and that in this coalition their

Councils had maintained the ascendency. That these
fanatics ' were no harmless or powerless religionists ; that
they are a permanent source of danger to our Rule in

India ; and that the Religious War which they have so

persistently preached might have been adopted by all
the Frontier tribes .'The peril of the crisis was aug-

mented by the fact that just at that time the Indian

Empire was without a responsible head. The Viceroy,
Lord Elgin, lay in a dying state far in the interior of
the hills, cut off from telegraphic communication, and
unable to transact business .

Although the Campaign had cost us dear, it effectu-

ally quieted the border for the next four years . One
half of the Fanatics had fallen, and the adjacent tribes
were little inclined to view with favour the remnants of

a Rebel Colony which had brought the tempest of War

into their mountain valleys . The Traitor Chiefs felt

themselves so unsafe, that in 1866 two of them¹ at-

tempted to open a communication with our Frontier

officers. These efforts were frustrated by a third leader,²

who now began to revive their zeal. Till the end of

1867 , however, they were too busy with their own

quarrels to venture upon depredations on our territory.

But in February 1868 they moved out in a column of
700 fighting men, and began to lay the foundation of a
coalition of the clans. The remembrance of the punish-
ment we had inflicted in 1863 made such an operation
now more difficult. Still by degrees the superstitious

fanaticism of the tribes began to get the better of their

¹ Muhammad Izak and Muhammad Yakub, through the instrumentality of

Sayyid Mahmud, formerly in our service.
2 Maulavi Abdulla.
40 ANOTHER OUTBREAK IN 1868.

prudence. They attacked one of our outposts in the

Agror Valley, and the Government recorded that, but for
the immediate measures which we took, we should again
have had to deal with a great tribal confederacy. This
time, however, the British authorities were determined
to lose not a moment. On the 8th September, the
Supreme Government sanctioned the despatch of a mili-
tary force to reduce the tribes. On the 30th October
our troops moved out under the direction of the Com-

mander-in- Chief in India, and the immediate command

of General Wilde, C.B. At the same time we issued

proclamations to the clans, reciting how certain tribes

' who had in no respect been interfered with or oppressed ,
after attacking a British outpost, entered our territory
with arms and flags, burning sundry villages, and render-
ing retribution imperative ; ' ' The British Government,
which is a long-suffering one, can bear with you no
further, and calls you to account for the above acts.'
I do not propose to detail the events of this cam-

paign . During July, urgent telegraphic messages had

come from the Panjab Government giving notice of the
storm . 'The warning was so urgent, ' wrote the Quarter-

Master-General of the Army,' ' and the call for assistance

so imperative, certain detachments of our troops being
in fact beleaguered by the insurgents, that the Govern-
ment of India lost no time. ' Taught by the disasters
of 1863, the Commander-in-Chief, instead of weakening
the Panjab Military Stations, or drawing detachments
from our posts along the border, brought up regiments
from the North-Western Provinces . Besides the operat-

ing column, numbering between 6000 and 7000 Regu-

¹ Letter to Secretary to Government Military Department, No. 163, dated

5th November 1868, para. 4.
 THE CAMPAIGN OF 1868. 41

lar Troops, the whole force on the Frontier was nearly

doubled, and the flower of the British Army in India
was concentrated against the fanatical mountain tribes.¹

During the suffocating heat of a tropical August and

September, our soldiers were making forced marches

such as have seldom been equalled in the healthy tem-

perate zone. The Sappers and Miners , for example,
covered six hundred miles in twenty-nine days. The

troops poured northward from the inland Provinces in

such bewildering masses as to completely overawe the

clans, and to baffle the Fanatics ' plan for a tribal coali-
tion. At an enormous cost we placed an Army with

Artillery complete on the Black Mountain, but the bor-

derers did not dare to face it. 'The spectacle has been

seen, ' wrote the Quarter - Master - General, ' of British

troops, European and Native, operating over and among

mountains 10,000 feet high, the General in command him-
self being without a tent.'2 Nevertheless we failed to
reach the heart of the evil. The Panjab Government,
in summing up the results of the Campaign, recorded its
regret that it ' had come to a close without our having
been able either to drive out the Hindustani fanatics, or

¹ The D Battery F Brigade Royal Artillery, the E Battery 19th Brigade

R.A. , and the 2-24th Brigade R.A.; the 1st Battalions of the 6th and 19th
Foot ; 2 Companies of the 77th ; the 16th Bengal Cavalry, the 2d Gurkha
Regiment ; and the 24th Native Infantry, were at once transferred from Rawal
Pindi to Abbottabad, the headquarters of the Hazara District. The 20th N.I.
were marched from Lahore to Abbottabad ; the 38th Foot from Sialkot to Dar-
band in Hazara, which was also occupied by the 31st N.I. during the Cam-
paign. The 1st and 4th Gurkhas were moved from the distant hill stations of
Bakloh and Dharmsala, and joined the force under General Wilde. In addi-
tion to the above, the 30th, 19th, and 23d N.I. , the 9th Bengal Cavalry, and
the 20th Hussars, were marched from their several stations of Cawnpur, Ali-
garh, Amritsar, Lahore, and Campbellpur, to Rawal Pindia, and formed the
reserve. Troops were also held in readiness at Peshawar and Naushira to sup-
port the Guide Corps at Hot Mardan, opposite the Swat country.
2 Letter from Quarter-Master- General to Secretary to Government Military
Department, No. 163, dated 5th November 1868, para. 17.
42 PROBABILITY OF ANOTHER AFGHAN WAR.

to induce them to surrender and to return to their homes

in Hindustan . "

I have now traced the history of the Rebel Camp

on our Frontier from its formation in 1831 to the last

Campaign in which it involved us in 1868. The chronic

miseries which it rained down upon the border under
the Sikh Rule, have been transmitted as a bitter legacy

to ourselves. Besides constantly keeping alive a fana-

tical spirit of unrest along the Frontier, it has three
times organised great tribal confederacies, each of which
has involved British India in a costly war. One Govern-
ment after another has declared it to be a source of

permanent danger to our Rule, yet all our efforts to ex-

tirpate it have failed . It still continues the centre to-

wards which the hopes alike of our disloyal subjects and

of our enemies beyond the Frontier turn . We know

not at what moment we may again get involved in the

dynastic struggles which constantly afflict Central Asia,
but at present it seems quite possible that before this
year ends we shall find ourselves in another Afghan War.
When such a war arrives-and sooner or later it must

come to pass - the Rebel Colony on our borders will be

worth to the enemy many thousands of men. It is not

the traitors themselves whom we have to fear, but the

seditious masses in the heart of our Empire, and the
superstitious tribes on our Frontier, both of whom the

Fanatics have again and again combined in a Religious

War against us. During nine centuries the Indian
people have been accustomed to look for invasion from

1 Para. 22 of Panjab Government's Letter, No. 258, dated 6th November

1868. In the above brief account of the Frontier Expedition of 1868, I have
followed this letter and the reports from the local officers alluded to in it; with
the Quarter - Master - General's letter of the 5th November 1868, and the
Reports appended, for the military details.
 MATERIALS FOR A REBELLION. 43

the north ; and no one can predict the proportions to

which this Rebel Camp, backed by the Musalman hordes
from the Westward, might attain under a leader who
knew how to weld together the nations of Asia in a
Crescentade.
 CHAPTER II.

THE CHRONIC CONSPIRACY WITHIN OUR TERRITORY.

HE source from which the Frontier Rebel Camp de-

THE
rived this extraordinary vitality long remained a
mystery. Thrice it was scattered by the Native Power

which preceded us in the Panjab, and thrice it has been

crushed beneath masses of British Troops . Yet it still
lives on, and the devout Musalmans find in this almost
miraculous indestructibility a visible augury of ultimate
triumph. The truth is, that while we have been trying
to stamp out the Frontier Settlement beneath the heel of
a military force, the fanatical masses of our Muhammadan

subjects have been feeding it with an inexhaustible supply

of money and men ; pouring oil upon the embers which
we had left for dead, and nursing them again into a flame.
The preaching of Sayyid Ahmad in 1820-22 passed
unheeded by the British Authorities. He traversed our
Provinces with a retinue of devoted disciples , converted
the populace by thousands to his doctrine, and estab-
lished a regular system of Ecclesiastical Taxation, Civil
Government, and Apostolic Succession . Meanwhile our

officers collected the revenue, administered justice, and

paraded our troops, altogether unsuspicious of the great
religious movement which was surging around them.
From this unconsciousness they were in 1831 rudely
 NARRATIVE OF TITU MIYAN, 1820-30. 45

awakened. Among the disciples of the Prophet in Cal-

cutta, was a certain professional wrestler and bully, by

name Titu Miyan.¹ This man had started life as the son
of a respectable husbandman , and bettered his position
by marrying into the family of a small landholder. But
his violent and turbulent disposition threw away these

advantages. For some time he earned an ignominious

livelihood as a boxer in Calcutta, and afterwards enlisted
in one of the bands of club-men with which the landed

proprietors of Bengal were at that time wont to adjust

their family differences and boundary disputes . This

occupation finally landed him in jail. After his release

he made a pilgrimage to Mecca, met Sayyid Ahmad in

the Holy City, and returned to India a powerful preacher
of his doctrines. He itinerated in the Districts north and

east of Calcutta, making multitudes of converts, and pre-

paring in secret God's vengeance against the Infidel. The
Capture of Peshawar in 1830 by the Fanatic Host em-
boldened Titu Miyan to throw off all disguise ; and the
2
petty oppressions to which the Hindu landholders sub-
jected his followers, placed him at the head of an infuri-
ated peasant rising.
A series of agrarian outrages followed, ending in the

insurgents entrenching themselves in a fortified Camp,

and defying and beating back the English Authorities
with some slaughter. The whole of the country north
and east of Calcutta, including three entire Districts,³ lay

1 Alias Nisar Ali , a native of Chandpur Village, and resident in Baraset.

His career is given at some length in the Calcutta Review, vol. ci., which I
have used along with an Official Memorandum by the Patna Magistrate.
2 For example, Krishna Rai , a large landholder on the banks of the Ich-
hamati, levied a capitation tax of five shillings on each of his peasants who had
embraced the new faith. Another proprietor threw one of his peasants into
his private prison for destroying a shrine during the Muharram.
3 The 24 Parganas, Naddea, and Faridpur.
46 PEASANT RISING NEAR CALCUTTA, 1831 .

at the mercy of insurgent bands between three and four

thousand strong. The sectaries began by sacking a vil-

lage in open daylight, because one of the inhabitants re-
fused to accept their divine mission. In another District
2
a second village was plundered, and a mosque burnt
down. Meanwhile contributions of money and rice were
levied from the Faithful ; and on the 23d October 1831 ,
the insurgents selected a village for their Headquarters ,
and erected a strong bamboo stockade round it. On the

6th November they marched out to the number of 500

fighting men, attacked a small town, and after murdering
the priest, slaughtered two cows (the sacred animals of
the Hindus ) , with whose blood , they defiled a Hindu
temple, and whose carcases they scoffingly hung up before
the idol. They then proclaimed the extinction of the Eng-
lish Rule, and the re-establishment of the Muhammadan
Power. Incessant outrages followed, the general pro-
ceeding being to kill a cow in a Hindu village, and, if
the people resisted, to murder or expel the inhabitants,
plunder their houses, and burn them down. They were
equally bitter, however, against any Muhammadan who
would not join their sect, and on one occasion , in sacking
the house of a wealthy and obdurate Musalman, varied
the proceedings by forcibly marrying his daughter to the
head of their band.

After some ineffectual efforts by the District Autho-

rities, a detachment of the Calcutta Militia was sent out
on the 14th November 1831 against the rebels . The

fanatics, however, refused all parley, and the officer in

command, being anxious to save bloodshed, ordered the
sepoys to load with blank cartridge. The insurgents
poured out upon us, received a harmless volley, and in-
1 In Faridpur District. 2 At Sarfrazpur, in Naddea.
 APOTHEOSIS OF THE PROPHET, 1831 . 47

stantly cut our soldiers to pieces . All this took place

within a couple of hours' ride from Calcutta . On the
17th the Magistrate got together some reinforcements,

the Europeans being mounted on elephants. But the in-

surgents met them, drawn up in battle array a thousand

strong, and chased the party to their boats on the river,

cutting down those who were slowest in the retreat. It

now became necessary to deal with the rebels by means

of Regular troops . A body of Native Infantry, with some
Horse Artillery, and a detachment from the Body Guard,
were hastened out from Calcutta. The insurgents, dis-
daining the safety of their stockade, met the troops upon

the open plain, ' with the mangled remains of a European,

who had been killed the previous day, suspended in front
of their line . ' A stubborn engagement decided their fate.
They were driven back pell-mell into their entrenchment,
and the fortified camp was taken by storm. Titu Miyan,
the leader, fell in the action . Of the survivors (350 in
number) , 140 were sentenced by the Court to various
terms of imprisonment ; and one of them, Titu's lieutenant,
was condemned to death .
The end of the Reformers seemed to have come. On

the Panjab Frontier their forces had been scattered and

their leader slain. The insurrection in Lower Bengal had
met with the same fate . But the Caliphs, or Apostolic

Successors, whom the Prophet had appointed at Patna,

came to the rescue . They produced eye-witnesses, who
declared that in the thick of the battle the Prophet had

been snatched away from mortal sight in a cloud of dust.

They assured the multitude that he had himself foretold
his disappearance. The Prophet had indeed prayed that
his grave might be hidden from his disciples, like that of
Moses of old, that no impious worship might be paid to
48 THE MOVEMENT REVIVED, 1832.

his bones. They preached that the Almighty had with-

drawn him from a faint-hearted generation ; but that
when the Indian Musalmans, with singleness of mind,

should join in a Holy War against the English Infidels,

their Prophet would return and lead them to victory.
In all this there was nothing incredible to a Musalman .
' Such things had happened before. It was well known
that the Prophet Yunis (Jonah) had disappeared for a
time, and lay concealed in the belly of a large fish.
Moses, too, became invisible when he ascended Mount
Sinai to receive the Old Testament. Zulkarnain, the

great leader who imprisoned Gog and Magog, disappeared

under similar circumstances. The Prophet Christ had
not tasted of death.'¹ It was therefore incumbent for

the Faithful to re-enter on the Holy War with fresh

vigour ; and the Caliphs at Patna appointed a new Gene-
ral of the Faith, 2 who moved northwards with an ever-
growing retinue of fanatic swordsmen .
For a time the well-attested miracle of the Prophet's
Apotheosis overawed inquiry, and all went well. One of

the most devoted of the Lower Bengal missionaries , who

had preached throughout the Eastern Districts, particu-
larly in Dacca and Sylhet,' marched northwards 1800
miles to the Frontier with a thousand men . But the

protracted absence of the Prophet greatly exercised his

faith, and after a short campaign he resolved to penetrate
to the distant mountain cave in which it was said that

the Lord had hidden his Apostle. His zeal for the truth
surmounted the watchful jealousy of the more interested
party leaders ; and having reached the hill sanctuary, he
found in it ' only three figures stuffed with straw. ' The
dis-illusioned missionary fled from the accursed den, com-
1 Calcutta Review, vol. ci. , July 1870 , p. 187. • 2 Maulavi Nasiruddin.
 BUT AGAIN APPEARS RUINED. 49

manded his followers to return to their homes, and indited

a long indignant letter to his converts in Calcutta, who

still kept forwarding money and men.

'Salam ' Alaikum ,' he wrote, ' the peace and blessing

of God be upon you . Mulla Kadir made an image of the

Prophet, but before showing it to any person he made
the people promise that they would never attempt to
shake hands with the Prophet or speak to him ; for if
they did, then the Prophet would disappear for fourteen
years . The whole people, deeply affected, viewed this
lifeless image from some distance, and made obeisance
to it. No answer came, and the people grew desirous
of shaking hands with their Prophet. But Mulla Kadir
tried to allay their suspicions, and said that if any one
should attempt to shake hands with the Prophet without
giving previous notice, the Prophet's servant would pistol
him.' The letter goes on to relate how the astute Mulla
then reproached the people with their want of faith ; how
the image was removed from public view ; and finally,
how, after a great deal of entreaty, they obtained an
inspection of it. They examined it, and found that it was
a goat's skin stuffed with grass, which, with the help of
some pieces of wood and hair, was made to resemble a
man. Your slave inquired of the priest about this. He

answered that it was true, but that the Prophet had per-

formed a miracle and appeared as a stuffed figure to the

people. The errors and falsity of these impostors are now
as clear as noonday, and I have saved my soul from sin.'
Again the fanatic cause seemed ruined. But the
missionary zeal of the Patna Caliphs, and the immense
pecuniary resources at their command, once more raised
the sacred banner from the dust. They covered India
with their emissaries, and brought about one of the
D
50 ITS MISSIONARY SYSTEM.

greatest religious revivals that has ever taken place.

The two Caliphs¹ themselves went through Bengal and
Southern India . The minor missionaries were innumer-

able, and a skilful organisation enabled them to settle

in any place where the multitude of converts made it
worth their while. In this way, almost every one of the
fanatic Districts had its permanent preacher, whose zeal
was sharpened from time to time by visits of the itinerant
missionaries, and whose influence was consolidated and

rendered permanent by the Central Propaganda at Patna.

How great a power for evil these preachers have now
become in Bengal, I shall afterwards show. In Southern
India they raised such a hurricane of enthusiasm , that
even the women cast their jewels into the common purse.
From the North-West Provinces they sent company after

company of recruits to the Fanatic Camp. Everywhere

they stirred the Muhammadan population to its depths ;
and although the keen intellect of the Bengali eventually
gave its present tone to the movement, the revival burst

out with equal heat for a time in all the Provinces of

India. They have, ' wrote the Magistrate of Patna, ‘ under
the very nose and protection of Government authorities ,

openly preached sedition in every village of our most

populous Districts, unsettling the minds of the Musal-

man population, and obtaining an influence for evil as

extraordinary as it is certain."

1 Wilayat Ali and Inayat Ali. The former, after a missionary tour through
Bengal, took Bombay, the Nizamat, and Central India as his special field .
Inayat concentrated his efforts on the Middle Districts of the Lower Provinces ,
Malda, Bogra, Rajshahi, Patna, Naddea, and Faridpur. Karamat Ali of Jaun-
pur carried the movement eastwards from Faridpur into Dacca, Mymensingh,
Noakhali, and Barisal. Zain-ul- Abdin, a native of Haidrabad, who had been
converted by Wilayat Ali on his tour through Southern India, selected North-
eastern Bengal as the sphere of his labours, and converted the peasantry of N.
Tipperah and Sylhet.-Calcutta Review, vols. c. and ci.
2 Official Proceedings, 1865.
 THE PROPHET'S RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES. 51

The origin of this wonderful influence was, however,

by no means based on unmixed evil. Sayyid Ahmad com-
menced his apostolic career by re-asserting the two great

principles with which all true preachers have worked—

the unity of God and the equality of man. He appealed
with an almost inspired confidence to the religious instinct,
long dormant in the souls of his countrymen, and over-
grown with the superstitious accretions which Islam had

borrowed during centuries of contact with the Hindus.

He found the True Faith buried beneath the ceremonial

of idolatry. Bandit as he had been, impostor as he or his

immediate disciples eventually became, I cannot help the
conviction that there was an intermediate time in Sayyid
Ahmad's life when his whole soul yearned with a great pain

for the salvation of his countrymen, and when his heart

turned singly to God . A man of an intensely nervous
temperament, concealed under an outward show of calm,
he fell into religious trances which to Western science
would simply suggest epilepsy, but which the popular
belief of Asia reverences as a state of direct communion

with the Almighty. In these unearthly ecstasies the

Prophets of bygone ages flitted before his inner vision,
and he had thus constant intercourse with the long-dead
founders of two of the Indian religious orders . In 1820,
when he started on his mission, he was about thirty-four

years old , a little above the middle height, and with a

long beard falling on his breast. Of a taciturn , gentle
manner, unlearned in the law, he preached on the practi-
cal life of his countrymen, and abstained from all doctrinal
discussions, either, as his enemies said, because he was
unfit to handle them, or as his disciples affirmed, because
they were below his high order of piety. Two of his
first converts were men of profound scholarship, brought
52 HIS DIVINE TITLE.

up amid the discussions of the Dehli sage, ' The Sun of

India, ' under whom the Prophet passed his noviciate.
These two men¹ belonged to the family of the greatest
Muhammadan Doctor of the age, and had been carefully

trained by him alike in the sacred language and in the

Sacred Law. Both of them were imbued, although in

different degrees, with the necessity of a reformation of

the faith and manners of their countrymen ; and both
simultaneously accepted their illiterate co-disciple, the

late bandit, as a man sent by God to accomplish the

work. The veneration with which these two learned and

polished Doctors of the Law publicly treated Sayyid

Ahmad, who had barely a smattering of Arabic, first
attracted popular attention to the future Prophet . Their
profound acquaintance with the patristic literature of

Islam enabled them publicly to support the Sayyid's

title, which they themselves had acknowledged . Starting

with the popular belief that God from time to time sends
Imams, or leaders, to quicken the faith of His children ,
and to guide the masses of mankind to salvation, they
proved that Sayyid Ahmad had all the marks of such a
divinely commissioned envoy. He was, in the first place,
lineally descended in the orthodox line from Muhammad
himself. In his fits of religious ecstasy, during which he
communed with God and the Apostles ; in his grave,

taciturn, and gentle demeanour ; even in his person, they

declared him to resemble the great Prophet. Of the

twelve Caliphs who are to reduce the world to the True

Faith, some of the Indian Muhammadans ' believe that

¹ Maulavi Muhammad Isma'il, the nephew, and Maulavi Abdul Hai, the
son-in-law, of Shah Abdul Aziz.
2 The Sunis. The Shias hold that eleven have already passed away, and
that the twelfth is hidden somewhere beyond our North-Western Frontier.
But the Sunis form 95 per cent. of the Indian Musalmans.
 HIS CONFESSION OF FAITH. 53

six have already come and gone, while others only admit
four. Sayyid Ahmad was the next in the sacred line . In
dreams, the beloved daughter of Muhammad and her

husband (his lineal ancestors) visited him, saluted him as

their son, bathed him in sweet essences, and arrayed him

in royal apparel. What further evidence could the popu-

lace, or indeed even Sayyid Ahmad himself, demand ? His
own humility and scruples disappeared before the incessant
arguments of his two learned disciples . So firmly did he
at length believe in his title, that at the peril of his life
he assumed all the functions of sovereignty, levied tithes,
appointed Caliphs to continue the Apostolic Succession,
and formally proclaimed himself at Peshawar the Com-
mander of the Faithful.

Until his pilgrimage to Mecca, however, he does not

appear to have reduced his doctrines to any formulated

system. His idea of a reformation of religion was a purely

practical one. He told his hearers, that if they were to
escape divine wrath, they must live better lives . One of

his disciples has recorded his sayings in a book,' now the

Kuran of the sect ; in which, however, the brief utterances
of the Prophet are believed to have been greatly amplified
by the piety of the writer. But even when thus amplified,
his teaching seems to have been almost entirely one of
practical morality. In the Deeds by which he appointed
the Patna Caliphs, the same spirit of the religion of daily
life shines out. His single doctrine was to worship God

alone, and God direct, without the interposition of humanly

devised forms and ceremonies.
' In the name of the merciful God ! Be it known

to those who seek the way of God in general, and to

those in particular present and absent who are the friends

¹ The Sirat-ul-Mustakim, by Muhammad Isma'il.

54 HIS CONFESSION OF FAITH.

of Sayyid Ahmad, that the object of such as become dis-

ciples of holy men by the ceremony of joining hands is to
secure the means of pleasing God, and depends on fulfilling
the law of his Prophet.

' The law of the Prophet is founded on two things :

First, the not attributing to any creature the attribute of
2
God ; ¹ and second, not inventing forms and practices
which were not invented in the days of the Prophet, and
his successors or Caliphs. The former consists in dis-

believing that angels, spirits, spiritual guides, disciples,

teachers, students, prophets or saints, remove one's diffi-

culties . In abstaining from having recourse to any of the

above creations for the attainment of any wish or desire.
In denying that any of them has the power of granting
favour or removing evils ; in considering them as helpless
and ignorant as one's self in respect to the power of God .
In never making any offering to any prophet, saint, holy
man, or angel for the obtaining of any object, but merely
to consider them as the friends of God. To believe that

they have power to rule the accidents of life, and that

they are acquainted with the secret knowledge of God, is
3
downright infidelity.

' With regard to the second point, true and undefiled

religion consists in strongly adhering to all the devotions
and practices in the affairs of life which were observed in
the time of the Prophet. In avoiding all such innovations
as marriage ceremonies, mourning ceremonies, adorning
of tombs, erection of large edifices over graves, lavish
expenditure on the anniversaries of the dead, street pro-
cessions and the like, and in endeavouring as far as may

be practicable to put a stop to these practices ."*

1 Shirk. 2 Bid'at. 3 Kufr.

4 Calcutta Review , No. c. , April 1870 , page 89 .
 HISTORY OF THE WAHABIS. 55

This simple system of puritanic belief was amplified

and formulated by the Prophet's visit to Mecca in 1822-23 .
He found the Holy City just emerged from a Reformation
devised by a Bedouin of the desert, and similar in prin-
ciples to his own belief. Its founder had erected a great
religious empire in Western Asia, closely resembling that
which Sayyid Ahmad hoped to establish in India. It

becomes necessary, therefore, to break the narrative of

the further development of his creed, by a brief account
of the rise and progress of the Wahábis in Arabia.
About a hundred and fifty years ago, a young Arab

pilgrim, by name Abdul Wahab,' the son of a petty Nejd

chief, was deeply struck with the profligacy of his fellow-
pilgrims, and with the endless mummeries which profaned
the Holy Cities . For three years he pondered over the
corruptions of Muhammadanism in Damascus, and then
stepped forth as their denouncer. He rendered himself

peculiarly hateful to the creatures of the Constantinople

Court, accusing the Turkish Doctors of making the
written word of no effect by their traditions (Sanat), and
the Turkish people of being worse than the Infidels by
reason of their vices . Driven from city to city, he at

length took refuge with the chief of Derai'yeh, Muhammad

Ibn Sa'ud, into whom he instilled his religious views and
a sense of his great wrongs . These wrongs he was soon
amply to redress . With the aid of his new convert, whose
daughter he married, he formed a small Arab League,
and raised the standard of revolt against the Government
of Constantinople, and of protest against her corrupted
creed. Victory crowded upon victory. The Bedouins,
who had never adored Muhammad as quite a divine per-

son, nor accepted the Kuran as an altogether inspired

1 6 The Servant of Him who gives everything. '
56 THEY CONQUER ARABIA, 1750-1800.

book, flocked to the Army of the Reformation. The

greater part of Nejd was conquered, Abdul Wahab being

the spiritual chief, while Muhammad Ibn Sa'ud, his father-

in-law, ruled as its temporal monarch. They appointed

governors for the vanquished provinces, and kept them
in strict subjection . A great Assembly of the Sa'ud
Tribe formed the Ministry for legislative and religious
affairs during time of peace, and the Council of War
during campaigns.
Before long, the new Kingdom boldly attacked the
Turkish power . In 1748 the Pasha of Bagdad, formerly
Grand Vizier, had to take active measures against the
movement, a movement which would in the end have

thrust out the degenerate successors of the Caliphs from

the Porte, and constructed a new Muhammadan Empire.
Nor were the Reformers less skilful in civil government

than they had been victorious in arms. They bound to-

gether the Nomad Arabs, on whom their power chiefly
depended, in a firm confederation. A regular system of
religious taxation was devised. In time of war, four-fifths
of the spoil went to soldiers, and one-fifth to the Royal
Treasury. The Land-tax, termed Alms in the Kuran,
was strictly enforced ; fields watered naturally by rain or
rivers paying one-tenth of the yearly produce, while land
which required artificial irrigation paid one-twentieth .
Traders of all sorts paid one and a half per cent. of their
capital. Rebellious or schismatic cities and Provinces

were also a steady source of Revenue. The punishment

for a first defection was general plunder, one-fifth of which
went to the treasury. In case of a second rebellion or
apostasy, the whole land on which the town was built,
with the territory immediately subject to it, became the
property of the Wahábi chief. As the Reformers were
 THEIR RELIGIOUS REFORMATION. 57

essentially a sect militant, and boldly announced the

doctrine of conversion by the sword, this was a valuable

source of revenue, and was enforced by two or three cam-
paigns every year.
The doctrines which they thus engraved in blood
were themselves of a noble type . They insisted first of
all upon a practical amendment of morals. The Turks

had infected the Holy City itself with their low sensuality.
Not content with polygamy, they had brought women of
the lowest character with them in their pilgrim trains,
and were addicted to practices of an even more filthy
nature among themselves, practices solemnly forbidden
by the Kuran. Wine and opium they had openly used in
the Holy Streets, and the Turkish caravan to Mecca was
the scene of the most abominable debauchery. It was
against these practical and visible defilements that Abdul
Wahab first raised his voice. But by degrees his views
grew into a theological system, which has been handed
down under the name of Wahábi-ism, ' and which is now

substantially the belief of the Indian sect. It is a system

which reduces the religion of Muhammad to a pure
Theism, and consists of seven great doctrines . First,
absolute reliance upon One God. Second, absolute re-
nunciation of any mediatory agent between man and his
Maker, including the rejection of the prayers of the saints,
and even of the semi-divine mediation of Muhammad

himself. Third, the right of private interpretation of the

Muhammadan Scriptures, and the rejection of all priestly

glosses on the Holy Writ. Fourth, absolute rejection of

all the forms, ceremonies, and outward observances with
which the medieval and modern Muhammadans have

¹ In Arabic, Wahábi is spelt Wahhabi, but it has now become an Anglo-

Indian word. I accent the middle syllable to show that it is long.
58 THEY CAPTURE MECCA, 1803.

overlaid the pure Faith. Fifth, constant looking for the

Prophet (Imam) , who will lead the True Believers to

victory over the Infidels. Sixth, constant recognition

both in theory and practice of the obligation to wage war
upon all Infidels. Seventh, implicit obedience to the
spiritual guide. The Wahábis form, in fact, an advanced
division of the Sunis-the Puritans of Islam. The Sunis
are the sect to which almost all the Muhammadans of

Bengal and the North-Western Provinces belong.¹

Abdul Wahab died in 1787, but bequeathed his
conquests to a worthy successor. In 1791 the Wahábis

made a successful campaign against the grand Sheik of

Mecca. In 1797 they beat back the Pasha of Bagdad

with immense slaughter, and overran the most fertile

Provinces of Asiatic Turkey. In 1801 they again swept

down upon Mecca with more than a hundred thousand

men, and in 1803 the Holy City fell into their hands.

Next year they captured Medina. In these two strong-

holds of Islam, the Reformers massacred the inhabitants

who refused to accept their creed, plundered and defiled

the tombs of the Muhammadan saints, and spared not

even the Sacred Mosque itself. Every devout King and

Emperor of Islam had sent thither the richest oblations
which his realm could yield, and the accumulated offer-
ings of eleven centuries were now swept into the tents of
the sectaries of the desert.

1 They are chiefly Sunis of the Hanafi persuasion, with, however, a few
Shafis. The Hanafis follow the order of their great Imam, Abu Hanifa, born
about 80 A.H. (699 A.D.) , and died about 115 A.H. (733 A.D. ) . They pray five
times daily, and during prayer keep their hands crossed over the navel, bending
the body forward, but not raising the hands above the head. After prayer
they utter the word Amen in silence. The Shafis also take their name from
their Imam, Abu Abdulla Shafi, born about 150 A.H. (767 A.D. ) , and died about
204 A.H. ( 819–820 A.D.) . They cross the hands over the breast at prayer, raise
them above the head when they bow, and at the end utter Amen aloud.
 FALL OF THEIR EMPIRE, 1813. 59

The consternation of the Muhammadan world can only

be compared to the thrill which passed through Christen-
dom , when it was told that Bourbon's banditti had
bivouacked in the Vatican, and that the Vicar of Christ
was a prisoner in Sant' Angelo. The highest temple of
the Musalman faith was not only pillaged, but grossly
polluted by armed schismatics ; the Prophet's own tomb
was mutilated ; and the path of pilgrimage, the Musal-
man's avenue to salvation, was closed . From the marble
pile of Saint Sophia in Constantinople, to the plastered
wayside mosque on the frontier of China, every Muham-

madan house of prayer was filled with lamentation and

weeping. A few of the Shiahs declared it was the Twelfth
Imam made manifest ; but to the orthodox believer it

seemed clear that Al Dajjal, the lying Prophet foretold by

Muhammad, had now descended on the earth, and that
the end was come .

Spite of fasting and supplication, from 1803 to 1809

no great pilgrim caravan crossed the desert. The Wahabis

overran Syria, sustained a War with the British in the

Persian Gulf, and threatened Constantinople itself. It

was Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, who at last succeeded
in crushing the Reformation . In 1812 , Thomas Keith, a
Scotchman, under the Pasha's son, took Medina by storm.
Mecca fell in 1813 ; and five years later, this vast power,
which had so miraculously sprung up, as miraculously
vanished, like a shifting sand-mountain of the desert.
The Wahábis, now a scattered and a homeless sect,
profess doctrines hateful to the well-to-do classes of
Muhammadans . In formal divinity they are the Unita-
rians of Islam . They refuse divine attributes to Muham-
mad , forbid prayers in his name, and denounce supplica-
tions to departed saints . It is their earnest, practical
60 SECRET OF THEIR POWER.

theology, however, that contains the secret of their

strength. They boldly insist upon a return to the faith

of the primitive Muhammadan Church, to its simplicity

of manners, its purity of morals, and its determination to

spread the Truth, at whatever expense of the blood of the

Infidel, and at whatever sacrifice of their own lives .
Their two great principles are the unity of God and the
abnegation of self. They disdain the compromises by
which the rude fanaticism of Muhammad has been skil-

fully worked up into a system of civil polity, and adapted

alike to the internal wants and foreign relations of Musal-
man States. They exact from every convert that absolute
resignation (islam) to the will of God which is the clue
to the success of Muhammad. But while, like other
reforming sects, they ceaselessly insist on this funda-
mental doctrine, they weaken their cause among the
learned by their unitarian divinity, and among the simple
by a rude disregard of established rites and hallowed

associations. In the greater part of Asia, the Wahábi

convert must separate himself from the whole believing
world. He must give up his most cherished legends , his
most solemn festivals, his holiest beliefs. He must even
discontinue the comforting practice of praying at his
father's tomb.¹
The Wahabis of India, however, appeal to a principle
in the Muhammadan heart, whose intensity makes light
of all these difficulties. While at Mecca, Sayyid Ahmad
attracted the notice of the authorities by the similarity of
his teaching to that of the Bedouin Sectaries, from whom
the Holy City had lately suffered so much. He was pub-
licly degraded and expelled from the town. The result

1 Here and further on I have followed an article which I put forth in the
Indian Daily News in 1864.
 THE INDIAN WAHABIS. 61

of this persecution was, that he returned to India no

longer a religious visionary and reformer of idolatrous
abuses, but a fanatical disciple of Abdul Waháb. What-

ever was dreamy in his nature now gave place to a fiery

ecstasy, in which he beheld himself planting the Crescent
throughout every district of India, and the Cross buried

beneath the carcases of the English Infidels . Whatever

was indistinct in his teaching, henceforth assumed the
precision of that fierce, formulated theology, by which
Abdul Wahab had founded a great Kingdom in Arabia,

and which Sayyid Ahmad hoped would enable him to

rear a still greater and more lasting Empire in India.
The internal change that took place in the Prophet's
heart is known only to himself and to God, but it is cer-
tain that his whole outward conduct altered . He no

longer looked upon making converts as his work in life,

but only as a preliminary process to his entering on that
work. At Bombay, where he first landed, not even the
multitudes who flocked to his preaching, and begged for
the initiatory rite, could delay him. Wherever he went,
his success was even greater than before his visit to

Mecca ; but he seemed to view preaching in the settled

Districts with a certain disdainful impatience, and to
keep his eye constantly fixed upon the distant warlike

populations of the Frontier. His subsequent career has

been sufficiently described in the foregoing chapter. It
remains briefly to explain the doctrinal system which his
followers have evolved from his teaching ; a system by

which they effected one of the greatest religious revivals

known to Indian history, and which has kept alive the
spirit of revolt against the British Rule during fifty years.
The first difficulty that confronted the Indian Wa-
hábis was the disappearance of their leader. His death
 62 THEIR DIVINELY-SENT LEADER.

had disappointed the hopes of his personally leading the

Faithful to victory, and this untoward event had to be
provided for in the new doctrine of the sect. All Muham-
madans believe that the end of the world will be ushered

in by wars and seditions, great social upheavals, the rise

of low persons to high places, by earthquake, by pesti-
lence and famine. In that latter time will come the

Imam Mahdi, a descendant of Muhammad, and bearing his

name, born beyond the north-west frontier of the Panjab,
hidden from the eyes of men during a part of his career,
but finally the Ruler of Arabia and the conqueror of
Constantinople, which, before then, will again have been
subjected to a Christian King. Then Antichrist shall
appear, and wage bitter war against the Imam. In the

end, Christ will descend on earth near a white tower to

the east of Damascus, ' destroy the legions of the wicked
one, and convert the whole world to the True Faith of
Muhammad.

The Indian Wahábis had claimed for Sayyid Ahmad

the title of the great Imam, who should thus precede the
final coming of Christ. But the events amid which his
career closed could in no way be reconciled with the
popular conception of this last struggle between good and
evil . They therefore boldly attacked the general belief,
and asserted that the true Imam Mahdi was to come, not

at the Last Day, but as an intermediate leader half-way

between the death of Muhammad and the end of the

world. They showed that he had all the stigmata, to

borrow an analogy from Christian history, of the appointed
Imam. They brought an immense phalanx of authorities
to prove that the 13th century of their era (1786-1886
A.D. ) was the period in which the Imam Mahdi should
appear. Ahmad was born in 1786. Even the Shiah
 PROPHECIES OF THE REBEL LEADER. 63

Doctors, hateful as their doctrines were to the Reformers,

were made use of. The Shiahs, indeed, had been much
more exact than the Sunis, and fixed his advent in 1260
A.H. , or A.D. 1844. Had not Muhammad himself said,
'When you see the black flags coming from Khorassan ,

go forth, for with them is a Caliph, the Envoy of God ? '

The subversion of India beneath the Christian power, and

a hundred other signs of the times, plainly announced

the time of tribulation which was to herald his advent.

Prophecies were forged to give still greater certainty, of

which the following verses, taken from a long poem
which is still sung in Northern India, may serve as an
example :-
' I see the power of God—I see distress in this world ;
On all sides I see great Armies fighting and plundering ;
I see low-born people learned in unprofitable learning, wearing the garb of
the priesthood.
I see the decline of virtue, the increase of pride ;
I see disputes and wars between the Turks and Persians.
I see beautiful countries deserted by the pious, and become the abode of the
wicked.
Though I see all this , I do not despair, as I see One the Dispeller of Sorrow ;
I see that after 1200 years¹ have passed, wonderful events will occur ;
I see all the Kings of the earth arrayed one against the other ;
I see the Hindus in an evil state ; I see the Turks oppressed ;
Then the Imam will appear and rule over the earth ;
I see and read A.H.M.D.2 (Ahmad), as the letters showing forth the name of
this ruler.'

Another favourite prophecy runs thus :—

THE ODE OF NIYAMATULLA.3
(May his grave be considered sacred.)
' I tell the truth that there will be a king,
By the name of Timur, and he will reign thirty years.'

1 The original poem gives 750, which was changed to suit Ahmad's death.
Calcutta Review, vol. c. page 100, from which I extract these verses.
2 The original poem had M.H.M.D. (Muhammad) .
3 I select a few verses from the entire ode, given in the Official Record of
the Wahabi Trial of 1865.
 64 DOCTRINE OF THE CRESCENTADE.

(Here follows a list of his successors down to the last of Shah Jehan's family.)
' Then there will be another King.
Nadir will invade Hindustan.
His sword will cause the massacre of Dehli.
After this , Ahmad Shah will invade.
And he will destroy the former dynasty.
After the death of this King,
The descendants of the former King will be reinstated.
The Sikh tribe will grow powerful at this time, and commit all sorts of
cruelties.
This will continue till forty years.
Then the Nazarenes will take all Hindustan.
They will reign a hundred years.
There will be great oppression in the world in their reign.
For their destruction there will be a King in the West.
This King will proclaim a war against the Nazarenes.
And in the war a great many people will be killed.
The King of the West will be victorious by the force of the sword in a
Holy War,
And the followers of Jesus will be defeated.
Islam will prevail for forty years.
Then a faithless tribe will come out from Ispahan.
To drive out these tyrants Jesus will come down, and the expected Mahdi
will appear.
All these will occur at the end of the world.
In 570¹ Hijra, this ode is composed.
In 12702 the King of the West will appear.
Niyamatulla knew the mysteries of God ;
His prophecies will be fulfilled to men.'

Having established the divine mission of their leader,

the Indian Wahábis passed direct from all minor ques-
tions to the great doctrine of Religous War. Throughout
the whole literature of the sect, this obligation shines
forth as the first duty of regenerate man. Their earliest

work thus lays down the law :-' Holy War is a work of
great profit : just as rain does good to mankind, beasts and
plants, so all persons are partakers in the advantages of a
War against the Infidel. The advantages are two-fold :

1 1174-1175 A.D. 2 1853-1854 A.D.

 A PSALM OF THE HOLY WAR. 65

general, of which all men, even idolaters and infidels,

animals and vegetables, partake ; special, of which only

certain classes are partakers, and partake in different

degrees . In connection with the general advantages it
may be said that the blessings of Heaven, -viz . copious
showers at seasonable times, abundant supplies of vege-

table produce, good times so that people are void of

care and free from calamities, whilst their property in-
creases in value, and an increase in the number of learned
men, the justness of judges , the conscientiousness of
suitors, and the liberality of the rich, —that these blessings,
increased an hundred-fold, are granted when the dignity
of the Muhammadan religion is upheld, and Muhammadan
kings possessing powerful armies become exalted, and
promulgate and enforce the Muhammadan law in all
countries. But look at this country (India) , as compared

with Turkey or Turkistan, as far as the blessings of

Heaven are concerned . Nay, compare the present state

of Hindustan in this year 1233 Hijra (A.D. 1818) , when

the greater portion of it has become the Country of the
Enemy (dar-ul-harb) , with the state of India some two or
three centuries back, and contrast the blessings of Heaven
now vouchsafed and the number of learned men with
those of that period .'

Their most popular song breathes the same spirit. The

rebels in the Camp on our Frontier were drilled morning
and evening to the sound of its solemn strains, and the
companies of recruits who passed northwards from the
heart of our territory chaunted its stanzas along the
British high roads.

' First I glorify God, who is beyond all praise ; I laud his Prophet, and write
a song on Holy War :
Holy War is a War carried on for religion, without any lust of Power. In
the Sacred Scriptures its glories are related : I mention a few.
E
66 LITERATURE OF THE HOLY WAR.

War against the Infidel is incumbent on all Musalmans ; make provision for
it before all things.
He who from his heart gives one farthing to the cause, shall hereafter receive
seven hundred fold ;
And he who both gives and joins in the fight, shall receive seven thousand
fold from God.
He who shall equip a warrior in this cause of God shall obtain a martyr's
reward ;
His children dread not the trouble of the grave ; nor the last trump ; nor the
Day of Judgment.
Cease to be cowards ; join the divine leader, and smite the Infidel.
I give thanks to God that a great leader has been born in the thirteenth
century of the Hijra.¹
Oh friend, since you must some time die, is it not better to offer up your life
in the service of the Lord ?
Thousands go to war and come back unhurt ; thousands remain at home
and die.
You are filled with worldly care, and have forgotten your Maker in thinking
of your wives and children.
How long will you be able to remain with your wives and children ? how
long to escape death ?
If you give up this world for the sake of God, you enjoy the pleasures of
Heaven for ever.
Fill the uttermost ends of India with Islam, so that no sounds may be
heard but " Allah ! Allah ! " '2

But any attempt at even the briefest epitome of the

Wahabi Treatises in prose and verse on the duty to wage

war against the English would fill a volume. The sect

has developed a copious literature filled with prophecies
of the downfall of the British Power, and devoted to

the duty of Religious Rebellion . The mere titles of its

favourite works suffice to show their almost uniformly

treasonable character. I give below³ a list of fourteen .

1 A.D. 1786-1886.
2 Risala-Jihad, or Wahabi War Song. Calcutta Review, vol . cii . p. 396 et seq.
3 1. Sirat-ul-Mustakim, or the Bridge of Strength, being the sayings of the
Prophet Sayyid Ahmad, the Amir-ul-Mumnin (Leader of the Faith-
ful). Written in Persian by Maulavi Muhammad Isma'il of Dehli ;
translated into Hindustani by Maulavi Abdul Jabar of Cawnpur.
2. Kasida, or Book of Poetry, setting forth the obligation of waging war
against the Infidel, and the rewards of all who partake in it, by
Maulavi Karam Ali of Cawnpur.
3. Shir-i-Wakaya, a treatise on War against the Infidel, with ' full in-
 LITERATURE OF THE HOLY WAR. 67

Some of them are of so flagrant a character as to require

to be secretly passed from hand to hand in manuscript.
Others are widely circulated . The poison, however, is
not confined to their readers alone, but is carried into

every District of Bengal by a swarm of preachers, every

one of whom is carefully nurtured in treason before he
goes forth on his proselytising work.
Many of these works are openly sold in the towns
of British India, the most violent and seditious finding
the greatest favour with the multitude. But an inflam-
matory literature is only one part of a permanent four-

structions as to those by whom and with whom the fight is to be

made.' This work, however, only insists upon a Holy War when
the Infidel oppresses the True Believer.
4. A Prophetic Poem by Maulavi Niyamatulla, foretelling the downfall
of the British Power, and the coming of a King from the West who
shall deliver the Indian Muhammadans from the English.
5. Tawarikh Kaisar Rúm, or Misbah-ul- Sari, being a history of Abdul
Wahab, the Founder of the sect ; his persecutions and wars against
the Turkish apostates. MS.
6. Asar Mahshar, or Signs of the Last Day, by Maulavi Muhammad Ali,
printed in 1265 a.H. , or 1849 a.d. This book of poetry has been
widely circulated. It foretells a war in the Khyber hills on the
Panjab Frontier, where the English will first vanquish the Faithful,
whereupon the Muhammadans will make search for their true Imam .
Then there will be a battle lasting four days, ending in the com-
plete overthrow of the English , even the very smell of Govern-
ment being driven out of their heads and brains.' Thereafter the
Imam Mahdi will appear ; and the Muhammadans being now the
rulers of India, will flock to meet him at Mecca. These events will
be heralded in by an eclipse both of the sun and moon in the month
of Ramzan.
7. The Takwiatul Imam, or Strengthener of the Faith, written by
Maulavi Muhammad Isma'il of Dehli.
8. Tazkir-ul-Akhawi, or Brotherly Conversation, by the same author.
9. Nasihat-ul-Musalman, or Advice to Muhammadans, by Maulavi Karam
Ali of Cawnpur.
10. The Hidayat-ul -Muminin, or Guide to the Faithful, written by Awlat
Husain.
11. Tanwir-ul- Ainain, or Light of the Eyes, an Arabic work.
12. Abdul Jaid, an Arabic work.
13. Tambi -ul- Ghaflin, or Rebuke of the Negligent, in Urdu.
14. Chihil Hadish, or the forty verses of Muhammad regarding Holy War.
68 LITERATURE OF THE HOLY WAR.

fold organisation which the Wahábi leaders use for

spreading the doctrine of Rebellion. Besides it they

have, in the first place, the Central Propaganda at

Patna, which for a time defied the British Authorities

in that city, and which, although to a certain extent

broken up by repeated State Trials, still exerts an influ-
ence throughout all Bengal. The Prophet, in appoint-
ing Caliphs at Patna in 1821 , chose men of indomitable
zeal and strength of will. We have seen how, time
after time, when the cause appeared ruined, they again

and again raised the standard of Holy War from the

dust. Indefatigable as missionaries, careless of them-
selves, blameless in their lives, supremely devoted to the
overthrow of the English Infidels, admirably skilful in
organising a permanent system for supplying money and
recruits, the Patna Caliphs stand forth as the types and
exemplars of the Sect. Much of their teaching was
faultless, and it has been given to them to stir up thou-

sands of their countrymen to a purer life, and a truer

conception of the Almighty. But a mere system of

morality can never hold together a great sect. The reli-

gious element in the revival soon began to lose its power.
Even under the early leaders of the movement it showed
signs of wearing out, and the Caliphs had to appeal more
and more exclusively to their hearers' detestation of the
Infidel. The Patna Propaganda clearly perceived this ,

and suited their teachings to the new requirements of

the times. Instead of trusting to the terrors of an

awakened conscience, they enlisted the more certain and

more permanent hatred which the Indian Muhammadans

feel towards the English . They thus transferred the

basis of their teaching from the noblest capabilities of
the Musalman heart to the fanatical fury of the popu-
 THE PATNA PROPAGANDA. 69

lace. As time went on, they found it necessary con-

stantly to strengthen the seditious element in their
preaching. They converted the Patna Propaganda into
a Caravanserai for rebels and traitors . They surrounded
it with a labyrinth of walls and outhouses, with one
enclosure leading into another by side-doors, and little
secret courts in out - of- the - way corners. The early

Caliphs had threatened to resist the Magistrate's war-

rant by force of arms, but their successors found a less
dangerous defence in a network of passages, chambers,
and outlets. When the Government at length took pro-

ceedings against this nest of conspirators, it found it

necessary to procure a plan of the buildings, just as if it
were dealing with a fortified town. The district mis-

sionaries sent up fanatical crowds to the Propaganda.

Of these, the greater part, after having their zeal still
further stimulated by the lectures of the Patna Leaders,

were sent off by detachments to the Camp on the Fron-

tier. The more promising youths were singled out for a
longer course of instruction ; and after being thoroughly
trained in the doctrine of sedition , were returned as col-
porteurs or missionaries to their own Province.

I have been anxious to do full justice to whatever

is good in the history of the Patna Caliphs . Starting
with an admirable system of morality, they by degrees
abandoned the spiritual element in their teaching, and
strengthened their declining cause by appealing to the
worst passions of the human heart. I shall afterwards
give a sample of the sermons of the Missionaries whom

they have trained. Here is a specimen of the teaching

by which that training is effected . The Patna Propa-
ganda ceaselessly insists that the Indian Muhammadan

who would save himself from hell, has the single alter-
70 THE DISTRICT MISSIONARIES.

native of War against the Infidel or Flight¹ from the

accursed land . No True Believer can live loyal to our
Government without perdition to his soul. Those who
would deter others from Holy War or Flight are in heart
hypocrites. Let all know this . In a country where the
ruling religion is other than Muhammadanism, the reli-
gious precepts of Muhammad cannot be enforced . It is
incumbent on Musalmans to join together, and wage war

upon the Infidels . Those who are unable to take part

in the fight should emigrate to a country of the True
Faith . At the present time in India, flight is a stern
duty. He who denies this, let him declare himself a
slave to sensuality. He who, having gone away, returns
again, let him know that all his past services are vain .
Should he die in India, he will lose the way of salvation.
' In short, Oh Brethren, we ought to weep over our

state, for the Messenger of God is angered with us be-

cause of our living in the land of the Infidel. When the

Prophet of God himself is displeased with us, to whom

shall we look for shelter ? Those whom God has sup-

plied with the means should resolve upon flight, for a

fire is raging here. If we speak the truth, we shall be
strangled ; and if we remain silent, injury is done to our
faith.'2

Besides their seditious literature, and the Central

Propaganda at Patna, the Wahábis have a permanent

machinery throughout the rural districts for spreading

their faith. Dangerous firebrands as the local mission-
aries sometimes prove, I find it impossible to speak of
them without respect. Most of them start life as youths

1 Jihad or Hijrat.
2 Jama Tafaser, printed at Dehli, 1867. Calcutta Review, cii. p. 391. The
first paragraph is condensed from idem, p. 393.
 THE WAHABI MISSIONARY. 71

of enthusiastic piety ; many of them retain their zeal for

religion to the end, with singularly little tincture of the
poisonous doctrines in which the Patna preachers have
trained them. The civilised man, cribbed within cities,

and only permitted to move about this world clogged

with luggage, and in the ceaseless society of fellow-tra-
vellers, can with difficulty realise the unencumbered life

and isolated wanderings of the Wahábi Missionary. We

all feel that the soul gathers sanctity in solitude, and

perhaps the pilgrim on his lonely foot journey through

forest and over mountain thinks purer and fresher
thoughts than the work-a-day in- door world. Certain

it is that the Wahábi Missionary furnishes, so far as

my experience goes, the most spiritual and least selfish
type of the sect. Englishmen love to believe that their

ancestors, when at their best, lived more in the open in

Merry England than we do now ; and childhood leaves

no more refreshing memories to the life-wearied man than

reminiscences of the out-door scenery through which, in

the great Christian allegory, the pilgrim passes from the

town of Destruction to the Celestial City.
This Forest of Arden spirit reached its highest de-
velopment in ancient India, where the friendliness of
nature rendered unnecessary those contrivances which
in colder climates elevate man's shelter into his home.

The Sanskrit scheme of life required that each house-

holder sprung from the chosen race should, after beget-
ting children into the world, leave his kindred and dwell
apart in the forest. Every popular tale introduces us to
some venerable eremite beside a running stream, and the
most charming scenes of Sakuntala are those which dis-
cover the maiden surrounded by tame fawns in her forest

glade. The Wahábi leaders have skilfully availed them-

72 NOT ALWAYS A TRAITOR.

selves of this national hankering in India after a solitary

life. Even the refuse of great cities, when they have

exhausted their fortunes by dissipation , or wearied out

by their crimes the patience of the law, can obtain a sort
of sanctity by joining a religious order, and retiring to
the mountains, or travelling companionless from province
to province. Much more does the Wahábi Missionary's
lonely life render him an object of interest to the vil-
lagers upon his route . Throughout many months of the
year he enters the door of no human dwelling. He comes

from a distant Province, and during the long journey he

admits no companion, save perhaps a faithful disciple,
to interrupt his self-communings. His serenity of de-
meanour and indifference to external surroundings make
him a visibly different being from ordinary men. It is

not surprising, therefore, that the villagers cluster around

him, and forget for a moment their disputes about water-
courses, and their long standing boundary feuds. The
preacher does not always inculcate treason , but only those
doctrines which necessarily lead their adopters to treason ;
doctrines which, to use Bacon's impressive aphorism, do

dissolve and deface the laws of charity and of human

society, and bring down the spirit of God, instead of in
the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a vulture or raven .
Some of the missionaries, indeed , refrain altogether from
poisonous teachings of this sort. In 1870, when travel-
ling through the fanatical Eastern Districts of Bengal, I
heard of such a case ; and I should be very sorry if I

were supposed to use the term Wahábi as a synonym for

traitor. A Wahábi preacher had appeared in a lonely
village, and forthwith several thousand Muhammadans
gathered around him . The Hindus of the neighbourhood
dreaded one of those outbursts of zeal against the Infidels
 THE WAHABI MISSIONARY AT WORK. 73

in which such conventicles often end, and accordingly hur-

ried off messengers to the Headquarters of the District
for help . But the preacher, while fulminating against the
corrupt life and idolatrous practices of his Muhammadan
hearers, refused altogether to touch upon the doctrine of
Religious Rebellion . Such mere moralities were by no
means what the people had come out into the wilderness
to hear, and the disappointed multitude melted away.
By the time the Hindu messengers returned , they found
the so- called apostle of treason absolutely deserted by his
co -religionists, and dependent upon the Hindu villagers
for fire and a little rice .

Generally speaking, the Wahábi Missionary has little

to fear from the Magistrates of the Districts through
which he passes ; and, indeed , his favourite preaching-
ground is the open space thronged with suitors outside

the Magistrates ' Court . The first preacher whose acquaint-

ance I made was encamped in the avenue of the Com-
missioner's Circuit-House. It was only an old man

talking to a group of Musalmans under a pipal tree.

Close by, an undersized reddish pony, with a large head
fixed on a lanky neck, was trying to switch off the flies

from a saddle-gall by means of a very ragged tail . The

poor beast, his fore-feet tied together with babui rope,
hopped painfully from one tuft of grass to another, occa-
sionally turning his head round savagely on some fly
beyond the reach of the ragged tail, but soon relapsing
with outstretched neck into the listlessness of an animal
utterly worn out with travel. The old man had a fresh
complexion and a long white beard. He mumbled his
words a little, but not enough to hide the vigorous up-

country inflection with which he delivered his sentences.

He himself seemed very much in earnest, but his eight or
74 THE WAHABI MISSIONARY AT WORK.

ten hearers listened with stupid eyes, and, saving a slight

obeisance when they departed, came and went with all

the freedom of a street preacher's congregation in Eng-

land. It was the month of May, and the old man

vehemently denounced the follies of the coming festival.
He was by no means careful not to offend . He told his

hearers that they would wear their new clothes on their

old hearts ; that they would stun their ears with the lutes
and drums of the Bengali unbelievers till they were deaf
to the simple truths of the Kuran ; and that the whole
festival of the Muharram, its sham fights, its feigned

mourning, its wild feasting, its mock penitence, were

utterly abominable to God and his Prophet.
The Musalmans of a quiet village in Western Bengal
are not the best sort of soil for a Reformer to cast his

seed into ; and as the group broke up at the close of the

harangue, public opinion, although divided, was mainly
against the preacher. One said : This man would have

us let the lamp go out at the tomb of our father.'

เ
Another : He forbids the tom-tom and dancing-girls at
the marriage of our daughters .' A third was more

favourable : Yet he knows the seventy-seven thousand

six hundred and thirty-nine words of the Kuran . He
says well too, that the Book (Al Kitab) bids us pray only

to God . Truly he is a Doctor of the Law.' This view,

however, was controverted by a Mulla, or crier from the
Mosque, who authoritatively ended the discussion . ' This
fellow,' he said, ' is a follower of the false Imam who took

the Holy Cities by the sword, closed up the path of

pilgrimage, and wrote on the door of the Pure House,
" There is no God but one God, and Sa'ud is his Prophet "
(La ilaha illa-l -lah Sa'ud Rasul lillah) .

Altogether the sermon fell rather flat, and the preacher

 HIS MORE DANGEROUS ASPECT. 75

was aware of it. The crowd, when dispersed, left a

residue of two Musalmans in very soiled clothes, who
appeared to be fellow-travellers of the preacher, and who
watched his every motion with reverence . He talked to

them in low earnest tones for some time, and then com-
posed himself to sleep, while his dirty disciples fanned
him by turns. The jaded pony, too, gave up any further
search after the parched tufts of grass, and, forgetful of his
daily wrongs, went to sleep standing under an adjacent
tree. In the cool of the evening the party departed as it

came, unnoticed ; the old man on the little pony, and the
two soiled followers trudging along on either side of him.
It must be remembered that the Indian Wahábis are

only a small fragment of a great sect. The unsuccessful

preacher is the representative of many thousand earnest
men at this moment wandering over Asia, sometimes
acknowledged , sometimes ignored, at the mosques ; speak-
ing various tongues, but all devoted to the one great work
of purifying the creed of Muhammad, as Hildebrand's
monks purged the Church of Rome.
It is one of the misfortunes attendant on the British

Rule in India, that this Reformation should be insepar-

ably linked with hatred against the Infidel Conquerors.
But everywhere, any attempt by the Muhammadans to
return to the first principles of their Faith involves a
revolt against the ruling power ; for even the most ortho-
dox Musalman State has had to mould those principles
to the necessities of Civil Government. Mecca itself, the
stronghold of Islam, is the place throughout all the world
where the sect is most feared and detested . In the last

few pages I have sketched the Wahábi emissary under his

milder aspects ; but many of them are simply men who

live by pandering to the fanatical sedition of the lowest
76 A MISSIONARY TREASON SERMON.

classes of their countrymen . The following is a specimen

of the harangues by which they perpetuate the old

Muhammadan hatred against British Rule. The first

duty of a Musalman is Religious Rebellion ; and to those

who reply that such Rebellion is impracticable under the
British Power, they answer that the only alternative is
flight . The land, and everything that grows on it, are
accursed so long as an Infidel Government rules . I have
already given examples of the Wahábi exhortations to
Holy War, in prose and verse. Here are the arguments

by which they persuade the ignorant peasantry of Eastern

Bengal, that as they cannot rise en masse, the only way to
escape eternal torment is to quit their homesteads, and
emigrate wholesale from the country of the Infidel :-
' In the name of God. The merciful and kind God

is all goodness. He is the Lord of the Universe. May

divine kindness and safety attend Muhammad — His
Messenger - and all his descendants and companions.

Know ye that all Muhammadans are bound to leave a

country which is governed by the Infidel, in which acting
according to the Muhammadan law is forbidden by the
ruling power. If they do not abandon it, then in the

hour of death, when their souls will be separated from

their bodies, they will suffer great torments. When the
Angel of Death will come to separate their souls from
their bodies, he will ask them this question : Was not the
kingdom of God spacious enough to enable you to leave
your homes and settle in another country ? And saying
this, he will subject them to great pain in separating
their souls from their bodies . Afterwards they will suffer

the torments of the grave without intermission , and on

the Day of Judgment they will be cast into hell, where
they will suffer eternal punishment. May God forbid
 A WAHABI SERMON. 77

that Muhammadans should die in a country ruled over

by the Infidel.
' Make your escape now. Go to a country which is
governed by Musalmans, and live there in the land of the

Faithful. If you reach it alive, then all the sins of your

life will be forgiven. Do not trouble yourself about the
means of livelihood . God, who provides for all, will give
you food wherever you may be.
' In the Holy Traditions it is written how an Israelite
who had murdered ninety-nine men went to a man of
God, confessed his crimes, and asked how he could obtain
forgiveness . The man of God answered : “ If any person
unjustly kills even one man, he will certainly be damned .
Your sins will not be forgiven ; you will certainly go to

hell." Hearing this, the Israelite said : " I must go to

hell, that is certain . I shall therefore kill you in order to
make up a hundred murders." He then killed the holy
man, and, going to another holy man, confessed that he
has committed one hundred murders, and asked how he
could obtain forgiveness . This man of God answered :

" By sincere repentance and the performance of Flight

from the land of the Infidel. " As soon as he heard this

he repented of his sins, and leaving his country, set out

for a foreign land . On the way death approached , and
both the Angels-viz. the Angel of Mercy and the Angel
of Punishment-appeared to separate his soul from his
body. The Angel of Mercy said that he would separate
the man's soul from his body because he had repented of
his sins and performed Flight. The Angel of Punishment
admitted that if the man had succeeded in reaching
another kingdom , the office would have belonged to the
Angel of Mercy ; but that he claimed the right of per-

forming the operation , and of subjecting the man to tor-

78 DISTRICT-CENTRES OF SEDITION.

ments, because he had not succeeded in completing the

Flight to a land of the True Believers. Then both Angels
measured the land on which the man was lying, and
found that one of his feet had crossed the boundary, and

lay within a kingdom of Islam. On this the Angel of

Mercy, declaring that his right was established , painlessly
separated the soul from his body, and the man was
admitted amongst the favoured of God . You have heard
how Religious Flight is rewarded in the next world.
Therefore pray to God for grace to enable all of you to
perform Flight, and to perform it quickly, lest you die in
91
an Infidel country.'

But besides their teeming literature of treason, their

Central Propaganda at Patna, and their Missionaries

wandering throughout the length and breadth of Bengal,

the Wahabis have invented a fourth organisation for
reaching the seditious masses. The earlier Caliphs
favoured the efforts of their emissaries to effect a perma-
nent settlement wherever the multitude of their converts

encouraged their doing so. In this way a number of

Traitor Settlements have been established throughout

rural Bengal. These District-Centres of treason keep up

a regular correspondence with the Propaganda at Patna,

and each has its own machinery for raising money and
recruits, complete within itself. In 1870 two such

District-Centres were broken up, and their chief preachers,

after impartial trial by the Courts, sentenced to trans-

portation for life and forfeiture of property. The evidence
which then came out might well appal any alien Govern-
ment less confident in its own integrity than that of
British India. I shall briefly narrate the history of one
of the prisoners .

1 Abbreviated from Calcutta Review , cii . pp. 388-389 .

 DISTRICT-CENTRES OF SEDITION, 1870. 79

About thirty years ago, one of the Caliphs¹ came on

a missionary tour to Maldah District in Lower Bengal.
The field proving good, he settled for several years in a
village , married one of the daughters of the place , and
established himself as a schoolmaster. The children of

the petty proprietors flocked to the learned man, and in

this way he insinuated himself into the landed families

of the District. He preached rebellion with great force

and unction, accustomed the people to a regular system
of contributions for the Holy War, and forwarded yearly
supplies of money and men to the Propaganda at Patna,
for transmission to the Frontier Camp. One of his tax-
2
collectors , whom he had raised from the rank of an
ordinary peasant, was a man of zeal and talent . He re-
ceived a fourth of the collections as salary, and gradually
became a ruling elder in the village . For many years he
carried on his business undisturbed, but about 1853

the Magistrate's suspicions were aroused. The religious

tax-gatherer's house was searched, and letters were found

proving the seditious character of his trade , and his

connection with the Holy War which the Frontier Camp

had shortly before tried to stir up in the Panjab.³

The District-Centre was arrested, but, with our usual

contempt for petty conspirators, was shortly afterwards

released .His brief imprisonment sufficed, however, to

make it dangerous for him to continue his treasonable

levies, and he resigned his office as religious tax-gatherer
4
to his son.* His successor proved himself worthy of
1 Abdul Rahman, a native of Lucknow, appointed to the Caliphate by one
of the original Caliphs, Wilayat Ali.
2 Rafik Mandal.
3 In 1852, when the 4th Native Infantry were tampered with, and the
Patna Magistrate reported the growth of the sect, and their determination to
resist further inquiries in that city by force of arms.
4 Maulavi Amir-ud- din of Maldah.
80 THE MALDAH DISTRICT- CENTRE, 1870 .

the post ; and, to use the neutral-tinted and indeed.

gently appreciative words of the officer in charge of
his case, ' ' from that time up to the date of his trial, he
seems to have honestly exerted himself to the utmost in
sustaining the Religious War by recruits.' All this he
did wholly undisturbed by the District Authorities . An
English Magistrate in India has all the reluctance of a
prefect of the Augustan Empire to intermeddle with the
various beliefs or superstitions of the races over whom he
rules . Treason can thus safely walk about under a religious
habit. But the State Trial at Patna in 1865 disclosed the
Maldah District- Centre's share in the general conspiracy.

In spite of this warning, however, he continued his levies

of money and men for the Frontier War ; openly went

from village to village preaching rebellion ; and in 1868 ,

when he found the liberality of his people slackening,

brought down the son of the Patna Caliph to assist him

in reviving their zeal. His jurisdiction extended over
3
three separate Districts ; and for several days' journey
down the Ganges the ignorant Musalman peasantry on
both banks, and on the islands which the river has thrown
up in its bed, owned his control. The number of recruits
whom he sent to the Frontier Camp can never be ascer-
tained ; but at a single one of the Traitor outposts on our
Frontier, containing 430 fighting men, more than ten per

cent. had been supplied from his jurisdiction.

His system of pecuniary levies was simple and com-
plete. He grouped together the villages into fiscal clusters,

1 Report filed with the Record of the Maldah Trial of 1870. Official Papers.
2 In the matter of Maulavi Ahmadulla, who was convicted of treason, and
sentenced by the Sessions Court to death and forfeiture of property, the
capital part of his sentence being afterwards mitigated to transportation for
life.
3 Including the whole of Maldah, and parts of the Districts of Murshidabad
and Rajshahi.
 THE FOUR TAXES FOR TREASON, 1870. 81

and to each cluster he appointed a chief tax-gatherer. This

officer, on his part, appointed a village collector to every
hamlet, checked their collections, and transmitted the pro-
ceeds to the District- Centre. As a rule, each village had
one tax-gatherer ; but in populous villages a larger staff

was employed, consisting of the priest, ' who led the prayers
and gathered the contributions ; the general manager² or
Deacon, who looked after the worldly affairs of the sect ;
3
and an officer who supplied messengers for dangerous
letters, and for transmitting the oblations of treason .
These oblations are of four kinds. The first is a tax of

two and a half per cent. on all property held in possession

during the lunar year. It bears the name of ' Legal
94
Alms, and has from the first been devoted to war
against the Infidel.This tax, however, only bears upon
5
property above a certain value, and the Patna Caliph
on his return from the Frontier Camp found its pro-
ceeds inadequate to support the Holy War. He accord-

ingly appropriated the voluntary alms formerly given to

indigent persons, and thus confiscated the patrimony of
the poor to the purpose of rapine and revolt. These

voluntary alms are bestowed as a solemn religious duty

on the great Muhammadan festival of the year. To the
6
month of fasting and humiliation succeeds an ecstasy of
7
religious rejoicing. But before entering the mosque to
hear the festival prayers, the devout Musalman believes
that he must distribute alms to the poor, or the whole

penance of the past twenty-eight days will be refused by

God. 8
It was these offerings which the Patna Caliph
swept into the Traitors ' purse. He also invented a new

1 Dín-ke -sardár. 2 Dunyá-ke-sardár. 3 Dák-ke-sardár.

4 Zakat. 5 Inayat Ali. 6 Ramazán.
7 Id -ul-fitr, or Ramazán- ki-íl. 8 Fitr.
F
82 VITALITY OF A WAHABI SETTLEMENT.

tax, from which even the poorest could not escape. He

d
commande every head of a family to put aside a handf ul¹

of rice for each member of his household at every meal,

and to deposit it after the Friday prayers with the village

collector. In this way stores of grain were gathered

together, and publicly sold on behoof of the Holy War.

These imposts, however, represented only the minimum
which the religious tax-gatherers had a right to exact.
The provident Caliph took care that ample scope should
be given to the zeal of new converts , or to the sudden
impulses produced by a stirring sermon. He accordingly
devised an extraordinary cess, to be given at intervals as
a voluntary donation, over and above the regular taxes
which his collectors demanded as a matter of right. The

tax-gatherers-in-chief made an annual tour, each through

his own group of villages, at the time of the great festival,
and took care that every family had paid up its dues for
the past twelve months in full.
District- Centres of equal ability in levying money

and men are scattered over Bengal, and the unfortunate

man whom I have selected as an example was only one of
many. His Headquarters lay upon the great thorough-
fare from Lower Bengal to the North-West, and formed
a halting-place for every seditious preacher who travelled
up or down. The two Caliphs who testified to the death
2
on the Frontier had partaken of his hospitality. One of
the present leaders of the Rebel Camp³ had also stayed
with him en route ; and many District- Centres, together

with the heads of the Patna Propaganda, have been his

4
guests. His town formerly lay on the right bank of
the Ganges, at a distance from the Headquarters of the

1 Mutthi. 2 Inayat Ali and Maksud Ali.

3 Fyaz Ali. 4 Narayanpur.
 VITALITY OF A WAHABI SETTLEMENT. 83

District, or from any police village belonging to it. Even

the great convulsions of nature which destroyed the town
helped to spread the cause. The Ganges, in one of its
huge writhings backwards and forwards across the country,
ate away the land on its right bank, so that not a vestige
of the Wahábi Settlement remains. The inhabitants

dispersed, some to a newly-formed island near the left

bank of the river, others to various inland hamlets ; and

wherever they went, each little party became a centre of

sedition. Wherever the river throws up new land, a

Wahabi colony immediately takes possession, and forms

the nucleus of a new village .

It may well be supposed that so permanent and

so widely spread a disaffection has caused grave anxiety
to the Indian Government. During the past seven years,

one traitor after another has been convicted and trans-

ported for life . Indeed, each of the fanatic wars on our

Frontier has produced its corresponding State Trial within
our Territory. At this moment a large body of prisoners,
drawn from widely distant Districts, are suffering for their

common crimes or awaiting their trial. It is difficult to

speak of those who have been convicted without pre-

judice to the chance of escape of those who have yet to
be tried ; for the evidence already on record mixes up the
names of both. Yet these State Trials form one of the

most curious phenomena in Indian History ; and without

using the details furnished by them, it is impossible to
follow the ramifications of the chronic conspiracy in

Bengal. I therefore select the one which is furthest re-

moved from the pending proceedings in point of time,

and carefully exclude anything which might tend to the

prejudice of any of the unfortunate prisoners not yet
adjudged guilty by the law.
84 WAHABI STATE TRIAL OF 1864.

The trial of 1864 was the natural outcome of the

disastrous fanatic war in 1863. Unlike the judicial pro-

ceedings of previous years, it was no longer a few sepoys
of a Native Regiment, or an isolated preacher of sedition,
whose treason had to be inquired into , but a widely rami-
fied conspiracy spread over distant Provinces, and fur-
nished with ample machinery for secrecy and self-defence.
In July 1864 , Sir Herbert Edwardes, as Sessions Judge at
Amballa, delivered judgment in a State Trial which had
occupied the Court during nearly twenty sittings. Eleven
Musalman subjects of the British Crown had been charged
at the bar with high treason . Among them were repre-

sentatives of every rank of Muhammadan society : priests

of the highest family, an army contractor and wholesale
butcher, a scrivener, a soldier, an itinerant preacher, a
house-steward, and a husbandman. They had been de-
fended by English Counsel ; they had had the full advan-
tage both of technical pleas in bar and of able pleadings
on the merits of the case ; six of their countrymen had sat
as Assessors with the Judge on the bench ; and the trial
ended in the condemnation of eight of them to trans-
portation for life, and of the remaining three to the last
penalty of the law.
The vast Northern Presidency contains races of many

shades of colour, and of great diversity of dialect ; and it

would be easier for an Italian to pass as an Englishman

in London, than for a Bengali to play the Panjabi at

Peshawar. It was noticed , during the frontier campaign
of 1858, that numbers of the enemy slain in battle had
the unmistakeable dark, sallow complexion which is im-
parted by the steamy swamps of Lower Bengal. The
clue, however, could not be followed up at that time. At

the end of the campaign the Irregular Horse were re-

 WAHABI STATE TRIAL OF 1864. 85

duced, and several of the deserving men enrolled in the

Mounted Police . Among them was a certain Panjabi ,'

who soon rose to the rank of sergeant in a District 2 near

Amballa. In May 1863 , while on his rounds one morning,
he descried four foreigners proceeding along the Great
North Road . Their diminutive stature, dingy complexion,
and puny beards, reminded the old soldier of the Bengali
traitors he had seen amid the dead on the battle-field in

1858. He got into conversation with them, worked him-

self into their secrets, and at length elicited that they
were Bengali emissaries from Mulka, on their way back
to their native province to arrange for the forwarding of
fresh supplies of money and men.
The tall Northerner at once arrested the four traitors.

They appealed to him as a brother Musalman, and offered

him any bribe he would name, to be paid by a certain
scrivener, Jaffir Khan, in the neighbouring market town
of Thaneswar. But the old soldier was faithful to his

salt, and forthwith sent them before the Magistrate.

There can be little doubt, if that officer had at once com-

mitted these four Bengalis, the whole conspiracy would

have been detected ; the Fanatics would not have ven-

tured to attack our Guide Corps ; and the British Empire

would have been spared a bloody campaign. But at that
time the Empire was in profound peace ; Thaneswar is a
quiet inland district ; High Treason is a rare crime ; false
charges by the Indian Police for the purpose of extorting
money are the commonest occurrences. The Magistrate ,
in refusing to commit the four peaceable wayfarers, only
acted in the way which, in ninety -nine out of a hundred
cases, would have been consonant with substantial justice .
This, however, happened to be the hundredth case.
1 Guzan Khan by name. 2 Karnal.
86 DISCOVERY OF THE PLOT.

The Sergeant of Mounted Police was highly affronted

at the release of his prisoners. The feeling that his

report had been doubted preyed upon his high Panjabi

spirit, and he still felt perfectly certain that a great
unseen danger was about to break upon our Empire.
He devised an enterprise hardly surpassed in the
legends of Spartan fortitude or the annals of Roman
fidelity. To leave his post without leave would have been
desertion ; but he had a son in his native village, far in
the North, whom he loved better than anything upon
earth, except the family honour. Between his village and
the Frontier lay our outposts, all on the alert to stop any
stray plunderer or absconding traitor. Beyond the Frontier
were the Fanatics, on the eve of their great act of overt
hostility to the Crown, and in the last degree suspicious
of any stranger not forwarded in the regular manner by
their agents within our Empire . The father, well knowing
that his son, if he escaped being hanged at our outposts
as a traitor on his way to join the Rebel Camp, ran a very

imminent risk of being strangled by the Wahábis as a

spy, commanded his boy in the name of the family honour
to go to Mulka, and not to return till he could bring back

the names of the conspirators within our territory who

were aiding the Fanatics outside .
The son received the letter, and next day disappeared

from the village. What were his sufferings and hair-

breadth escapes, none but his own family knows . But it

came out in evidence that he completely deceived the

Wahábis, joined in their descent upon Sittana, repassed
our outposts unscathed, and turning neither to the left

nor to the right, presented himself one evening at his

father's hut, many hundred miles inland, worn out by
travel , want, and disease, but charged with the secret,
 TRIAL OF 1864 ; THE SCRIVENER. 87

' that Munshi Jaffir of Thaneswar, whom men call Khalifa,

was the great man who passed up the Bengalis and their
carbines and rifles .' Now Jaffir was the scrivener in the

market town of Thaneswar, who would have at once

paid the bribe, if the Sergeant had let the four travellers

go.
I can recall no more touching picture of prisca fides
than that stern Panjabi father, riding proudly and silently
on his daily rounds, brooding . over his distrusted word,

and, as the months passed, growing sick and more sick

regarding the fate of the son, whose life he had imperilled
to redeem his honour, and to save the foreign masters who
had doubted it. Before such a revenge our cautious

English sense of duty must stand penitent and uncovered.

Yet it is some comfort to remember that, if the Indian
Government has at times committed grave mistakes, it

has not forgotten amply to redress them.

The private history of Jaffir, scrivener in the market
town of Thaneswar, is full of interest. Born in a very
humble rank, he raised himself by force of character to
Headman' of his township. One day he chanced to stop
and listen to the discourse of an itinerant Wahábi preacher.

The religious feelings of the prosperous townsman were

awakened. He pondered upon the corrupted ceremonial
of the mosques, and after passing through a deep spiritual
darkness, not unlike that which John Bunyan experienced,
he openly professed himself a Wahabi, and threw his whole
nature into the work of religious reform.
The new convert devoted much time to self-examina-

tion, and rigidly kept account with his soul. He began

to write his religious experiences ; and these, under the

Lambardar, or Fiscal Representative of the township, in dealing with the

officers of Government.
 888
TRIAL OF 1864 ; THE SCRIVENER.

title of the Counsels of Jaffir, form one of the most inte-

resting documents ever filed in a State Trial.

' I commence writing this book on Tuesday, 18th

Zilhijja, 1278 Hijra.¹ The completion is in the hand of
God. I have not followed any particular method, but

simply note down the events, both relating to the Faith

and to the world , in which I have from time to time
taken part. I further wish to make known that this

world is transitory. Man, genie, angel, beast, tree, what-

soever has had its origin in it, shall perish each at its
appointed time. None but God remains eternal. Who-
ever has come into the world, had he lived for 1000 years ,
has carried nothing away with him but remorse. My own
state is as follows. Up to ten years of age I received no

education. On my father's death, when I was about ten

or twelve, and my younger brother only six months, I
came under the guardianship of my mother, who was
quite uneducated, and whose religious training had been
neglected . As a boy I took no thought of learning, and
used to wander about as a vagabond ; but when I got a
little sense, I commenced reading.

'Associating myself with the Petition-writers in 1856,

it came to pass that all the Vakil and Petition-writers
consulted me as to the Rules, Regulations, and Acts of
the Legislature, and I came to be above them all . ' Petition-

writers are a sort of unregistered pettifoggers, who write

out the plaints of suitors in the Magistrate's Court, at a
fee varying from sixpence to two shillings. Jaffir had a
large practice, but the money thus gained in the Infidel's
Court seemed to do him no good ; on the contrary, by
this profession I obtained great injury to my faith. It is
not well to follow this calling . Had I not adopted it, my
1 June 1862.
 TRIAL OF 1864 ; THE SCRIVENER. 89

religious state would have been much better. My mode

of livelihood has been detrimental to me in regard to the
pleasures of worshipping and of high piety. When I had
leisure from the Courts, even for a couple of days, my

state became good . The mere contact with the Musal-

man employés of the Unbeliever, which was the drawback

attending my position, acted as poison on my soul. '

Jaffir's legal reputation spread notwithstanding his
dislike of the profession , and he was retained as family
adviser by some of the powerful landholders in the neigh-
bourhood . He seems to have been a singularly sincere
man, never allowing his temporal success to interfere
with his eternal interests. Every one who came near
him owned his influence, and, like Muhammad, he began

by converting his own household. One of these, his clerk,

remained faithful to his master in his direst extremity,

and stood by his side as a fellow-witness to the Faith in

the dock of the Sessions Court at Amballa.

When the mutiny of 1857 broke out, Jaffir chose

twelve of his most trustworthy disciples, and repaired to
the Rebel Camp. Even in the unwonted work of fighting
his force of character made him conspicuous, and he gained

the reputation of being a man fit to be trusted with trea-

sonable secrets. Upon the downfall of the rebel hopes at
Dehli, Jaffir returned to his attorney's business at Thanes-
war, brooding over the inscrutable decree of Providence

which had given victory to the Unbelievers, and more

than ever discontented with what he calls ' this exceed-

ingly dirty business of Petition-writing.' Open force had

failed, and it remained to be seen what could be effected
by secret conspiracy. Jaffir soon became a member of

the widespread Wahábi confederacy. His secret duties

threw a religious halo even over his detested profession ;
90 TRIAL OF 1864 ; THE CHIEF PRIEST.

for ' be it known, ' he writes at this period, ' I do this by

order of a Certain Person, and for a Hidden Object."¹
This Certain Person was Maulavi Yahiya Ali of
Patna, Spiritual Director of the Wahabi sect in India.
The Hidden Object was the forwarding of recruits and
munitions of war to the Wahábi colony on the Mahában,
then in open hostilities against the British Crown.
I have already described the Patna Propaganda, of
which this man was then the head. Long before the trial

of 1864 the place was known throughout India as a hos-

pice of the reformed sect. The buildings lay on the left

hand side of the Sadikpur Lane, with a considerable front-

age, and ran back some distance from the street. Their

exteriors had that mournful dilapidated look which the

brick and stucco buildings of India assume after the first
wet season, and which presents such a squalid contrast
to our preconceptions of the gorgeous East. The most

important edifice of the group was a very plain mosque,

in which public prayer was offered up each hour of the
day, and a khatba or sermon every Friday. These Friday
lectures were vehement harangues, insisting above all on
the duty of War against the Infidel, but also exposing the
inefficacy of works without faith, warning the hearers of
their great spiritual danger, and urging them to cultivate
the Inward Life . They contrasted the simple worship of

the Prophet with the cumbrous ritual, the endless mum-

meries, bowings, and genuflexions of the mosques, and
bitterly inveighed against those who refused the Wahábi
alternative of Insurrection or Flight.

1 Sir Herbert Edwardes, in delivering sentence, thus summed up Jaffir's

character :—' It is impossible to exceed the bitter hostility, treasonable activity,
and mischievous ability of this prisoner. He is an educated man, and a Head-
man in his village. There is no doubt of his guilt, and no palliation of it.'—
Record of the Amballa State Trial in 1864 ; Official Papers.
 TRIAL OF 1864 ; THE BURSAR. 91

Generally speaking, they inculcated a spiritual stand-

ard much higher than ordinary natures are capable of ; and
the hearers, although deeply impressed at the moment,
carried away only a permanent recollection of having been
rendered exceedingly uncomfortable. The preachers of

some of the other city mosques, moreover, while forced to

acknowledge the learning and eloquence of the Sadikpur
Lane preachers, denounced them as rejecters of holy sacra-
ments and unitarian schismatics .

Yahiya Ali, Chief Priest and Caliph, ruled over the

Propaganda with a firm but gentle hand. The recruits
whom the itinerant missionaries sent up in flocks from
the Districts of Lower Bengal were kindly received at the
hospice . Those destined immediately for the Rebel Camp
were handed over to a lay brother, who fanned their zeal
for the conflict without troubling them very much with

matters of doctrine . This lay brother¹ was the bursar of

the Propaganda, and a most useful man. Not less expert

than Chaucer's ' gentil manciple, ' he managed the whole

temporal affairs of the hospice , daily lectured the recruits
on the high duty of Holy War, and even delivered occa-

sional prelections on divinity to the theological students,

when the Chief Priest, under whose care they properly
fell, was otherwise engaged. What he did, he did with
perfect sincerity of heart, and at the last stood undaunted

by his master's side in the dock at Amballa .

The Chief Priest, Yahiya Ali, had many duties. He
corresponded with all the itinerant preachers as Spiritual
Director of the sect in India. He organized and person-
ally worked a complicated system of drafts in a secret
language, by which large sums were safely transmitted

from the centre of the Empire to the Rebel Camp beyond

1 Abdul Ghaffar.
92 TRIAL OF 1864 ; THE CHIEF PRIEST.

the Frontier. He conducted the public ministrations in

the mosque. He examined and passed the rifles for the
Fanatic Host, delivered a course of divinity lectures to
the students, and by private study acquired an intimate
acquaintance with the Arabic Fathers.
But the most delicate operation of the conspirators
was the transmission of recruits from the Patna Propa-
ganda, or Little Warehouse, as it was called in their secret
language, to the Great Warehouse or Rebel Camp beyond
the Frontier. The Bengali convert was liable to a hundred
awkward questions en route. He had to march nearly two
thousand miles across the wide provinces of the North-
West and the Panjab, where in every village his physical
appearance and language stamped him as a foreigner. It
was in this dangerous work that Yahiya Ali's genius for
administration most fully developed itself. He organized
a system of Wahábi hospices along the route, and placed
each under the charge of a proven disciple. He thus
divided the Great North Road into convenient sections, and

the traitors on their way to the Rebel Camp journeyed in

safety through strange Provinces, in the full assurance
that at the end of each stage there were friends upon the

lookout for their arrival. The heads of the wayside hos-

pices were men of diverse ranks of life , but all devoted to
the overthrow of the British Rule, and each the president

of a local committee of conspirators. Yahiya Ali showed

an admirable knowledge of character in selecting these

men, for neither fear of detection nor hope of reward

induced a single one of them to appear against their
leader in the hour of his fall.

Above all, Yahiya Ali was a man of good birth, and

kept things smooth with the British authorities at Patna.
One of his family held an honorary post under our Govern-
 TRIAL OF 1864 ; THE ARMY CONTRACTOR. 93

ment, while another led the Fanatic Host in its raids

upon our Frontier. Seldom have more impressive words

been uttered in a Court of Justice than those in which

Sir Herbert Edwardes passed sentence of death upon

this man :-

'It is proved,' he said, ' against the prisoner Yahiya

Ali, that he has been the mainspring of the great treason
which this trial has laid bare . He has been the religious
preacher, spreading from his mosque at Patna, under the

most solemn sanctions, the hateful principles of the Cres-

centade . He has enlisted subordinate Agents to collect
money and preach the Moslem Jihad (War against the
Infidel) . He has deluded hundreds and thousands of his

countrymen into treason and rebellion . He has plunged

the Government of British India, by his intrigues , into a
Frontier War, which has cost hundreds of lives . He is a

highly educated man, who can plead no excuse of igno-

rance . What he has done, he has done with forethought,

resolution, and the bitterest treason . He belongs to a

hereditarily disloyal and fanatical family. He aspires to

the merit of a religious reformer ; but instead of appeal-

ing to reason and to conscience, like his Hindu fellow-

countrymen in Bengal, of the Brahma Samaj , he seeks

his end in political revolution, and madly plots against

the Government, which probably saved the Muhamma-

dans of India from extinction, and certainly brought in
religious freedom.'

Jaffir the Scrivener, and Yahiya Ali the Chief Priest,

have claimed the first place among the prisoners of 1864,

as the two religious heads of the Conspiracy. But their

talents for treason were of a less practical order than
those of Muhammad Shafi , wholesale butcher in Dehli,
and meat supplier to the British Forces in the Panjab.
94 TRIAL OF 1864 ; THE ARMY CONTRACTOR.

This man was the son of one of the great trading houses
of Northern India. The origin of his family's connection
with Government takes us back to the wars of Warren

Hastings and Lord Cornwallis. Muhammad's great-

grandfather and grandfather were humble graziers, who,

partly by speculation , partly by rigid economy, raised
themselves considerably in the world. It was a period
better fitted for making fortunes than for keeping them.
War prices ruled, and the armies, constantly in motion,
compelled our Commissariat to seek the acquaintance of
the cattle-contractors of Northern India. It is possible
that the family fortunes of the traitor owed their rise to
the great famine of 1769 , which first awakened the people
of England to their responsibilities in India. During
the last decades of the century, I find the grandfather in

a highly responsible position, executing large contracts to

the perfect satisfaction of the officers in charge of the
Commissariat. Muhammad's father greatly enlarged the

scope of these transactions . Besides the money required

for advances to the smaller cattle-breeders, he had a

surplus capital which he lent out on the safest securities,

at the highest interest. His son succeeded to a large
fortune, but true to the Indian instinct of following his
father's craft, he devoted himself with energy to the
family trades ; and it was as a great banker and wholesale
butcher that he carried on the nefarious operations which
landed him in the condemned cell at Amballa .
As the Chief Priest was the head, so this man was

the right hand of the Conspiracy.

He had agencies in all the large cities of Hindustan,
and held the meat contracts for the seven chief British

Cantonments along the Great North Road . He was con-

nected by blood or by commercial ties with the richest
 TRIAL OF 1864 ; THE ARMY CONTRACTOR. 95

trading houses of the Panjab ; he formed the centre of

an ever-widening circle of dependants, who were spread
all over Upper India ; and his business relations brought
him into contact with the shepherd tribes far beyond our

frontier. He yearly received many hundred thousand

pounds from the British Government ; in his dealings he
was punctual, and obedient to servility ; and he so hood-
winked the Commissariat Officers, that he obtained a re-
newal of his meat contracts for the troops, even after he
had been charged with treason to the Queen.
The widespread influence which he thus acquired as
our servant, he applied to our destruction . He was the
banker of the Conspiracy, and skilfully used the con-
veniences for transferring money, which Government
granted to him as an Army Contractor, to aid and
succour the Rebel Camp. There was nothing of the
religious enthusiast about him. He allowed no foolish
.

fanaticism to lead him into any indiscretion . He was

guilty of no saintly self-sacrifice . He appears through-
out the keen, sharp-sighted , sordid schemer, deliberately
entering into the most perilous transactions for a corre-
spondingly high profit, and trusting to his clear intellect

and high position to guide him safe through the dangers

which beset his path.

Jaffir the Scrivener, and Yahiya Ali the Priest,

made no pretensions to loyalty, and sought nothing at
our hands . They were earnest, conscientious men, who

pricked themselves with the poisoned weapons which a

false religion had put into their hands ; and now that,
Laertes-like, they have paid the price of their treachery,
history may dwell with emotions almost akin to pity on
their fate . But for Muhammad Shafi there can be no

such feeling. He licked our hand in order to bite it.

96 TRIAL OF 1864 ; MINOR TRAITORS.

He took usury from his fellow-conspirators, and conducted

with a safe margin of profit an underwriting business in
treasonable risks. He stands out from the band of reli-
gionists and minor traitors whom the State Trial of 1864
brought together in the Amballa dock, as one of those
gigantic villains whom the downfall of the Roman Re-
public produced, and whom the orations of Cicero have

handed down . He combined the heartlessness of Oppi-

anicus with the caution of Lentulus ; and his one fatal
step was in not deserting the pirates before the man-of-war
hove in sight.

I have now sketched the four chief figures in the

group of traitors who, day after day, stood together in
the Amballa Court. I shall briefly dismiss the other

eight with the words in which the Judge passed sentence

upon them ::-

' It is proved against the prisoner Rahim, that at

his house these treasons have been carried on . In his

premises the Bengali Crescentaders gathered and were

lodged . It was his servant who kept the treasure, fed the
recruits, and remitted the subscriptions to the Fanatics ;
and it was his brother-in-law, Yahiya Ali, who preached
treason at the door of his zenana. His ability is inferior

to Yahiya Ali's , and he is not so conspicuous ; but he has

done what in him lay against the State.
' It is proved against Ilahi Baksh, that he has been
the channel through which the Patna Maulavis forwarded
the funds they collected up -country to Jaffir at Thanes-
war, to be passed on to Mulka and Sittana.

1 Yahiya Ali, the Chief Priest ; Abdul Ghaffar, the bursar of the Propa-
ganda at Patna ; Jaffir, the scrivener of Thaneswar, who forwarded the recruits
through the Panjab ; and Muhammad Shafi , the meat supplier to the British
Forces, who cashed the treasonable remittances, and used his position as an
Army Contractor to give information as to the movements of our troops.
 TRIAL OF 1864 ; MINOR TRAITORS. 97

' It is proved against Husaini of Patna, that he is a

servant of Ilahi Baksh ; that he has been employed by

him in effecting remittances for treasonable purposes ;
that a large sum of gold muhars was received by him
from Abdul Ghaffar, under order from Yahiya Ali ; that
he sewed them up in a jacket, and so brought them up-
country from Patna to Delhi, where he delivered them, as
he had been ordered, to the prisoner Jaffir. It is also
proved that he carried up money orders for Rs. 6000, and
that he thoroughly understood the treasonable nature of
the service on which he was engaged.

' It is proved against Kazi Miyan Jan, that he

preached and recruited for the Crescentade in Bengal, and
that he has been an active agent for the Patna conspirators
and the fanatics in the hills, collecting and remitting funds,

forwarding letters, etc. The most treasonable correspond-

ence has been found in his house, from both Patna and
Mulka, showing also that he had three or four aliases.

' It is proved against Abdul Karim that he was the

confidential agent of Muhammad Shafi (the meat supplier)
in cashing the Patna money orders for treasonable
purposes, and that he was in communication with Yahiya
Ali concerning these purposes.
' It is proved against the prisoner Husaini of Thanes-
war that he was a confidential agent and go-between of
the prisoners Muhammad Jaffir and Muhammad Shafi in
these treasons, and that he was seized in the act of convey-
ing 290 pieces of gold¹ from Jaffir to Muhammad Shafi
for remittance to the Queen's enemies.
'It is proved against Abdul Ghaffar, No. 2,2 that he

1 Gold Muhars.
2 This was another man of the same name as the Abdul Ghaffar already
mentioned.
G
 Γ

98 TRIAL OF 1864 ; MINOR TRAITORS.

was a disciple of Yahiya Ali at Patna ; that Yahiya Ali

deputed him to be the assistant of the prisoner Jaffir
in the rebel recruiting depot at Thaneswar ; that he did
so assist,and that he corresponded with the prisoner
91
Yahiya Ali on treasonable matters .'
The three most conspicuous features of the conspiracy
which the trial disclosed , were the admirable sagacity
with which so widely spread a treason had been organized ;
the secrecy with which its complicated operations were
conducted ; and the absolute fidelity to one another
which its members maintained. Its success depended to

some extent upon an ingenious system of aliases, and upon

the secret language of which I give a specimen below."
But it is impossible to resist the conviction that the

conspirators , with the exception of the army contractor,

were actuated by a conscientious zeal for what they be-
lieved to be the cause of God, and by a firm resolve to
abide stedfast to the death . The British authorities took

the wise revenge of denying even to the most treasonable

of them the glory of martyrdom. The highest Court of

the Province, after a patient hearing in appeal, confirmed
Sir Herbert Edwardes ' finding as to their guilt, but modi-
fied the capital sentence in the three most flagrant cases
to transportation for life."

¹ In this account of the Trial of 1864, I have in some places used an article
which I put forth at the time, 1864. All the statements are based upon the
Certified Record of the Case, upon Letters from the Local Authorities, or upon
Official Reports.
2 A battle is called a lawsuit ; God, the Law Agent ; Gold Muhars are
called large red rubies, large Dehli gold-embroidered shoes, or large red birds ;
remittances in Gold Muhars are spoken of as rosaries of red beads, and remit-
tances in money as the price of books and merchandise ; drafts or money
orders are called white stones, the amount being intimated by the number of
white beads as on a rosary.- Official Papers.
3 Paras. 182-184 of the Judgment in Appeal by the Judicial Commissioner
of the Panjab, dated 24th August 1864.
 THE LEVIES CONTINUED, 1864-68. 99

The State Trial of 1864 proved as little effective as

the retributive campaign of 1863 to check the zeal of the
traitors. Their internal dissensions kept them quiet for a
few years on the Frontier, but meanwhile the Holy War

was vigorously preached within our territory. In Eastern

Bengal, every District was tainted with the treason ; and

the Muhammadan peasantry down the whole course of the

Ganges, from Patna to the sea, were accustomed to lay apart
weekly offerings in aid of the Rebel Camp. What propor-
tion of these oblations actually reached the Frontier is
doubtful ; and as the difficulties of transmission increased,
the preachers seem to have felt justified in helping them-
selves more liberally than their earlier zeal would have per-
mitted . The fanatical Musalmans of the Delta bear the

name not of Wahábis, but of Farázis, ¹ or the men of exalted

faith. They call themselves the New Musalmans, and
muster in vast numbers in the Districts east of Calcutta.

We have already seen how, in 1831 , a merely local leader got

together between three and four thousand men, beat back
a detachment of the Calcutta Militia, and was only put

down by regular troops . In 1843 the sect had attained

such dangerous proportions as to form a subject of special
inquiry by Government. The head of the Bengal Police
reported that a single one of their preachers had gathered
together some eighty thousand followers, who asserted
complete equality among themselves, looked upon the
cause of each as that of the whole sect, and considered
nothing criminal if done in behalf of a brother in distress.2
The later Caliphs, especially Yahiya Ali, amalgamated the
Farázis of Lower Bengal with the Wahábis of Northern

1 From Faráz, above. They now claim as their founder not Titu Miyan, but
Sharkatulla, who preached in Dacca in 1828.
2 Letters, No. 1001 , dated 13th May 1843, and No. 50 of 1847, from the
Commissioner of Police for Bengal , etc.
100 COSTLINESS OF THE CONSPIRACY.

India ; and during the past thirteen years they have been
found side by side alike among the dead on the field of
battle, and in the dock of our Courts of Justice.
From 1864 to 1868 the levies of money and men

went on as before, and a special establishment had to be

organized to deal with the conspiracy. At this moment
the cost of watching the Wahábis, and keeping them
within bounds, amounts in a single Province to as much
as would suffice for the Administration, Judicial and
Criminal, of a British District containing one-third of the
whole population of Scotland. The evil is so widely

diffused, that it was difficult to know where to begin . Each

District-Centre spreads disaffection through thousands of
families ; but the only possible witnesses against him are

his own converts, who would prefer death to the betrayal

of their master .

In 1868, notwithstanding the exertions of the Police

within our territory, and of the military outposts on the

Frontier, the fanatic intrigues again involved the Empire
in a costly campaign. In the same year the Maldah
Head- Centre fearlessly brought down the son of the Patna
Caliph to preach treason in the heart of Bengal. The

ordinary action of the Courts proved altogether inade-

quate to the crisis, and the Government had to have

recourse to the special procedure which had been en-

trusted to it to meet such cases. As far back as 1818,

the Legislature formally recognised the perils to which a

Government, composed like our own of a small body of
foreigners, is subject from the overwhelming masses of the
conquered population . It accordingly vested the Execu-

tive with the power of arrest in times of conspiracy. A

national peril of this sort would be met in England by a
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, but such a suspen-
 HABEAS CORPUS SUSPENDED. ΙΟΙ

sion in India would be a calamity little less terrible than

making over the country to Martial Law. In the present
instance, for example, it is only a single sect of the
Musalmans who are to blame, and the whole Musalman
community forms but one-tenth of the general population .
If any Act corresponding to a general suspension of the
Habeas Corpus Act were passed, the Hindus would justly
complain that they, the real natives of the country, were
made to suffer for the disloyalty of their deadliest enemies,
the Muhammadans. Indeed, even among the Musalmans
themselves, there would be indignant protests by the
Suni and Shiah sects at being placed under a common
ban with the Wahábi schismatics.

The injustice would be intensified by an influence,

happily unknown in England, but rampant in India. The
Bengali, whether rich or poor, wreaks his malice on a
rival, and seeks his revenge against an enemy, not by

inconsiderate violence, but by due course of law. He uses

the Courts for the same purpose for which an Englishman
employs a horse-whip, or a Californian his bowie-knife.

A criminal prosecution is the correct form for inflicting

personal chastisement, and a general suspension of the
Habeas Corpus Act would place every man at the mercy
of his enemies . The Police Returns in India disclose an

overwhelming proportion of false complaints to true ones,

and the Bengali has reduced the rather perilous business
of making out a primâ facie case to an exact science. A
formal suspension of the right of Habeas Corpus would be
the signal for a paroxysm of perjury. The innocent would
live in constant fear of being thrown into prison, and kept
there on false charges of treason ; the revengeful and
malicious would enjoy a perpetual triumph.
Yet, without a power of arrest in time of sedition,
102 HABEAS CORPUS SUSPENDED.

similar to that with which the suspension of the Habeas

Corpus arms the Queen's Ministers in England, the British
Rule in India would not be safe a month. The Legislature
has therefore entrusted a modified power of this sort to
the Executive as one of its permanent prerogatives, but
has carefully fenced it round so as to prevent the chance
of abuse. Only the Supreme Government can exercise it
at all, and the Supreme Government only by a formal
act of the Governor- General in Council. The preamble
further limits its application to purely political cases,
affecting the due maintenance of the Alliances formed

by the British Government with foreign powers, the pre-

servation of tranquillity in the territories of native princes
entitled to its protection, and the security of the British
Dominions from foreign hostility and from internal com-
2
motions . Special provision is made for the good treat-
ment of such prisoners. The law carefully demarcates
their status from that of convicted persons, and terms
their confinement not imprisonment, but ' personal re-
straint . ' They enjoy an allowance from the Government.

They have liberty to forward

any representation or
3
petition to the Governor- General in Council direct . The
officer in charge of such a State prisoner is bound to
report to the head of the Government, whether the degree
of confinement is such as might injure his health, and
whether his allowance is adequate to support himself and
his family, according to their rank in life . ' * . His property
generally remains in his own hands or those of his family.
But if Government finds it necessary to take charge of

1 With the exception, apparently, of the Government of Bengal, as the

legal and historical representative of the Supreme Government of the period
when the Regulation was passed.
2 Regulation III. of 1818, Clause I. 3 Idem, Clause V.
4 Idem, Clause VI.
 HABEAS CORPUS SUSPENDED. 103

his estates, they are exempted from sale, whether in

satisfaction of the demands of the land revenue or of the

decrees of the Civil Court. They receive, in fact, all the

protection accorded to property under the Court of Wards.
The law takes ample precaution to prevent anything like
an unnecessarily prolonged restraint. Every officer in

charge of a State prisoner arrested by the Executive is

bound to report twice a year to the Head of the Govern-
ment direct, ' on the conduct, the health, and the comfort of
such State prisoner, in order that the Governor- General
in Council may determine whether the orders for his
91
detention shall continue in force, or shall be modified . "
There can be little doubt that, had this Act been
applied to the confederacy which the Campaign of 1858
and the subsequent inquiries disclosed, British India
would have been spared the disastrous Frontier War of
1863. A few well-aimed arrests would have saved us

nearly a thousand soldiers left dead in the Ambeyla Pass,

and many hundred thousand pounds. Even after that
calamitous war, if the conspiracy which the State Trial
of 1864 brought to light had been broken up by a vigo-
rous use of the power of arrest by the Executive, we
should in all probability have been spared the Campaign
on the Black Mountain in 1868. But for reasons which

I have dwelt on elsewhere," the Indian Government is

traditionally loath to recognise the political dangers
which environ it, and which from time to time have
imperilled its rule. The enormous stake which England
has in India, and the millions sterling which British Capi-
talists have annually invested in railways, canals, and
other representative works since the country passed under

1 Regulation III. of 1818, Clause III.

2 Annals of Rural Bengal, vol. i. p. 241 , 4th ed.
104 THE CONSPIRACY CHECKED.

the Crown, would now render even a temporary displace-

ment of our authority an appalling calamity. Costly wars
on our Frontier, severe judicial sentences within our ter-
ritory, had alike failed to put down the fanatical confe-
deracy ; and in 1868 the Government at length resolved
to vigorously enforce its power of arresting the offenders.
This measure could be carried out without risk of

injury to the innocent, and without popular agitation of

any sort. Lists of the leading traitors in each District

had for several years been in the hands of the authorities,

and the Hindu population looked upon their arrest as a
thing sooner or later to be expected .The most con-

spicuous preachers of sedition were apprehended ; the

spell they had exerted on their followers was broken ;
and by degrees a phalanx of testimony was gathered
together against those more secret and meaner, although
richer, traitors who managed the remittances, and who,
like the Army Contractor in the Trial of 1864 , carried on
a profitable business as underwriters of treasonable risks.
I have already narrated one of the trials which followed,
that of the Maldah Head-Centre last year. At this

moment another band of prisoners, arrested by the Execu-

tive, but now committed by the Magistrate after a regular
inquiry to the Sessions Court, is undergoing trial at
Patna.

These arrests, and the judicial proceedings which

followed, at length aroused the Muhammadans to the

danger which the Fanatic Sect was bringing upon their

whole community. They determined to separate them-
selves from the schismatical conspiracy by a formal public
act. Each section of them has accordingly published the
authoritative Decisions¹ of its Law Doctors on Holy War,
1 Fatwas.
 THE CONSPIRACY CHECKED. 105

and proclaimed its disapproval of the Wahábi sedition.

These curious documents form the subject of the next

Chapter. The Fanatical Conspiracy itself gives signs of
at last breaking down. The most active of its heads are
under restraint, and the remainder know that the same
fate awaits them if they again make themselves conspi-
cuous. But the nucleus of a great religious coalition still

survives on the Frontier. This very morning¹ on which

I finish the present Chapter, an Indian Newspaper gene-
rally most trustworthy in its statements announces another
the Black
raid upon the Mountain.
Black Mountain. On the 4th June a tribe

came down in force, and burnt three villages, in spite of

a stubborn defence by the inhabitants.2 Within four

hours of the news of the outrage, the 3d Panjab Infantry

and a detachment from the 4th Panjab Cavalry were on
the march from our nearest military station, with what
result is not reported . Nor have the causes, whether
fanatical or otherwise, yet been ascertained. Only this
is known, that for weeks the whole Press of British India

has been discussing the probabilities of another Afghan

War ; and should any such trial be in store for us, it will
be no small danger averted if the Wahábi conspiracy
within our territory can be first stamped out.

1 Simla, June 14, 1871.

2 Pioneer, June 12, reached Simla, June 14.
 CHAPTER III.

THE DECISIONS OF THE MUHAMMADAN LAW DOCTORS.

HE Wahábis have not been allowed to spread their

THE
network of treason over Bengal without some oppo-
sition from their countrymen. Besides the odium theo-

logicum which rages between the Muhammadan Sects

almost as fiercely as if they were Christians, the presence

of Wahabis in a District is a standing menace to all
classes, whether Musalman or Hindu, possessed of pro-

perty or vested rights. Revolutionists alike in politics

and in religion, they go about their work not as reformers
of the Luther or Cromwell type, but as destroyers in the
spirit of Robespierre or Tanchelin' of Antwerp. As the
Utrecht clergy raised a cry of terror when the last-named
scourge appeared, so every Musalman priest with a dozen

acres attached to his mosque or wayside shrine² has

been shrieking against the Wahábis during the past half
century. Between 1813 and 1830 no Wahábi could

walk the streets of Mecca without danger to his life, nor

indeed, up to the present hour, without risk of insult and
violence.

1 6 His sect was the one true Church. He was encircled by a body-guard
of three thousand armed men ; he was worshipped by the people as an angel,
or something higher ; they drank the water in which he had bathed.'-Milman's
History of Latin Christianity, vol. v. p. 389, ed. 1867.
2 Generally a tomb with a little land, or a mango grove, left in pios usus.
 POLITICAL ASPECT OF THE WAHABIS. 107

In India, as elsewhere, the landed and clerical in-

terests are bound up by a common dread of change.

The Muhammadan landholders maintain the cause of the
Mosque, precisely as English landholders defend the Estab-

lished Church. Any form of Dissent, whether religious

or political, is perilous to vested rights . Now the Indian
Wahabis are extreme Dissenters in both respects ; Ana-
baptists, Fifth Monarchy men, so to speak, touching
matters of faith ; Communists and Red Republicans in
politics. From the first their hand has fallen heavily on
any Muhammadan so criminal as to differ from their
views. In 1827-30, it was against an obdurate Musal-

man Governor of Peshawar, quite as much as against the

Hindu Sikhs, that their divine Leader turned his arms.
In the peasant rising around Calcutta in 1831 , they broke
into the houses of Musalman and Hindu landholders with

perfect impartiality. Indeed, the Muhammadan proprie-

tors had rather the worst of it, as the banditti sometimes
gave salvation to the daughter of an erring co-religionist
by forcibly carrying her off, and appropriating her to one
of the robber chiefs. The official description of the Sect,

fifteen years afterwards,' ' as a gathering of eighty thou-

sand men asserting complete equality among themselves ,
and drawn from the lower classes, ' would make any
landed gentry in the world indignantly uncomfortable.
Nor, indeed, would a religious Jacquerie of this sort
find favour with the fundholding community, or with any
section of the comfortable classes. In Bengal, however,

one entire trade (and a very rich and powerful one) has
been steadily on their side. The skinner and leather-
worker ranks at the very bottom of the Hindu com-

1 By Mr. Dampier, Commissioner of Police for Bengal, in letters already

cited.
108 THEIR REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT.

munity. He lays impious hands on the carcase of the

sacred animal, the cow, and profits by its death. He
is a man unclean from his birth, an outcast from decent
society, whom no wealth or success in his detested voca-
tion can raise to respectability. This degraded position
he accepts like a true Hindu, with an untroubled mind.
No exertions can raise him in the social scale ; so he

never makes the attempt. No honesty or sobriety could

win for him the regard of his neighbours ; so he lives
quite happy without it. If the cows belonging to the
village die in adequate numbers to supply him with
leather, good and well. If they show a reluctance to
mortality, he stimulates the too tardy death-rate with a

little arsenic. A man of this hopeless sort never rises

above petty retail dealings, and the wholesale hide trade
(one of the great Indian staples ) has thus fallen into the
hands of Musalman merchants . The Muhammadan knows

nothing of the scruples which so powerfully influence the

Hindu with regard to trafficking in the skin of the sacred
animal. The Musalman hide-merchants compose one of

the richest classes of the native mercantile community,

but they are looked upon with hatred and abhorrence by

the Hindus. This detestation they pay back in kind .

They well know that if the Brahman got the upper hand
for a moment, they would be the first spoil of the Infidel.
They accordingly regard the Infidel Hindu as a fair spoil
for themselves, and form the wealthiest and most power-
ful contributors to the Wahábi sect, whose very raison
d'être is to wage war upon the Unbeliever.
But it is not to any single class, however rich or
powerful, that the Wahabis owe their strength. They ap-
peal boldly to the masses ; and their system, whether of
religion or of politics, is eminently adapted to the hopes
 THEIR CONSCIENTIOUS PERSISTENCY. 109

and fears of a restless populace. Among them, as I have

already stated, and again cheerfully declare, are thousands

of sincerely pious men, who look upon self-abnegation as

the first duty of life . This element leavens the whole
lump, and gives a respectability, and almost a sanctity, to
the worldly-minded majority. The Wahábi of the nobler
sort knows no fear for himself, and no pity for others.
His path in life is clear, and neither warnings nor punish-
ments can turn him to the right hand or the left. There
is at present in one of the Bengal jails a venerable white-
haired Musalman, of blameless life in all respects, with
the exception of his being a bitterly persistent traitor.
For nearly thirty years his treason has been known to the
authorities, and he himself has been perfectly aware that
his practices were thus known. He was formally warned
in 1849, again in 1853 , again in 1857, and in 1864 he

was publicly called up in Court before the Magistrate to

receive a final admonition. To all such counsels he

turned a deaf ear, and in 1869 he had to be placed under

personal restraint. Such a case is very difficult to deal
with. Government naturally shrinks from proceeding to
extremities against a man really conscientious and devout
according to his lights ; and perhaps all that can be done

is to prevent his injuring others by a mild personal

restraint.

The Wahabi vocation is by no means a smooth or

an easy calling. In the first place, all who profess the
new faith must yearly part with a good deal of money in
support of it. For those who take a more active part and
join the Camp on the Frontier, a worse fate remains . I
have never read anything more piteous than the evidence
given by such recruits during the late trials. The summing
up of the Judges shows that the Wahábi preachers have
ΙΙΟ FATE OF HOLY WAR RECRUITS.

drafted away to almost certain slaughter hundreds of

deluded youths, generally under twenty, and often with-
out the consent of their parents, from nearly every Dis-
trict of Eastern Bengal. That they have introduced

misery and bereavement into thousands of peasant fami-

lies, and created a feeling of chronic anxiety throughout

the whole rural population , with regard to their most

promising young men. No Wahabi father who has a boy

of more than usual parts or piety, can tell the moment

at which his son may not suddenly disappear from the
hamlet. Of the youths thus spirited away, by far the

greater portion perish by pestilence, famine, or the sword.

The few who return bring back a firm conviction that
they have been used as tools and cast aside when they
were no longer required. Here is the story of one of
those who suffered least : -' I am a disciple of the Patna
Caliph. When I was ten or twelve years of age, I went

to Rampur Bauleah (a town in Lower Bengal, not far

from the native village of the witness) to study under
him. The masters were planning a Holy War, and ar-
ranging for sending money and men to support it. When
I was about fifteen years old, I also was sent to join the
Holy War. We went by Patna and Dehli (a distance of
about two thousand miles to the Frontier Camp) . I stayed

with the Caliph at Patna for one night. At Dehli my

companions went on, but I remained there to study under
a religious teacher for a year and a half. Thereafter, a
detachment passing though Dehli to join the Frontier
Camp, I went with them as far as Gujarat. Some time

after, another detachment having arrived, I went with

them to the mountains, where I had been assured that

the Imam Sayyid Ahmad had reappeared . I there found

between eight and nine thousand men assembled, the
 REACTION AGAINST WAHABIS. III

leader being the master with whom I had studied as a

boy of twelve (and who had now succeeded to the Patna
Caliphate). Here I discovered that no Divine Leader

had appeared, and that all was a sham. I and others

were angry, and returned to Dehli. Afterwards an Arab
came to Dehli , who assured us that the Divine Leader

had appeared at Sittana, and persuaded me again to go

and join the Holy War. When I arrived, I asked about
the appearance of the Divine Leader, but could get no
answer. I soon discovered that we had been again de-

ceived ; and on some British Troops coming to attack us,

I escaped to Dehli. Afterwards I returned to my own
home.'91

This is the story of a well- cared-for recruit, who in

the end came off unhurt. Into the more miserable narra-
tions of those who fell victims to pestilence, exposure, or

poverty by the way, I do not propose to enter. A single

returned Crescentader from the Frontier does more to
ruin the Wahábi cause in a District than a State Trial .
His presence is a perpetual dis-illusionment to the fanati-

cal youths who press forward for enlistment, and many

even of the really sincere Wahábis have become willing to
listen to any interpretation of the law which frees them

from the obligation to rebel.

Such interpretations have fallen on Bengal thick as
Autumn leaves during the past few years . The Wahábi
preachers, not content with swaying the fanatical masses,
attempted to bind the burden of Holy War upon the
shoulders of all ranks of their countrymen . Now it is a
very trying position for a man in easy circumstances to

1 Abridged from the evidence of Muhammad Abbas Ali before the Judge
of Dinajpur, 15th August 1870. I have avoided as much as possible the use of
proper names.
112 THE LEGAL DECISIONS (FATWAS).

be compelled either to join in a dangerous conspiracy

or to be denounced as an Apostate . For a time it was
possible to contribute without much personal danger ; but
since the enforcement of the power of arrest by the Exe-
cutive, abetment of rebellion has become a perilous game,

of which only the more bigoted consent to take the risks.

Subscriptions from wealthy widows have come in more
sparingly, and men with a stake in the country shirk
giving money for the Holy War at the Mosques. On the
other hand, the more fanatical of the sect have blazed up
in denunciations against those who, from fear of an Infidel
Government, have abandoned the cause of the Faith.
They stigmatize the deserters as cowardly and self-seek-
ing, and indignantly reject the Laodicæan casuistry by
which the comfortable classes strive to serve both God
and the World.
For a time the well-to-do Muhammadans bore these

reproaches in silence. But they had the whole vested

interests of the Musalman clergy to back them, and by

degrees drew out a learned array to defend their position.
They began to contest the Wahábi doctrine of Holy War

on first principles, and to deny that they were under any

obligation to wage war against the Queen. During the
past few years, a whole phalanx of Fatwas or Authori-

tative Decisions have appeared on this side . Even the

three great High Priests ' at Mecca have been enlisted to
liberate the Indian Musalmans from the dangerous duty

of rebelling against an English Queen.

To arrive at this satisfactory result demanded no
small amount of lawyer-like acumen. The plain meaning

1 The Mufti of the Hanafi sect, the Mufti of the Shafi sect, and the
Mufti of the Maliki sect. The fourth orthodox sect, the Hambli, are few in
number in Mecca, and have no Mufti.
 THE PRECEPTS OF THE KURAN. 113

of the Kuran is, that the followers of Islam shall reduce

the whole earth to obedience, giving to every nation the
alternatives of conversion, a submission almost amounting

to slavery, or death. But the Kuran was written to suit,

not the exigencies of a modern nation, but the local

necessities of a warring Arabian tribe in its successive

vicissitudes as a persecuted, an aggressive, and a trium-
phant sect. The rugged hostility and fanaticism of the
Kuran have been smoothed down by many generations

of scholiasts and interpreters ; and from its one- sided,

passionate bigotry, a not unsymmetrical system of civil
polity has been evolved . Many of the Prophet's precepts
on Holy War have, however, found their way unaltered
into the formulated Muhammadan Law. The great Indian
text-book, the Hidaya, devotes a special chapter to the
duty and incidents of waging war against the Infidel, and
this necessity has been strongly insisted upon by the
chief Indian Doctors of Muhammadan Law. But in the

discussions which have lately agitated the Musalmans,

very little has been said about the Kuran ; and all parties

have by tacit consent removed the question from the text

of the sacred book to the jurisdiction of the Canon Law,
which has been based upon it.

It is a matter of congratulation, both for the Musal-

mans and ourselves, that these Decisions have been on

the side of peace and loyalty. It is scarcely possible to

exaggerate the dangers which might have resulted had
these Fatwas been in favour of rebellion ; and the mere

fact of the question having been raised at all, reveals the

perilous ground upon which our supremacy in India is
based for it should never be forgotten that such Deci-
sions, when opposed to the Government, have given rise
to some of the most obstinate and bloody revolts that the
H
 114 PERILS OF AN ADVERSE FATWAH.

world has seen. Even Akbar was nearly hurled from the

height of his power by a Decision of the Jaunpur lawyers

declaring that rebellion against him was lawful . The
great military revolt in Bengal followed , and from that
time several of the landholders in the Lower Provinces

had to be treated as feudatories rather than as subjects.

In Europe , whenever the Porte wished to hurl its hordes
against Bulgaria or other of the Christian Provinces lying
on the Austrian Frontier , it heated the fanaticism of its
troops to the proper warmth by a Decision of the Law

Doctors on the duty and rewards of War against the

Infidel. We Christians did much the same thing, and the

flagging zeal of the Holy Roman Empire was lashed into

activity by a very similar set of stimulants during the later
Crusades . In Muhammadan countries, such religious

declarations in favour of exterminating those who differ

in faith occupy the rank of high Legal Decisions , and
collections of them were easily procurable in Constan-
tinople when I was there in 1867. In more recent times,
both the Pasha of Egypt and the Sultan of Turkey him-
self have been forced into disastrous hostilities against
religious insurgents who believed that the Commander

of the Faithful had departed from the sacred law, and

that it was their duty to destroy the apostate and his
armies . It is an auspicious circumstance , therefore , that
the very District ' which levelled the Fatwah of rebellion

against the greatest Musalman monarch whom India pro-

duced , has also furnished the Law Doctor whose Decision

is most strongly opposed to waging war against the

British Power.2

1 Jaunpur.
2 Maulavi Karamat Ali, in a Lecture delivered before the Muhammadan
Literary Society of Calcutta, 23d November 1870.
 THE SHIAH VIEW. 115

I propose briefly to state the various solutions of the

question at which the two recognised Musalman Sects,

the Shias and Sunis, have within the past few months
arrived .

The Shias take up a ground of their own touching

the duty of the Faithful to wage war against the Queen,
as they do on all other points. It is the view of a sect
who have never been very numerous in India, and who
have been accustomed to persecutions under the orthodox
Muhammadan Governments such as no British ruler

would sanction. The little Persian Pamphlet¹ which

they put forth some time ago on the subject of Holy War,
would carry no weight with the Sunis, who form nine-
tenths of the Muhammadans in India . But as the autho-

ritative declaration of a distinguished Doctor of the Shiah

Law, in consultation with the chief authorities among his

sect, including a great spiritual functionary of the ex-

King of Oudh, it deserves a notice . The Shias, although
not a numerous body, have contributed some of the
greatest names to the history of India ; and in the discus-

sion regarding the duty of rebellion which has been going

on in every District during the last four years, they have
made themselves distinctly heard .
The key-note to the Shiah faith is the belief in the

twelve Imams, an inspired Apostolic descent from the

Prophet of God. One Imam yet remains to complete the
august line , but is at present hidden away from sinful
mortals. Till his appearance the world travaileth and
goeth in pain, and the Faithful suffer tribulation at the
hands of heretical Sunis, Christians, and others. But

there will come a great Epiphany or shining forth of the

1 ' On the word Jihad as it is understood and believed by the Shiah Sect,'
by Munshi Amir Ali Khan Bahadur. Calcutta , 1871 .
116 THE SHIAH DECISION (FATWAH).

Promised One, when all wrongs shall be righted , and all

men converted to the true knowledge of God . Till then,

the Shiah tract argues that it would be vain to attempt
by mortal efforts, or rebellions, or wars, to bring about
that great consummation . It denounces as schismatics

all who disagree with this view. ' Now-a-days, such of

the depraved and seditious as are ignorant of the precepts
of Muhammad¹ and strangers to truth, with vain desires
improperly indulge in foolish talk about the meaning and
duty of Holy War.' " In this country, Hindustan, only
two sects among the followers of Islam have proved ortho-
dox-the Shias and Sunis . The remaining tribes of

Musalmans, whether they belong to the sect of Wahabis

or to the sect of those who are styled Farázis, etc. , are
such as have wandered from the right path, and cannot
be relied upon.' After explaining the three meanings of

the word Jihad," the pamphlet lays down seven conditions

which must be fulfilled in order that Jihad, in its mean-

ing of Holy War against the Infidel, may become lawful .

6
First, when the rightful Imam is present, and grants his
permission. Second, when arms and ammunition of war
and experienced warriors are ready. Third, when the
Jihad is one against mutineers and enemies of God.³
I
Fourth, when he who makes Holy War is in possession of
his reason, when he is not a lunatic or a man of impaired
senses, and when he is neither sick, nor blind, nor lame.
Fifth, when he has secured the permission of his parents .

1 Shura.
2 (1. ) Jihad Fillah, diligence in the adoration of God, who is glorious.
(2.) Jihad ba Nafs-i- Ammara, the conquering of inordinate appetites, and
bringing them under the control of reason, so as to make them yield to acts of
devotion, deter them from unlawful pursuits, and keep a watch over the mis-
spending of time. (3.) Jihad fid din, or Holy War against the Infidel, as
authorized by Muhammadan Law.
3 Harbi Kafir.
 THE SHIAH DECISION (FATWAH). 117

Sixth, when he is not in debt. Seventh, when he has

sufficient money to meet the expenses of his journey and
of the inns by the way, and to pay for the maintenance
of his family.'

Putting aside the expediency of waging war against

the Queen, and without any reference to the chances of

its failure or success, the great Shiah condition required
for a Holy War is the presence of the Imam. Now,
hitherto this Divine Leader has withheld his face from
mortal men . He has not yet condescended to appear and
lead the armies of the Faithful. Till his shining forth,

any attempt at Holy War is presumptuous and sinful .

' When that innocent Apostle, ' says the Pamphlet, ‘ shall
appear, is known only to the all-knowing God, and to no
one else. To commit bloodshed, except under the leader-
ship of that Imam in person, is strictly forbidden by the
Shiah law. Those are the rebels and sinful ones who

would revolt without the Divine sanction of the Apostle .'

The last sentence is a hit at the Sunis, who have
again and again declared Holy War without the Rightful
Leader, and with whom the Shias have a long account of
persecution and martyrdom to settle. The arrow is barbed
by a very innocent, and on the surface a very chari-
table, reference to the ultimate conversion of the whole

world to Islam, but a reference which would give great

pain to the rival sect. The Indian Sunis and Shias alike
believe in the eventual triumph of the True Faith. But
with a difference. The Sunis hold that in the latter days
they will carry out the injunction of the Prophet in its
entirety, and subdue the whole world to Islam. The
Shias, on the other hand, maintain that when that

triumph comes, it will be achieved by an amalgamation

(although a one- sided one) of the two great religions,
118 THE SHIAH DECISION (FATWAH).

Christianity and Islam . This dream of a universal frater-

nization in the last days is common to all religions of the
nobler type. The Hindus have a Book of the Future¹
which foretells a time when all men shall be of one reli-

gion and of one caste. Even the Vishnu Purana, com-

2
piled in the triumph of Hinduism over Buddhism,
admits that in the last Iron Age to which we have now
come, men shall obtain the liberation of their souls, not
in virtue of their religion or their race, but by purity of
life and rectitude of action. The Shiah Musalmans have

also their millennium, but it is to be reached in association

with the Christians, who will all become Shias, and pro-

bably through the blood of the Suni heretics, who at first

will refuse to accept the final Apostle . It is distinctly
laid down in our Muhammadan Law,' the Pamphlet pro-
ceeds to say, ' that at the time when the above-named

Imam shall appear, Jesus Christ (may safety attend him ! )

shall descend from the Fourth Heaven, and friendship,
not enmity, shall exist between these two Great Ones.'

It is satisfactory to learn, therefore, that at least one

small sect of our Muhammadan fellow- subjects are not
bound by the first principles of their religion to rebel
against the Queen. Whatever other Musalmans may do,
the handful of Shias in India declare that they will not
compel us by force of arms to the disgraceful alterna-
tive of circumcision or slavery. But welcome as such

an assurance may be, I cannot forget that the Shias

3
admit a principle of religious compromise, which rather
weakens the strength of any engagement they may make
with us infidels . All over the world, except in Persia,

they have been a persecuted people ; and, like other

1 Bhavishya Purána. 2 Circ. A.D. 1050.

3 Takiyah, literally extension.
 SHIAH DOCTRINE OF COMPROMISE. 119

hunted sects , have developed a system of casuistry to

save their bodies by what seems to strangers some-
thing very like a denial of their faith . When put to

straits by their Suni persecutors, they smooth over the

peculiarities of their belief. In extreme peril, as lately
in Syria, and from time to time in India, this Law of
Extension, or religious compromise, has allowed them to
denounce their most cherished tenets, and even to curse
the Twelve Imams. But under the British Power they

have been protected from persecution, and from the temp-

tation to insincerity to which persecution gives rise . Their

present declaration of the non-obligation to rebel is spon-

taneous, and it is well that such a declaration has been
put on record. It comes to us stamped with the highest

authority which the Shias can give to any document, and

will be permanently binding on the whole sect. Even

without a formal pledge of this sort, they are naturally

loyal ; for they know that if either the Hindus or the rival
Muhammadans ever get the upper hand in India, the days

of tribulation for the Shias will begin. Nor would the

Sunis, in their hour of victory, forget that the Legal De-
cision, which declares that the ultimate triumph of Islam
is to be shared by Muhammadans and Christians alike,
issued from the palace of the ex- King of Oudh. His late

Majesty's loyalty, and that of the party which he repre-

sents, will henceforth shine with redoubled lustre, when
they remember the darts which this Shiah pamphlet has
left rankling in the hearts alike of their Wahabi and of
their Suni countrymen .

I now pass to the Formal Decisions of the greater sect.

The Sunis, as they are the most numerous class of Indian
Musalmans, so they have of late been the most conspicuous
in proclaiming that they are under no religious obligation
120 SUNI DECISIONS ON HOLY WAR.

to wage war against the Queen . To that end they have

procured two distinct sets of Legal Decisions, and the
Muhammadan Literary Society of Calcutta has summed
up the whole Suni view of the question in a forcibly
written pamphlet . I would commend this little work to
those who doubt the intellectual acumen of the Bengali

Musalmans , or their capacity for judicial posts under our

Government . It is a triumph of legal subtlety, for it
contains two separate sets of syllogisms starting from
contradictory premises, yet arriving at the same desirable
conclusion . The Law Doctors of Northern Hindustan set

out by assuming that India is a Country of the Enemy, '

and deduce therefrom that religious rebellion is uncalled
for. The Calcutta Doctors declare India to be a Country
2
of Islam, and conclude that religious rebellion is therefore

unlawful. This result must be accepted as alike satisfac-

tory to the well-to-do Muhammadans , whom it saves from
the perils of contributing to the Fanatic Camp on our
Frontier, and gratifying to ourselves, as proving that the
Law and the Prophets can be utilized on the side of
loyalty as well as on the side of sedition."
Unfortunately , however, it is not the well-to-do Musal-
mans, but the fanatical masses, who stand in need of such
Decisions. The powers of arrest granted by Regulation

III. of 1818 , to enable the Executive to deal with widely

spread treason, such as has during the past twenty years

been smouldering in Bengal, and from time to time

bursting out in conflagrations on our Panjab Border,

1 Dar-ul-Harb, literally House of Strife. 2 Dar-ul-Islam.

3 The Pamphlet is entitled, ' Abstract of Proceedings of the Muhammadan
Literary Society of Calcutta, on Wednesday, 23d November 1870. Being a
Lecture by Maulavi Karamat Ali of Jaunpur on a question of Muhammadan
Law, involving the Duty of Muhammadans in British India towards the Ruling
Power.' Calcutta, 1871 .
 SUNI DECISIONS ON HOLY WAR. 121

have at length rendered any dabbling in rebellion a most

perilous pastime. The comfortable classes, even among
the conspirators, are now glad of a pretext to wash their
hands of the business. Such men will welcome the Legal
Decisions as a door of escape out of a serious difficulty.
They will not inquire too closely into their strict validity,
but will accept them as an emollient salve for tender con-
sciences, and refrain from troublesome questionings as to
the composition of the agreeable medicament. From this

point of view the Muhammadan Society of Calcutta has

deserved well of its countrymen and of ourselves ; and
Maulavi Abdul Latif Khan Bahadur, its Secretary, merits
especial thanks . Whatever view a Suni Musalman may

take as to the religious status of India under our Rule,

he will find that according to that view he is not com-
pelled to rebel against our Government. Does he hold
that India is still a Country of Islam ? Let him turn to
page 6, and he will learn that to wage war against the
Queen is therefore unlawful. Does he hold that India
has become a Country of the Enemy ? Let him turn to

the long footnote on page 11 , and he will find that for

that very reason rebellion is uncalled for.¹

In the following remarks, therefore, I would disclaim

any intention of underrating the service which Maulavi
Abdul Latif has done by the publication of this Tract.
But it would be a political blunder for us to accept
without inquiry the views of the Muhammadan Literary
Society of Calcutta as those of the Indian Musalmans.

¹ Here and elsewhere throughout this Chapter, I have made use of some
articles which I lately put forth in the Calcutta Englishman, to whose succes-
sive editors during the past seven years I owe my acknowledgments for the
courtesy with which they have inserted my perhaps too frequent contributions
on what I conceive to be the wrongs and requirements of the Muhammadan
community.
122 SUNI DECISIONS ON HOLY WAR.

Extreme zealots of the Wahábi sect cannot be expected

to listen to reason of any sort, yet there is a vast body of

pious Muhammadans who would be guided by a really
authoritative exposition of their Sacred Law.
Between a man's convictions and his actions there is

a wide gap, especially when giving full effect to his views

leads him into the perils of treason . But with good men

there is a constant struggle to abridge this distance, and

to make practice conterminous with belief. Hitherto

such men , without being fanatical Wahabis, have simply

accepted the obligation of Holy War as an unpleasant
duty. It is they who have proved the mainstay of the
Frontier Camp in money matters, and whom it is specially
desirable to win over to the side of peace and loyalty. I
propose, therefore, to scrutinize the Suni Decisions with

a view to ascertaining the effect which they will have on

the more zealous Muhammadans ; men with whom the
sense of religious duty is the rule of life, and whose minds.

are uninfluenced either by fear of danger or by habits of

prosperous ease. For it is no use shutting our eyes to

the fact that a large proportion of our Muhammadan sub-

jects belong to this class. During a third of a century
they have kept on foot a rebel army, first against Ranjit
Singh, and afterwards against ourselves as his successors.
The distant Province of Bengal has equipped band after
band, chiefly at their charge, for the Frontier Camp.
Every village, indeed almost every family, has followed
their example, and contributed to the cost of the war.
Our prison gates have closed upon batch after batch of
unhappy misguided traitors ; the Courts have sent one

set of ringleaders after another to lonely islands across

the sea ; yet the whole country continues to furnish
money and men to the Forlorn Hope of Islam on our
 SUNI DECISIONS ON HOLY WAR. 123

Frontier, and persists in its bloodstained protest against

Christian Rule .
I am very sorry to say that the effect of the Decision

of the Calcutta Society on this numerous and dangerous

class will be simply nil. The Pamphlet, however, exhibits

two distinct lines of argument against Holy War ; one of
them the view of the Society itself, the other the Formal
Decisions of the Law Doctors of Northern India. These

last are introduced only to be rebutted, but they had

previously appeared in an independent form , and, as I
shall presently show, have worked out a really authori-
tative argument from the Muhammadan Texts against
rebellion .

In the first place, it is only due to the learned authors

of the Pamphlet to state wherein their argument fails.
Its object is to prove that India is a Country of Islam,¹
and that THEREFORE Religious Rebellion is unlawful for

Muhammadan subjects. Significantly enough, the word

THEREFORE is omitted in the fundamental statement of

the question on page 1. Still more significantly, the two

most important Decisions, that of the Mecca Doctors and
of Maulavi Abdul Hai, confine themselves to affirming

that India is a Country of Islam, and most carefully avoid

drawing the inference that rebellion is therefore unlawful.
The truth is, that, according to strict Muhammadan law,
the opposite conclusion would be correct, and the Mecca
Doctors well knew this when they gave their decision.
They affirm that India is a Country of Islam, and leave
it to the Faithful to conclude that for this very reason
they ought to strive, by war or otherwise, to drive out

the infidels who have usurped the Government, and

who in a hundred ways have interfered with the prac-
1 Dar-ul-Islam.
124 CALCUTTA MUHAMMADANS' VIEW.

tices and procedure, both legal and religious, of the former

Muhammadan rulers.¹

The Pamphlet argues that India is still a Country of

Islam (Dar-ul -Islam) because it was so under the Muham-

madan Rule, and that, although now conquered by an

infidel race, yet the three conditions under which it
would have become a Country of the Enemy (Dar-ul-
Harb, literally House of Strife) do not apply to it. These
three conditions were laid down by the greatest authority
of the Muhammadan Law, Abu Hanifa. But the Tract
quotes them not from one of the older and universally
received works , but from the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri of the
reign of Aurangzeb. This latter text materially differs
from the earlier works ; and it is an unquestionable fact

that the conditions, as laid down by Abu Hanifa and by

the old authoritative law-books, do apply to India, and
that, according to the orthodox doctrine, India is a
Country of the Enemy. I place the two enunciations of

the Law in parallel columns, and leave the reader to judge

for himself : -

THE THREE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH A COUNTRY BECOMES Dar- ul- Harb, or a
COUNTRY OF THE ENEMY.

According to the Pamphlet, p. 3, cit- According to the Sirajiyah Imadiya,

ing the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri. and all texts older than the Fatawa-
i-Alamgiri.
(1. ) When the Rule of Infidels is (1. ) When the Rule of Infidels is
openly exercised, and the ordinances of openly exercised.
Islam are not observed.

(2.) When it is in such contiguity to (2.) When it is in such contiguity to

a country which is Dar-ul-Harb that a Dar-ul-Harb that no Dar- ul- Islam
no city of Dar- ul-Islam intervenes be- lies between it and the said Dar-ul-
tween that country and Dar- ul- Harb. Harb , so that no help can be brought
from the Dar-ul-Islam to that country.

1 See Appendix I. , the Mecca Decision.

 THEIR VIEW EXAMINED. 125

(3. ) That no Musalman is found in (3.) When neither Musalmans nor

the enjoyment of religious liberty, nor Zimmis enjoy the Aman - i - awwal (a
a Zimmi (an Infidel who has accepted technical term which will be explained
the terms of permanent subjection to hereafter).¹
Musalman Rule) under the same terms
as he enjoyed under the Government
of Islam.

These three conditions, as laid down in the older and

2
more authoritative texts, apply to India. With regard
to the first of them, it will be seen that the Fatawa-i-

Alamgiri adds certain words which I have italicized, and

for which there is no authority in the earlier law-
books, which cite direct from Abu Hanifa. The first con-
dition as authoritatively laid down is simply this, that
' the rule of the Infidels is openly exercised ; ' and this
condition most unquestionably applies to India at the
present hour. With regard to the second condition, the
Pamphlet makes an omission as unwarranted as the
addendum to the preceding one. According to the ortho-
dox texts, India is a Country of the Enemy because no
intervening country exists between it and England (the Dar-
ul-Harb in question) , which can send help to India to prevent
its lapsing into the state of Dar-ul-Harb. When England
conquered India, the road between the countries was the
sea, and it is clearly laid down in the Hamawi and Tahtawi
that the sea is Dar-ul-Harb. Consequently, on the original

1 For this collection of Texts, as also for several of the Fatwas, and
many of the arguments contained in my examination of the Suni Pamphlet,
I am indebted to Professor Blochmann of the Muhammadan College, Calcutta,
a gentleman who will yet be recognised in Europe as one of the brightest orna-
ments of Indian scholarship.
2 Abu Hanifa held that the whole of the three conditions above mentioned
had to be fulfilled in order that a Country of the Faithful should lapse into a
state of a Country of the Enemy. His two disciples, the Sahibain, i.e. Imam
Muhammad and Imam Yusuf, held that the existence of one of the conditions
sufficed. The Calcutta Sunis rightly support the authority of Abu Hanifa
against the Sahibain (p. 4 of the Pamphlet) ; but I shall show that all the three
conditions are now fulfilled in India, so that both according to Abu Hanifa and
his disciples the Country has become a Dar-ul-Harb.
126 THEIR VIEW EXAMINED.

and still the principal highway from India to England ,

there is no Country of the Faithful which could send help
to Hindustan. That Cabul, a Country of the Faithful,
borders on India, has nothing to do with the question ;
for Abu Hanifa's condition only refers to such a land as
intervening on the road between the two countries, and
able to assist in preventing the one of them from lapsing
into a Country of the Enemy. Now no one will pretend

that Cabul lies on the route between England and India,

or has any power to send aid to the Muhammadan subjects
in the latter.

But the most serious misinterpretation lurks in the

Pamphlet's rendering of the third condition. The whole

force of this condition turns upon the meaning of the

term Aman-i-awwal, which the Tract translates as ' religious
liberty.' But these words totally fail to give a correct
idea of what is meant. 'Aman ' literally signifies security,

and the meaning of Aman-i-awwal is distinctly laid down

in the Jamiurrumuz as implying the whole security and
full religious status which the Muhammadans formerly
enjoyed under their own Rule. This authority, which
the Calcutta Sunis themselves will not venture to dispute,

says that a Country becomes Dar-ul-Harb, ( 1) when Musal-

mans and Zimmis enjoy only such Aman (religious secu-
rity) as the Infidels choose to grant ; and (2) when the
religious status formerly enjoyed under their own Govern-
ment, and the religious status which they, as the then
ruling race, granted to the Infidels subject to them, no
longer exist. Now it is perfectly clear that both these
clauses apply to India at present . The Aman, or religious

status, which the Muhammadans now enjoy, is entirely

dependent on the will of their Christian rulers, and they
enjoy it only in such a degree as we choose to grant.
 THEIR VIEW EXAMINED. 127

This degree falls far short of the full Aman, or religious

privileges, which they formerly possessed . The British

Government taxes the Muhammadans, and applies the
taxes to the erection of Christian Churches, and the
maintenance of a Christian Clergy. It has substituted
Englishmen for the Muhammadan governors whom it
found in charge of the Districts and Provinces . It has
formally abolished the Musalman Judges and Law Officers.¹
It allows pork and wine to be openly sold in the market-
places . It has introduced English into the Courts . It

has superseded the whole Muhammadan procedure and

criminal law. It has afforded protection to unhappy

fallen women by Act XIV. of 1868.2 It makes no pro-

vision such as a king is bound to make, according to the
Musalman Code, for seeing that the people attend the
mosques and perform their religious duties. The stamps

required by our Courts on a plaint, our statutes of limita-

tion, the orders by our Judges to pay interest upon money
found to be due, and our entire system of legal procedure
and religious toleration, are opposed to the Muhammadan
law, and are infringements of the Aman, or full civil and

religious status, which our Musalman subjects enjoyed

under their own rulers . Nor has the religious status of

the Zimmis, or Infidel subjects of the Muhammadan

Empire, undergone less change . The Christian Zimmis

are no more a subject people, but conquerors and gover-

nors. The Hindu Zimmis no longer pay the poll-tax ; ³ and
we have interfered with their religious usages in a hundred
ways, such as killing cows, doing away with Trial by
Ordeal, abolishing widow-burning, ignoring their system
of caste, and giving a legislative recognition to converts

1 Kazis, by Act XI. of 1864 , on which more hereafter.

2 The Indian Contagious Diseases Act. 3 Jaziah.
 128 THEIR VIEW EXAMINED.

to Christianity. In short, the Aman-i-awwal, or former

status both of Muhammadans and of Zimmis, has been
totally altered ; and according to the third condition also
of Abu Hanifa, India has become a Country of the Enemy
(Dar-ul-Harb) .
The question has been settled over and over again, as

a few analogous cases will show. Greece was a Country of

Islam so long as it remained under the Turk. But since
it shook off the Musalman yoke half a century ago, it

has always been held to be a Country of the Enemy, not-

withstanding the large Muhammadan population which
remained in it . The same remark applies to several of
the Danubian Provinces, the South of Spain, and every
country in which a similar revolution of Government has

taken place . The Mabsut of Imam Muhammad, Abu

Hanifa's celebrated disciple, thus lays down the law :
'When a Country of Islam falls into the hands of the
Infidel, it remains a Country of Islam if the Infidels retain
Muhammadan Governors and Muhammadan Judges,¹ and do
not introduce their own Regulations. ' We have not retained
Muhammadan Governors ; we have, temporarily at any

rate, abolished Muhammadan Law Officers ; we have

introduced our own Regulations ; and India has, accord-

ing to the doctrine followed by the great majority of
Indian Musalmans, ceased to be a Country of Islam.
The Wahabis start with the declaration that India

has become a Country of the Enemy, and from this they

deduce the obligation of Holy War against its rulers .
The Calcutta Pamphlet denies the first position, and
asserts that India has not become a Country of the
Enemy, but still continues a Country of Islam. It has
failed, however, to make out its case, and it will produce
1 Kazis.
 DECISIONS IN NORTHERN INDIA. 129

no effect whatever on the great body of earnest Muham-

madans whom it is so important to win over to our side .
The Law Doctors of Upper India have argued from
quite a different basis. They admit the Wahábis ' first
position, that India has ceased to be a Country of Islam,
but they deny that the obligation to Holy War follows
therefrom .

This, I believe, is the true solution of the difficulty.

Had India remained a Country of Islam, as the Mecca
Law Doctors insidiously try to make out, a large portion
of the orthodox sect would have deemed themselves bound

to rebel. If India were still de jure a Country of Islam,

this portion of our Musalman subjects would feel com-
pelled to rise against us, and to make it a Country of Islam
de facto. It is written in all the law books : If Infidels
press hard or occupy a town in a Country of Islam, ¹ it
is absolutely incumbent on every Muhammadan man,
woman, and child to hurt and drive away the Infidel
Ruler.' This is so established a rule, that the King of

Bokhara was compelled by his subjects to declare Holy

War against the Russians as soon as they entered the
Country of Islam. Indeed, if India were still a Country
of the Faithful, every day some ground of rebellion would
arise. Our religious toleration would itself constitute
a capital crime. For example (and not to mention graver
causes of offence), the Muhammadan texts lay down that
if the Ruler or King of a Country of Islam does not look
after the maintenance and spread of the True Faith,
rebellion against him becomes lawful . In the reign of
Akbar, who modified the Muhammadan law in a spirit of
toleration towards his Hindu subjects, Formal Decisions
commanding rebellion were published, and led to bloody
1 Bilád-ul-Islam. 2 Farz-'ain.
I
130 VIEW OF NORTHERN LAW DOCTORS.

insurrections . Much more would rebellion now be in-

cumbent (if India had not ceased to be a Country of

Islam) in the case of the English, who have interfered in

a hundred points with the Muhammadan Code , extirpated
the Musalman law officers, and abolished the whole
Islamitic Procedure. I therefore view with extreme

suspicion the decision of the Doctors at Mecca, that

stronghold of fanaticism and intolerant zeal, when they
declare that India is a Country of Islam, but who, instead
of deducing therefrom, as the Calcutta Muhammadan

Literary Society infer, that rebellion is therefore unlaw-

ful, leave it to their Indian co-religionists to draw the

opposite conclusion, -namely, that rebellion is therefore

incumbent.

Nevertheless there is a class of Indian Musalmans

who would not draw this inference . To them it will be a

comfort that so respectable a body as the Muhammadan

Society of Calcutta has formally declared, by the mouths
of eminent Doctors of the Law,' that India is still a
country of the Faithful, and that rebellion is therefore
uncalled for. For in the Muhammadan as in the Christian
community, an endless conflict of doctrine goes on. To

enable the reader to enter into the feelings of this class,

I give below the speech of a venerable Shaikh at the

¹ Maulavi Karamat Ali of Jaunpur ; Shaikh Ahmad Effendi Ansari ;

Maulavi Abdul Hakim ; besides a Muhammadan gentleman of high English
education and keen practical intelligence, Maulavi Abdul Latif Khan Bahadur.
2 Shaikh Ahmad Effendi Ansari (a respectable resident of Medina, and a
descendant of Abu Ayyub Ansari , one of the Companions of the Prophet) , who
has for several days been staying in this City, next rose and said that he was
not a Member of the Society. But as he had the good fortune of being present
at the Meeting, he would ask permission to be allowed to say a few words, as
the discussion was on a very important subject, involving the propriety or
otherwise of a great many acts performed by Muhammadans, both secular and
appertaining to Divine Worship, and had also a personal bearing on his own
conduct in coming to this Country, and residing here for several years.
' The President replied that the Meeting would listen to him with great
 VIEW OF NORTHERN LAW DOCTORS. 131

Meeting on whose proceedings the Pamphlet is based . The

English are apt to misinterpret Indian affairs from a

pleasure, and would feel highly obliged to him, and that whatever he would
say would be considered of great value.
· The venerable Shaikh thereupon said, that before this he had travelled in
many countries, and that he had been twice to Constantinople. The first time
he went there was during the reign of the late Emperor, Sultan Mahmud
Khan ; and on that occasion he stayed there for two years. The second time
was after the accession to the throne of the present Sovereign, Sultan Abdul
Aziz Khan, when he remained there for fourteen months. He had also been to
Egypt, Syria, and several cities in Asiatic Turkey, residing there for various
periods ; and this was his fourth visit to India. He had first come to this
country about twenty-nine years ago, and remained at different places for
nearly seven or seven and a half years . Thus he had been two and a half years
at Dehli, and two years and nine months at Lucknow, during the reign of the
late Amjud Ali Shah ; and while there he was all along the guest of the King,
who was exceedingly kind , hospitable, and courteous to him. For two years he
was at Haidrabad in the Deccan , and then proceeded to Baroda. From there
he had proceeded to Afghanistan, where he continued travelling for four or four
and a half years. His visit to Afghanistan was made in the company of the
brother of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan of Cabul, and during his residence at
Cabul he had been a guest of the King. On two other occasions also he had
come to India, but returned after staying only at Haidrabad in the Deccan , and
in the Province of Sindh respectively. It was nearly a year since he had this
time come to India, and he had been travelling through Bombay, Bhopal,
Rampur, Allahabad , Patna, Gyah, etc. , and had lastly arrived at Calcutta. He
had this time also been very hospitably received everywhere, especially by Her
Highness the Begum of Bhopal and His Highness the Nawab of Rampur, to
whom particularly he could not sufficiently express his gratitude for their
unbounded kindness and hospitality. The reasons of his giving the details of
his travels was, that from this varied experience which he had the good fortune
to acquire in his sojourn in so many different countries, especially during his
four visits to India, he was in a position to support and verify all that had
been said by the several speakers with reference to the particular subject be-
fore the Meeting, especially the statement of the Secretary as to the friendship
between Her Majesty the Queen of England and His Majesty the Sultan of
Turkey. In truth , there was a closer intimacy between the British Nation and
the Sultan, than between the Sultan and any other Nation in the World . He,
the speaker, remembered a very recent incident which strongly testified to the
great sincerity existing between the British Nation and the Sultan. A short
time ago the Khedive of Egypt showed a spirit of insubordination and dis-
loyalty towards the Sultan . There was every probability of the occurrence
of serious events, and the Sultan ultimately sent a menacing and peremptory
Firman to the Khedive, a compliance with which alone could induce the Sultan
to overlook the misconduct of the Khedive. The Khedive hesitated to comply
with the requisitions of his Liege Sovereign, and very likely he would not have
obeyed the Mandate at all . But before doing anything, he communicated to
the British Consul-General the Message that the Sultan had sent, and waited
132 VIEW OF NORTHERN LAW DOCTORS.

purely European point of view. They will find that their

Asiatic subjects, who are six times more numerous than

the whole population of the British Isles, can twist Euro-

for advice. This was given at once. The British Consul-General informed the
Khedive that he had received instructions from the British Ministry, that unless
the Khedive obeyed the Imperial Mandate, the Consul's orders were to telegraph
to the British fleet at Athens to proceed to Alexandria at once. On hearing this
the Khedive gave way, and all thoughts of rebellion vanished from his mind.
He at once complied with the peremptory and humiliating conditions of the
Mandate, and returned to obedience and loyalty. This shows the extreme
degree of cordiality and friendship of the British Nation with the Sultan . They
had already fought with a Foreign Enemy of the Sultan, and now they
expressed their readiness to fight against an Internal Enemy who had assumed
the attitude of a rebel. Although the Sultan was, even single-handed, more
than equal to the task of bringing the Khedive to his senses, yet the British
Nation did not like that he should be put to so much trouble and vexation. It
is worthy of notice that they were at the same time on terms of friendship
with the Khedive of Egypt. But this was because he enjoyed the position of
the Sultan's Lieutenant, and they disregarded his friendship in a matter where
the Sultan's interests were concerned . In short, had they not shown their
readiness to fight against the Khedive, it would have been no matter of surprise
if the latter had ventured to measure his strength with his Liege Sovereign ;
and the gentlemen present could well conceive the calamities of such an internal
conflict. Owing to the promptness shown by the British Government, both
the Sultan and the Khedive escaped the evil consequences of War. Is there a
greater enemy to Islam than one who would like to wage war against such
sincere friends of the Sultan of Islam ? Again, as to British India being Dar-
ur-Islam. Besides the Authorities already quoted by the speakers at this
Meeting, a Fatwah had already been delivered by the most learned and pious
men of the two Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. This he considered was
more than sufficient for the purpose ; for those venerable learned men have
pronounced British India to be Dar-ul-Islam, after a thorough investigation
into all the circumstances of this country.
' On the strength of this Fatwah, a native of Arabia comes to this country
without any hesitation, and remains here as long as he chooses without applying
for or obtaining any guarantee from the British Rulers for civil and religious
liberty. Besides this, about twenty-nine years ago, when he first came to this
country, there existed hundreds of most learned and pious Muhammadans in
Dehli and Lucknow, with all of whom he was on terms of intimacy, but he
never heard any one of them calling India Dar-ul- Harb. All of them treated
this country as Dar - ul -Islam, and all the injunctions necessary in Dar- ul- Islam
were observed here. It was within the speaker's experience that in those days
were observed, as at present, the Prayers of Friday and the two I'ds. No
change had taken place which could take away the character of Dar- ul- Islam
from this country.' The learned Shaikh had kept such good company on his
travels, that he was quite oblivious to what was going on among the masses
of the Indian Musalmans.
 HISTORICAL ASPECTS, 1700-1765. 133

pean politics with equal ignorance and with equal hardi-

hood to suit Indian exigencies.
The Calcutta Decision, although erroneous, may be

acceptable to many easy-going well-to-do Muhammadans .

But the Authoritative Declaration of the Law Doctors of

Northern India will prove of far wider use. It accepts

the Wahabi position of India being a Country of the

Enemy, and deduces by logical steps the duty of the
existing Muhammadans to live as peaceable subjects . I
give their Decision , which is a technical matter, in full as
an Appendix, and now briefly unfold the more interesting
historical aspects of the case.
During the first half of the eighteenth century, pre-

cisely the same question arose as that which now agitates

the Indian Musalmans in the second half ofthe nineteenth .
The Marhatta Infidels had overrun the Muhammadan

Empire of India. Provinces which had formerly been

ruled over by Musalmans or by Hindu Deputies , according

to the Muhammadan Law, were seized by an Unbeliev-
ing Dynasty. Among the more devout Musalmans, the
question of their status under the conquerors , and of
their obligation to rebel against them, immediately arose.
It was decided that, inasmuch as the Marhattas satisfied
themselves with taking one-fourth of the revenue , with-
out further interfering with the actual administration ,
India still remained a Country of Islam. They left the
Muhammadan Governors of Provinces untouched . They
maintained the Muhammadan Judges and Law Officers²
undisturbed . On the demise of a Musalman Governor, a
new ruler of the same religion was appointed . Indeed ,
the confirmation of his hereditary successor was considered

a matter of right upon payment of a present to the distant

1 Chauth. 2 Kazis.
134 HISTORICAL ASPECTS, 1765-1793-

Marhatta Court. The following is the Decision which the

greatest authority of that time gave forth : -Now let us
suppose that a Country of Islam has fallen into the hands

of Infidels, who , however, permit the Muhammadans to

say their Friday and I'd Festival prayers ; who maintain
the law of Islam, and appoint Kazis to carry it out accord-
ing to the wishes of the Musalmans, but in which, never-
theless, the Muhammadans have to ask the Infidels to
appoint [the Musalman] Governors. Such countries un-
happily exist in our time, where Muhammadan Governors
are appointed by Infidels, and where the Friday and I'd
Festival prayers are still said . For the Infidels have

taken possession of some of our [Indian ] Provinces . It

is therefore needful for every Muhammadan to know what
the law says in such a case.
' The truth is, that if such a Muhammadan Province
falls into the hands of the Infidels, it continues a Country
of the Faithful, because no Country of the Enemy is
adjacent to it, and because the law of the Infidels is not
introduced, and because the Governors and the Judges
are Muhammadans, who decide according to the law of
Islam, and because even the Infidels themselves refer all
matters to the Muhammadan law, and the Musalman
Law Officers pass sentence on the Infidels .'
Not one of the reasons here assigned for India con-
tinuing a Country of the Faithful holds good at the
present day. The early servants of the East India Com-

pany perfectly understood their position ; and when they

first took over the Provinces, they left the Muhammadan
1 I have again to express my acknowledgments to Professor Blochmann for
this Fatwah. He copied it from an Arabic work by Kazi Muhammad Ala, son
of Maulavi Shaikh Ali , son of Kazi Muhammad Hamid, son of Maulavi Taki-
ud-din Muhammad Sabir, a descendant of Umar of Tharnuah . It is entitled
Ahkam-ullarazi, or Orders on Land Tenures, and deals chiefly with real pro-
perty in a Dar- ul-Islam.
 HISTORICAL ASPECTS, 1765-1864 . 135

Administration absolutely undisturbed . They retained

the Muhammadan code as the law of the land, appointed
Muhammadan Law Officers to carry it out, and in the

smallest matter, as in the greatest, acted merely in the

name of the Muhammadan Emperor of Dehli . Indeed, so
afraid was the East India Company of assuming the

insignia of sovereignty, that long after their attempts to

govern the country through the Musalmans had broken

down, in consequence of the indescribable corruption of

the Muhammadan administration, they still pretended to
be the deputies of a Musalman Monarch. It is a matter
of history how this pretence in the end sunk into a con-
temptible farce, and how we struck coins¹ in the name

of the King of Dehli, while our Resident was paying the

poor pensioner a monthly allowance to supply his table
expenses.

As Indian history has hitherto been generally written

by persons who have never set foot in India, it would be
unfair to expect that the meaning of this strange mode-
ration on the part of the East India Company should
be understood in England . The truth is, that had we

hastened by a single decade our formal assumption of the

sovereignty, we should have been landed in a Muham-
madan rising infinitely more serious than the mutinies
of 1857. The whole status of the Musalmans would
have been suddenly changed. We should have been

in the position of an Infidel Power who had seized

and occupied a Country of Islam . The great majority

1 Bearing since 1773 the following superscription, slightly changed accord-

ing to the name of the Emperor : ' The King Shah' Alam, the Defender of the
Faith of Muhammad, the shadow of the grace of God, has struck this coin to be
current through the seven climes .' On the reverse : 6 Struck at Murshidabad
in the 19th year of the auspicious accession. '
2 With the conspicuous exception of Mr. Marshman's volumes. Mountstuart
Elphinstone does not come down to the period in question.
136 HISTORICAL ASPECTS, 1765-1864.

of the Indian Musalmans would have deemed it their

absolute duty to rebel ; for, as I have already shown,

the first obligation of every man, woman, and child, ’
in such a case, ' is to hurt and drive away the Infidel
Ruler.'¹
The admirable moderation of the East India Com-
pany's servants, and their determination to let the

Muhammadan Power expire by slow natural decay, with-

out hastening its death a single moment, averted this
danger. India passed from a Country of Islam into a
Country of the Enemy 2 by absolutely imperceptible gra-
dations. After many years' study of the Imperial and
District Archives, I find myself unable to place my finger
on any given year or decade of years as that in which
the change was effected . We got rid of the subordinate
Muhammadan Governors long before we touched the
nominal supremacy of the Muhammadan Emperors. Long
after that nominal supremacy had become a farce , and
indeed up to 1835, our coinage still issued in his name.³
Even after we thus ventured to impress the British Sove-
reign's effigy on our coin, we maintained much of the

Muhammadan Procedure along with the Muhammadan

Court Language . These in their turn slowly disappeared.
But it was not till 1864 that we took the bold step, and
in my opinion the unwise step, of doing away with the
Muhammadan Law Officers by an Act of the Legislature .

This Law put the last touch to the edifice of the new
Empire of India as a country of the Enemy, the rebuild-

1 Mabsut of Imam Muhammad.

2 i.e. from a Dar-ul- Islam to a Dar-ul-Harb.
3 The Company's Rupee of 1835, of 180 grains Troy, was the first one
bearing the head of the British Sovereign and the name of the East India
Company.
4 Act XI. of 1864.
 HISTORICAL ASPECTS, 1765-1864. 137

ing having spread over exactly one hundred years (1765

to 1864) . While the Muhammadan Rule was thus im-
perceptibly disappearing, a new set of obligations on the

part of our Musalman subjects was springing up. Before

India had passed into a Country of the Enemy, the duties
incumbent upon the Muhammadans in a Country of Islam
had faded away . One of the first of these duties, as I

have already said, is rebellion against an Infidel Con-

queror. But when the change has been effected , a new

set of obligations come into play. The position of the

Muhammadans is wholly altered . The existing genera-

tion is not responsible for the change ; and instead of

being the owners of the country suddenly deprived of
their rights and bound to regain them, they have become
what is technically called mustamin, or seekers for pro-
tection. As such, they obtain from their English Rulers

a certain amount of their civil and religious privileges

(Aman). Not indeed their former complete status ¹ under

Muhammadan Rule, but sufficient for the protection of
their lives and property, and the safety of their souls.
No interference is made with their prayers or public
worship, and their religious lands and foundations are
respected . In return for this religious and civil liberty
(Aman) , they accept, as their forefathers during the past
fifty years have accepted, the position of subjects . The
same authorities which would have formerly compelled
them as Muhammadans in a Country of Islam to resist an
Infidel Invader, now bind them, as subjects of a Country
of the Enemy, to adhere to their engagements with , and
to live peaceably under, an Infidel Ruler.
The duty of waging war has thus disappeared . The

1 The Aman -i-awwal of the Sirajiyah, Imadiyah , and all other texts older
than the Fatawa -i-Alamgiri.
138 RECIPROCAL DUTIES.

present generation of Musalmans are bound, according to

their own texts, to accept the status quo. They are not
responsible for it, and they are forbidden, in the face of
God's providence, and with regard to the immense perils
in which a revolt would involve the True Faith, to have
recourse to arms. They are compelled to adhere to the
mutual relation which has sprung up between the rulers 1
and the ruled, and to perform their duties as subjects so
long as we maintain their status (Aman) sufficiently intact
to enable them to discharge the duties of their religion.
If, however, their English Governors should first

infringe the tacit agreement by interfering with the

prayers, or public worship, or lawful ceremonies of their

Muhammadan subjects, or with the erection of Mosques,

or with pilgrimage, or with the adoration of saints, or
with the domestic law of Islam, then rebellion would be
lawful . If, under such circumstances, rebellion, although

lawful, were impracticable, then wholesale emigration or

Flight (Hijrat) becomes incumbent on every devout
Musalman. The various conditions under which such

Flight is necessary are laid down by Shah Abdul Aziz,

and are given in all Law Books.

In my next Chapter I shall show that we have lately

trenched perilously near upon these conditions. For the
object of this little book is not merely to explain the
duties of our Muhammadan subjects to their rulers, but
to impress upon the rulers their duty to the ruled . The
Decision of the Law Doctors of Northern India , which I

have expanded historically in the foregoing pages, will

carry weight with the very classes whose goodwill it is
important to conciliate . But it will carry weight with
them only so long as we respect their rights and religious
privileges. The Wahábis to a man, and a large propor-
 · HISTORICAL ASPECTS, 1790-1820. 139

tion of the devout Musalmans, believe India to be now a

Country of the Enemy. But the more sensible majority

of them, while sorrowfully lamenting its lapsed state,

are willing to accept the duties belonging to that con-

dition . The whole Kuran is based upon the conception
.

of the Musalmans as a conquering, and not as a conquered

people . As already explained , however, the Kuran was

long ago found inadequate to the necessities of Civil
Polity, and a system of Canon and Public Law has been

developed from it to suit the exigencies of Musalman

nations. It is hopeless to look for anything like enthu-
siastic loyalty from our Muhammadan subjects. But we
can reasonably expect that, so long as we scrupulously
discharge our obligations to them, they will honestly fulfil
their duties in the position in which God has placed them
to us .

The more acute among the Law Doctors long ago

detected the coming change in the status of the Musal-
mans of India, —the change which has now become an
accomplished fact. From time to time Decisions have

appeared, which show that, in spite of the cautious.

timidity of the East India Company, the revolution was
not going on unperceived . One of these Decisions de-
clared that India would remain a Country of Islam only

so long as the Muhammadan Judges, whom we have

abolished, continued to administer the Law. But perhaps
the two most important were those of Shah Abdul Aziz,
the Sun of India, and of his nephew Maulavi Abdul Hai .
As we gradually transferred the administration to our
own hands, pious Musalmans were greatly agitated touch-
ing the relation which they should hold to us. They
accordingly consulted the highest Indian authorities on
the point, and both the celebrated men above mentioned
140 EFFECT OF FORMER DECISIONS.

gave forth responses. Here are their decisions word for

word :-

'When Infidels get hold of a Muhammadan country,'

(
Abdul Aziz declared, and it becomes impossible for the
Musalmans of the country, and of the people of the
neighbouring districts, to drive them away, or to retain
reasonable hope of ever doing so ; and the power of the
Infidels increases to such an extent, that they can abolish
or retain the ordinances of Islam according to their
pleasure ; and no one is strong enough to seize on the
revenues of the country without the permission of the
Infidels ; and the (Musalman) inhabitants do no longer live
so secure as before ; such a country is politically a Country
of the Enemy (Dar-ul-Harb) .'
When we consolidated our power, the decisions of
the Doctors became more and more distinct as to India

being Dar-ul-Harb. Maulavi Abdul Hai, who belongs to

the generation after Abdul Aziz, distinctly ruled as fol-

lows : ' The Empire of the Christians from Calcutta to
Dehli, and other countries adjacent to Hindustan proper
(i.e. the North - West Provinces) , are all the Country of

the Enemy (Dar-ul-Harb) , for idolatry (Kufr and Shirk) is

everywhere current, and no recourse is made to our holy
law. Whenever such circumstances exist in a country,
the country is a Dar-ul- Harb . It is too long here to

specify all conditions ; but the opinions of all lawyers agree

in this, that Calcutta and its dependencies are the Country
of the Enemy (Dar-ul-Harb) .'
These Decisions have borne practical fruit . The

Wahabis, whose zeal is greater than their knowledge,

deduce from the fact of India being technically a Country

of the Enemy, the obligation to wage war upon its rulers .

The more enlightened Musalmans, while sorrowfully
 USION OF THE MATTER.
THE CONCLUSION 141

accepting the fact, regard it not as ground of rebellion,

but as a curtailment of their spiritual privileges . For
example, in a Country of Islam, where the full religious
status exists, the Friday Prayer is absolutely incumbent.
In India not only do many devout Muhammadans refrain
from this service, but some of the mosques refuse to allow
its performance. Thus the two most eminent Musalmans

of Calcutta in their respective walks of life, the late head

1
Professor of the Muhammadan College, and the late
2
Chief of all the Muhammadan Law Officers, refrained

from saying the Friday Prayer. They accepted the posi-

tion of India as a Country of the Enemy as a curtailment
to this extent of their religious privileges. But they
lived loyal subjects to, and honoured servants of, the
British Government. Many Muhammadans who acknow-
ledge the lapsed state of India, do not go so far as to
deny themselves the consolations of the Friday Service.
A still greater number would break their connection with
the Wahabi party if they could see their way to doing so
without peril to their souls. The Formal Decisions lately
issued by the Law Doctors of Northern India, with the
historical amplification now set forth, will give peace to
thousands of devout men .

It may seem that a cold acquiescence in our rule is

but a meagre result from the discussions which have so

long agitated the Muhammadan community. But such

an acquiescence is the utmost that the intolerant spirit of
Islam will permit to a really sincere disciple. Absolutely
conscientious men, however, form a minority among

Musalmans as among Christians, and an established

Government has always the worldly-minded on its side.

No young man, whether Hindu or Muhammadan, passes
1 Maulavi Muhammad Wajih. 2 The Kazil Kuzat Fazl-ul-Rahman.
142 THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER.

through our Anglo-Indian schools without learning to dis-

believe the faith of his fathers. The luxuriant religions
of Asia shrivel into dry sticks when brought into contact
with the icy realities of Western science . In addition to
the rising generation of sceptics, we have the support of
the comfortable classes ; men of inert convictions and of

some property, who say their prayers, decorously attend

the mosque, and think very little about the matter. But
important as these two sections of the Muhammadans

may be from a political point of view, it has always

seemed to me an inexpressibly painful incident of our
position in India that the best men are not on our side.
Hitherto they have been steadily against us, and it is no
small thing that this chronic hostility has lately been
removed from the category of an imperative obligation .

Even now the utmost we can expect of them is non-

resistance . But an honest Government may more safely
trust to a cold acquiescence, firmly grounded upon a

sense of religious duty, than to a louder-mouthed loyalty,

springing only from the unstable promptings of self-
interest.¹

¹ If Government deemed it prudent to put the case to the Muhammadan

Law Doctors in a really crucial shape, the following Question would per-
manently bind them down to one side or the other. Such a proceeding happily
does not seem called for at present ; but in event of its ever becoming needful
to make use of a public Test of Loyalty, this would be the best form for it :
QUESTION.
Learned Men and Expounders of the Law of Islam !
What is your opinion in the following matter :-
In the case of a Muhammadan Ruler attacking India while in the possession of
the English, is it the Duty of the Muhammadans of that country to renounce
the Aman of the English, and render help to the Invader ?
 CHAPTER IV .

WRONGS OF THE MUHAMMADANS UNDER BRITISH RULE.

HE Indian Musalmans, therefore, are bound by their

THE
own law to live peaceably under our Rule . But
the obligation continues only so long as we perform our
share of the contract , and respect their rights and spiritual
privileges. Once let us interfere with their civil and reli-

gious status (Aman) , so as to prevent the fulfilment of

the ordinances of their Faith, and their duty to us ceases.

We may enforce submission, but we can no longer claim

obedience. It is the glory of the English in India, how-
ever, that they have substituted for the military occupa-
tion of all former conquerors, a Civil Government adapted
to the wants and supported by the goodwill of the
people. Any serious wrong done to the Muhammadans
would render such a Government impossible . Even

minor grievances attain in their case the gravity of

political blunders, -blunders of which the cumulative

effect, according to the law of Islam, would be to entirely

change the relation of the Musalmans to the ruling power,
to free them from their duty as subjects, and bind them
over to treason and Holy War.
Of such blunders the Indian Government has, in my

humble opinion, been more than once guilty. But before

pointing out what I conceive to be our shortcomings , I
144 TREATMENT OF THE TRAITORS.

beg it to be distinctly understood that my remarks refer

only to those Muhammadans who peaceably accept the
British Rule . The foregoing Chapters establish the two
great facts of a standing Rebel Camp on the Frontier,
and a chronic conspiracy within the Empire. The English
Government can hold no parley with traitors in arms.
Those who appeal to the sword must perish by the sword.
Herr Teufelsdröckh's simile of the Alpine hamlet, Peace
established in the bosom of Strength, applies in a nobler
sense to the Indian Empire ; and the first moment that
the English in that country cease to be able, from financial
or from any other reasons, to go to war upon a just cause,
they had better take shipping from the nearest ports.
With regard, also, to the traitors within our terri-
tory, justice must have free course ; but justice tempered
with mercy, and mitigated by a knowledge of the not
ignoble motives which lead men, sincerely good according
to their lights, into treason . The powers of arrest granted
by the Legislature to the Executive enable the Govern-
ment to deal with the evil. The ringleaders suffer the

penalty of personal restraint, without obtaining the glory

of a public appearance on behalf of their faith . Even
those who are sentenced to transportation for life by the
Courts are treated with contemptuous leniency by the
Government, being generally returned in a few years to
the Muhammadan community, as apostates to the Wahábi
cause . Any attempt to stamp out the conspiracy by

wholesale prosecutions would fan the zeal of the fanatics

into a flame, and array on their side the sympathies of all
devout Musalmans. The distempered class must be
segregated without the slightest feeling of resentment,
and indeed with the utmost gentleness, but with absolute
strength .
 THE MUSALMAN COMPLAINT. 145

But while firm towards disaffection, we are bound to

see that no just cause exists for discontent. Such an

inquiry would with more dignity have been conducted

before pressure had been brought to bear from without.
Concessions made when confronted by a great conspiracy,

have small pretension to generosity or gracefulness . But

if in any matter we have hitherto done injustice to the
Muhammadans, it would be mischievous vanity to allow
considerations of this sort to delay our doing justice now.
The British Government of India is strong enough to be

spared the fear of being thought weak. It can shut up

the traitors in its jails, but it can segregate the whole

party of sedition in a nobler way- by detaching from it

the sympathies of the general Muhammadan community.
This, however, it can do only by removing that chronic
sense of wrong which has grown up in the hearts of the
Musalmans under British Rule .

For there is no use shutting our ears to the fact that

the Indian Muhammadans arraign us on a list of charges
as serious as have ever been brought against a Govern-
ment . They accuse us of having closed every honourable

walk of life to professors of their creed . They accuse

us of having introduced a system of education which

leaves their whole community unprovided for, and which

has landed it in contempt and beggary. They accuse us
of having brought misery into thousands of families, by
abolishing their Law Officers, who gave the sanction of
religion to the marriage tie, and who from time immemo-
rial have been the depositaries and administrators of the

Domestic Law of Islam. They accuse us of imperilling

their souls, by denying them the means of performing the
duties of their faith . Above all, they charge us with
deliberate malversation of their religious foundations, and
K
146 THE MUSALMAN COMPLAINT.

with misappropriation on the largest scale of their educa-

tional funds . Besides these specific counts, which they

believe susceptible of proof, they have a host of senti-
mental grievances, perhaps of little weight with the un-
imaginative British mind, but which not less in India than

in Ireland keep the popular heart in a state of soreness

to their Rulers . They declare that we, who obtained
our footing in Bengal as the servants of a Muham-

madan Empire, have shown no pity in the time of our

triumph, and with the insolence of upstarts have trodden
our former masters into the mire. In a word, the Indian
Musalmans arraign the British Government for its want
of sympathy, for its want of magnanimity, for its mean
malversation of their funds, and for great public wrongs

spread over a period of one hundred years.

How far these charges are true, how farthey are

inevitable, I propose at some length to inquire. But I

beg the reader to bring to this examination of our con-
duct towards the Muhammadans at large, a mind free
from any petty resentment against the section of them
whose misdeeds the foregoing chapters have recited .
Insurrection and fanatical ebullitions are the natural
incidents of an alien Rule ; and so long as the English

remain worthy of keeping India, they will know how to

deal alike with domestic traitors and with frontier rebels .

For my own part, once I have opened the case for the
Muhammadan community, I shall make no further refer-
ence to these misguided Wahábis. But in order that I
may afterwards keep silence about them, I shall here
quote certain statements by the two Englishmen who, of
all the present generation, are most competent to pro-
nounce on the connection between Musalman grievances
and Musalman seditions. In India, the line between
 DISCONTENT BREEDS DISAFFECTION. 147

sullen discontent and active disaffection is a very narrow

one, and our inattention to the wants of the peaceable

Muhammadans has enlisted their sympathies on the side
of a class whom they would otherwise shrink from as fire-
brands and rebels .

The officer in charge of the Wahábi prosecutions ¹

lately wrote : ' I attribute the great hold which Wahábi
doctrines have on the mass of the Muhammadan peasantry
to our neglect of their education. ' He then goes on to
show how the absence of a career under our system

affects in an equally pernicious way the higher classes , for

whose instruction some slight provision is made . ' In the
Amballa Trial will be found a case exactly in point.

Osman Ali, a man personally known to me, says : " About

three years since I had occasion to go to Jessore. There

I met the Chief Bailiff of the Judge's Court. He asked

me of my state . I said my fortunes were much broken.
He answered, ' You are an educated man, and ought not
to be in distress . If you like what I am going to tell you,
you will do well. ' I asked, ' What is it ? ' He replied,
' Take your Scriptures in your hand, and go into the
neighbouring Districts, and preach the injunctions of your
creed to the people ; and when you see likely men, induce
them to go on the Crescentade .' Accordingly I preached
throughout the neighbouring Districts. Many people
gave me money. " Here is a man who, from what I have

known of him, I believe preached partly from belief and

partly for money . The whole country has been overrun
by such men. They have excited the peasantry, and the
Ambeyla campaign has shown us that they are not to be
despised, and that the timid Bengali will, under certain
conditions, fight as fiercely as an Afghan .'
1 Mr. James O'Kinealy, C.S.
148 CAUSES OF DISCONTENT.

' Is it any subject for wonder,' writes a still higher

authority, ¹ ' that they have held aloof from a system
which, however good in itself, made no concession to
their prejudices, made in fact no provision for what
they esteemed their necessities, and which was in its
nature unavoidably antagonistic to their interests, and
at variance with all their social traditions ?

' The educated Muhammadan, confident in his old

training, sees himself practically excluded from the share
of power and of the emoluments of Government which

he hitherto had almost monopolized, and sees these and

all the other advantages of life passed into the hands of
the hated Hindu . Discontent-
Discontent-a feeling if not of actual

religious persecution, yet of neglect on account (indirectly)

of his religious views-has filled the minds of the better
educated. Their fanaticism, for which ample warrant can
always be found in the Kuran, has been hotly excited ,
until at last there is danger that the entire Muhammadan
community will rapidly be transformed into a mass of
disloyal ignorant fanatics on the one hand, with a small
class of men highly educated in a narrow fashion on the
other, highly fanatic, and not unwarrantably discontented,
exercising an enormous influence over their ignorant
fellow- Muhammadans .'
But, indeed, from the highest official to the lowest
(and no one has penetrated into the wrongs of the Musal-
mans more deeply than the present Viceroy) , there is now
a firm conviction that we have failed in our duty to the
Muhammadan subjects of the Queen . A great section of

the Indian population, some thirty millions in number,

1 Mr. E. C. Bayley, C.S.I., Secretary to the Government of India in the

Home Department, to whose scholarly sympathies the Musalmans owe a debt of
gratitude.
 DECAY OF THE MUSALMANS. 149

finds itself decaying under British Rule. They complain

that they, who but yesterday were the conquerors and
governors of the land, can find no subsistence in it

to-day. Any answer based on their own degeneracy is a

petitio principii, for their degeneracy is but one of the •

results of our political ignorance and neglect. Before the

country passed under our rule, the Musalmans professed
the same faith, ate the same food, and in all essentials
lived the same lives, as they do now. To this day they
exhibit at intervals their old intense feeling of nationality

and capability of warlike enterprise ; but in all other

respects they are a race ruined under British rule.

It is quite true that they can no longer, with due

regard to the rights of the Hindus, enjoy their former
monopoly of Government employ. This ancient source
of wealth is dried up, and the Muhammadans must take
their chance under a Government which knows no dis-

tinction of colour or creed. As haughty and careless

conquerors of India, the Muhammadans managed the
subordinate administration by Hindus, but they kept

all the higher appointments in their own hands . For

example, even after the enlightened reforms of Akbar,
the distribution of the great offices of State stood thus :
-Among the twelve highest appointments, with the
title¹ of Commander of more than Five Thousand Horse,
2
not one was a Hindu . In the succeeding grades, with
the title of Commander of from Five Thousand to Five

Hundred Horse, out of 252 officers, only 31 were Hindus

under Akbar. In the next reign, out of 609 Commanders

1 Mansal. See a very interesting but all too brief Pamphlet by Prof.
Blochmann, reprinted from the Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal for 1871 :
" The Hindu Rajas under the Mughal Government.'
2 Under the reign of Shahjahan . It should be remembered that these
Military Titles were held by the Officers of the Civil Administration.
150 DEPRIVED of goveRNMENT EMPLOY.

of these ' grades, only 110 were Hindus ; and even

among the lowest grades of the higher appointments,
out of 163 Commanders of from Five Hundred to Two

Hundred Horse, only 26 were Hindus .

It would be unreasonable for the Muhammadans to

expect any such monopoly of offices under the English

Government. But this is not their petition and complaint.
It is not that they have ceased to retain the entire State
Patronage, but that they are gradually being excluded
from it altogether. It is not that they must now take an
equal chance with the Hindus in the race of life, but that,
at least in Bengal, they have ceased to have a chance at
all. In short, it is a people with great traditions and
without a career. When such a people number thirty

millions of men, it becomes a question of not less import-

ance to their rulers than to themselves to know what to
do with them.

The greater part of the peasant population through-

out Eastern Bengal is Muhammadan. In those districts of
overwhelming rivers and boundless swamps, the aborigines
were never admitted into the respectable Hindu com-
munity. The Aryan migration southwards had not pene-
trated in sufficient strength into the seaboard and deltaic
tracts to Brahmanize the earlier people of the soil. They
remained beyond the pale of the acknowledged castes,
chandals fishing in their remote estuaries, and reaping
hazardous rice crops from their flooded lands, without
social status or religious rites.¹ So impure are they, that
a Brahman of the highest caste cannot settle among them
2
without taint, and in a few generations his descendants
1 I speak of the Districts south of Dacca and Vikrampur, the last great
Brahmanical settlement in the Delta.
2 This I ascertained by personal inquiry in Faridpur District, Backarganj ,
and the Sundarbans.
 PEASANTRY OF THE DELTA. 151

cease to have the jus connubii with the Brahman com-

munity a few days' journey to the north, from which
they sprang.' The Muhammadans recognised no such
distinctions. They came down upon the country, some-
times as military colonists, sometimes as heads of great
reclamation enterprises in the Deltaic Districts. Even in
an old settled District like Jessore, the earliest traditions
begin with an enterprise of the latter sort.² As the

primeval heroes of the inner parts of India slew monster

beasts, quelled demon tribes, and hewed down the all - cover-

ing forest, so the first object that looms on the pre-historic

horizon is the man who pushed forward tillage into the
regions which had formerly been the prey of the sea.
The Musalmans led several of these great reclamation
colonies to the southward, and have left their names in
Eastern Bengal as the first dividers of the water from the
land . The sportsman comes across their dykes, and

metalled roads, and mosques, and tanks, and tombs, in the

loneliest recesses of the jungle ; and wherever they went,
they spread their faith, partly by the sword, but chiefly
by a bold appeal to the two great instincts of the popular
heart. The Hindus had never admitted the amphibious
population of the Delta within the pale of their community.
The Muhammadans offered the plenary privileges of Islam
to Brahman and outcaste alike. ' Down on your knees,

every one of you, ' preached these fierce missionaries ,

' before the Almighty, in whose sight all men are equal,
all created beings as the dust of the earth. There is no
God but the one God, and His Messenger is Muhammad . '

1 On the ground that they have lived among, and in some cases acted as
priests to, a low chandal population.
2 Report on the District of Jessore, by Mr. James Westland, C.S. -by far
the best account of an Indian Deltaic District that has yet appeared. Calcutta,
1871.
152 THE MUSALMAN ARISTOCRACY.

The battle-cry of the warrior became, as soon as the

conquest was over, the text of the divine.

To this day the peasantry of the Delta is Muham-

madan. So firmly did Islam take hold of Lower Bengal,

that it has developed a religious literature and a popular
dialect of its own. The patois known as Musalman Bengali
is as distinct from the Urdu of Upper India, as Urdu is
different from the Persian of Herat. Interspersed among

these rural masses are landed houses of ancient pedigree

and of great influence. Indeed, the remains of a once
powerful and grasping Musalman aristocracy dot the whole
Province, visible monuments of their departed greatness.
At Murshidabad a Muhammadan Court still plays its
farce of mimic state, and in every District the descendant
of some line of princes sullenly and proudly eats his heart
out among roofless palaces and weed-choked tanks. Of
such families I have personally known several. Their

houses swarm with grown-up sons and daughters, with

grandchildren and nephews and nieces, and not one of the
hungry crowd has a chance of doing anything for himself
in life. They drag on a listless existence in patched-up
verandahs or leaky outhouses, sinking deeper and deeper
into a hopeless abyss of debt, till the neighbouring Hindu
money-lender fixes a quarrel on them, and then in a
moment a host of mortgages foreclose, and the ancient
Musalman family is suddenly swallowed up and dis-
appears for ever.
If an individual instance is demanded, I would cite

the Rajas of Nagar. When the British first came into

contact with them, their yearly revenues, after two
centuries of folly and waste, amounted to fifty thousand
pounds. From the pillared gallery of their palace the
Rajas looked across a principality which now makes up
 A FALLEN MUSALMAN HOUSE. 153

two English Districts. Their mosques and countless

summer pavilions glittered round the margin of an arti-

ficial lake, and cast their reflections on its surface,

unbroken by a single water - weed . A gilded barge

proudly cut its way between the private staircases and

an island in the centre covered with flowering shrubs .
Soldiers relieved guard on the citadel ; and ever, as the
sun declined, the laugh of many children and the tinkling
of ladies' lutes rose from behind the wall of the Princesses'

garden. Of the citadel nothing now remains but the

massive entrance. From the roofless walls of the mosque

the last stucco ornament has long since tumbled down.

The broad gardens with their trim canals have returned
to jungle or been converted into rice-fields . Their well-

stocked fish ponds are now dank, filthy hollows. The

sites of the summer pavilions are marked by mounds of

brick-dust, with here and there a fragmentary wall, whose
slightly arched Moorish window looks down desolately
upon the scene.

But most melancholy of all is the ancient Royal Lake.

The palace rises from its margin , not, as of yore, a fairy
pillared edifice, but a dungeon-looking building, whose
weather-stained walls form a fitting continuation to the
green scum which putrefies on the water below.¹ The
gallery is a tottering deserted place. The wretched
2
women who bedeck themselves with the title of princesses
no more go forth in the covered barge at evening. Their
luxurious zenana is roofless, and its inhabitants have been

removed to a mean tenement overlooking a decayed stable-

yard. Of all the bygone grandeur of the House of Nagar,

1 I describe the buildings and tank as I saw them in 1864. Since then, I
hear that the latter has been cleaned, and the former fallen deeper into decay.
2 Ranis.
154 A FALLEN MUSALMAN HOUSE.

a little watercourse alone remains unchanged , holding

its way through the dank solitudes in the same channel

by which it flowed amid the ancient palaces, and remind-
ing the spectator in its miniature way of the one immut-
able relic of antiquity in Rome :

' Ne ought save Tyber hast'ning to his fall

Remaines of all : O world's inconstancie !
That which is firme doth flit and fall away,
And that is flitting doth abide and stay.'¹

In a corner of the dilapidated palace, the representa-

tive of the race mopes away his miserable days, chewing
drugged sweetmeats, and looking dreamily out on the
weed-choked lake . If any statesman wishes to make a
sensation in the House of Commons, he has only to truly

narrate the history of one of these Muhammadan families

of Bengal. He would first depict the ancient venerable
Prince ruling over a wide territory at the head of his own
army, waited on through life by a numerous household,
with all the stately formality of an Eastern Court, and his
death-bed soothed by founding mosques and devising

religious trusts . He would then portray the half-idiot

descendant of the present time, who hides away when he

hears of an English shooting party in his jungles , and

when at length dragged forth by his servants to pay the
courtesy due to the strangers, lapses into a monotonous
whimper about some tradesman's execution for a few
hundred rupees which had just taken place in his palace.

I have dwelt at some length on the Musalman pea-

santry and the Musalman aristocracy of Bengal, in order

to bring clearly before the English eye the class of people
with whose grievances this chapter deals. I would further
premise that my remarks apply only to Lower Bengal,

1 Spenser's Ruines of Rome, by Bellay.

 DECAY OF MUHAMMADAN FAMILIES. 155

the Province with which I am best acquainted, and in

which, so far as I can learn, the Muhammadans have

suffered most severely under British Rule. I should be

sorry to believe , or to convey to the reader the belief, that
the following remarks were predicable of all the Muham-
madans of India.

If ever a people stood in need of a career, it is the

Musalman aristocracy of Lower Bengal. Their old sources
of wealth have run dry. They can no longer sack the
stronghold of a neighbouring Hindu nobleman ; send out

a score of troopers to pillage the peasantry ; levy tolls

upon travelling merchants ; purchase exemption through
a friend at Court from their land-tax ; raise a revenue by

local cesses on marriages, births, harvest-homes, and every

other incident of rural life ; collect the excise on their
own behoof, with further gratifications for winking at the
sale of forbidden liquors during the sacred month of
Ramazan. The administration of the Imperial Taxes was

the first great source of income in Bengal, and the Musal-

man aristocracy monopolized it. ' The Police was another

great source of income, and the Police was officered by

Muhammadans. The Courts of Law were a third great

source of income, and the Musalmans monopolized them .

Above all, there was the army, an army not officered by
gentlemen who make little more than bank interest on
the price of their commissions, but a great confederation
of conquerors who enrolled their peasantry into troops,
and drew pay from the State for them as soldiers . A
hundred and seventy years ago it was almost impossible
for a well-born Musalman in Bengal to become poor ; at

present it is almost impossible for him to continue rich .

The Muhammadan aristocracy, in short, were con-

1 This is subject to the explanation given further on.

156 CAUSES OF THEIR DECAY.

querors, and claimed as such the monopoly of Government.

Occasionally a Hindu financier, and more seldom a Hindu

general, came to the surface ; ¹ but the conspicuousness of

such instances is the best proof of their rarity. Three

distinct streams of wealth ran perennially into the coffers

of a noble Musalman House- Military Command, the
Collection of the Revenue, and Judicial or Political Em-
ploy. These were its legitimate sources of greatness , and
besides them were Court Services, and a hundred nameless
avenues to fortune. The latter I have indicated at the

beginning of the last paragraph, and of them I shall not

further speak ; but, confining myself to the three fair and
ostensible monopolies of official life, I shall examine what
remains of them to the Musalman families of Lower Bengal
under British Rule.

The first of them, the Army, is now completely

closed. No Muhammadan gentleman of birth can enter
our Regiments ; and even if a place could be found for

him in our military system, that place would no longer be

a source of wealth. " Personally, I believe that, sooner or
later, the native aristocracy of India must, under certain
restrictions, be admitted as Commissioned Officers in the

1 Whenever they did, great was the discontent among the Musalmans . In
the two best known cases , that of Raja Todar Mall the Financier, and Raja
Man Singh the General, formal deputations of remonstrance were sent to Court.
In the case of Man Singh, some of the Muhammadan Generals refused to serve
under him in the Expedition against Rana Pratab. I have already given the
statistics of the Hindus who rose to conspicuous offices under the least bigoted
of the Musalman monarchs.
2 A very few Muhammadan gentlemen hold commissions from the Governor-
General, but, so far as I can learn, not one from the Queen. A native of India
can only enter the Army as a private soldier, and the rare individual instances
of men promoted from the ranks by a merely local commission form no excep-
tion to the rule. The single case of a Muhammadan obtaining even the honorary
rank of Captain is Captain Hidayat Ali, who was brought forward by Colonel
Rattray during the Mutiny, —a Muhammadan gentleman in every respect worthy
to hold Her Majesty's commission, as I can by personal knowledge of himself
and of his deeds attest.
 EXCLUDED FROM THE ARMY. 157

British Army.¹ No commissioned officer now - a - days

expects to make a fortune by serving the Queen , and the
Muhammadans are perfectly aware of this. But they covet
the honours and decent emoluments of a military career,

and bitterly feel that their hereditary occupation is gone.

The second support of the Musalman aristocracy was
the collection of the Land Revenue . This monopoly had

its roots deep in the canon and public law of Islam. The

payment of taxes was a badge of conquest ; and to the

conquerors accrued not only the revenue, but also the
profitable duty of collecting it. .
It can never be too often
insisted upon, however, that in India the relation of the

conquerors to the native population was regulated rather

by political necessity than by the Muhammadan Code.

The haughty foreigners despised the details of collection ,

and left it to their Hindu bailiffs to deal directly with the
peasantry. So universal was this system, that Akbar suc-

cessfully defended the selection of a Hindu for his Minister

of Finance by referring to it. On Todar Mall's appoint-

ment as Chancellor of the Empire, the Musalman princes

sent a deputation to remonstrate . ' Who manages your

properties and grants of land ? ' replied the Emperor.

' Our Hindu agents, ' they answered. ' Very good, ' said
Akbar ; ' allow me also to appoint a Hindu to manage my
estates .'

While the higher fiscal posts remained in the hands

of the Musalmans, the direct dealing with the husbandman
was thus vested in their Hindu bailiffs . The Hindus, in

fact, * formed a subordinate Revenue Service, and took

their share of the profits before passing the collections on

1 Among the exponents of this view, I would particularly cite the most
recent and the ablest-Captain Osborn of the Bengal Cavalry, in the columns
of the Calcutta Observer.
 158 THEIR FORMER FISCAL MONOPOLY.

to their Muhammadan superiors. The latter, however,

were responsible to the Emperor, and formed a very

essential link in the Muhammadan fiscal system . They

enforced the Land Tax, not by any process of the Civil

Courts, but by the sharp swords of troopers . Arrears
were realized by quartering a marauding banditti upon a
District, who made the people miserable till the last penny
was paid up . The husbandmen and Hindu bailiffs con-
stantly tried to get off at less than the fixed sum ; the
superior Musalman officers ceaselessly endeavoured to
extort more than it.¹

The English obtained Bengal simply as the Chief

Revenue Officer of the Dehli Emperor. Instead of buying

the appointment by a fat bribe, we won it by the sword.

But our legal title was simply that of the Emperor's
2
Diwan or Chief Revenue Officer. As such, the Musal-

mans hold that we were bound to carry out the Muham-

madan system which we then undertook to administer.

There can be little doubt, I think, that both parties to

the treaty at the time understood this.³ For some years

the English maintained the Muhammadan officers in their

posts ; and when they began to venture upon reforms,

they did so with a caution bordering upon timidity.
The greatest blow which we dealt to the old system was
in one sense an underhand one, for neither the English
nor the Muhammadans foresaw its effects . This was the

¹ Curious illustrations of this perennial conflict occur in Mr. Westland's

recent Report on Jessore, and may be found in the rural archives of almost
every District of Bengal.
2 See the Firmans of 12th August 1765 , in Mr. Aitchison's Treaties, or in
the Quarto Collection put forth by the East India Company in 1812, Nos . xvi.
to xx.
'We took it under a kind of promise to carry on the Musalman Rule as
6
it then existed,' writes the Officer in charge of the Wahabi Prosecutions, ' and
we did so.'
 WE BREAK THROUGH THEIR MONOPOLY. 159

series of changes introduced by Lord Cornwallis and John

Shore, ending in the Permanent Settlement of 1793. By

it we usurped the functions of those higher Musalman
Officers who had formerly subsisted between the actual
Collector and the Government, and whose dragoons were

the recognised machinery for enforcing the Land-Tax.

Instead of the Musalman Revenue-farmers with their

troopers and spearmen, we placed an English Collector in

each District, with an unarmed fiscal police attached like

common bailiffs to his Court. The Muhammadan nobility

either lost their former connection with the Land Tax, or
became mere landholders, with an inelastic title to a part
of the profits of the soil.
The Permanent Settlement, however, consummated
rather than introduced this change. It was in another
respect that it most seriously damaged the position of
the great Muhammadan Houses. For the whole ten-

dency of the Settlement was to acknowledge as the land-

holders the subordinate Hindu officers who dealt directly
with the husbandmen. I have carefully gone over the

Ms. Settlement Reports of 1788-1790 ; and notwithstand-

ing the clauses touching intermediate holders in the Code
of 1793 , it is quite clear to me that our Revenue Officers
of those days had an eye to only three links in the pre-
vious system - the State, the local agent or landholder
who collected direct from the peasantry, and the hus-
bandman who tilled the soil. These were the three fea-

tures of the former administration requisite to our new

plan, and by degrees all the other links of the Muham-

madan Revenue System were either extruded or allowed

to drop out. For example, the provisions respecting the
separation of Independent Talukdars was in itself fatal
to the greatness of many a Muhammadan House . Such
160 OUR FIRST BREACH OF FAITH.

a family, although it might grant away part of its terri-

tory in permanent farm, always exercised a sort of juris-
diction over its subordinate holders, and, when occasion
demanded, managed to extract cesses or benevolences, in
short money in one form or another, from them. The
officer who has studied the Permanent Settlement most

minutely in connection with the present Muhammadan

disaffection writes thus : ' It elevated the Hindu col-

lectors, who up to that time had held but unimportant

posts, to the position of landholders, gave them a pro-
prietary right in the soil, and allowed them to accumulate
wealth which would have gone to the Musalmans under
their own Rule. "¹

This, then, is the first public wrong on which the

Muhammadan aristocracy arraign the British Govern-
ment . They assert that we obtained the Administration

of Bengal from a Musalman Emperor on the understand-

ing that we would carry out the Musalman system, and
that as soon as we found ourselves strong enough we

broke through this engagement. Our reply is, that when

we came to look into the Muhammadan Administration

of Bengal, we found it so one-sided , so corrupt, so abso-

lutely shocking to every principle of humanity, that we
should have been a disgrace to civilisation had we re-
tained it. We can prove from the records of every Dis-
trict, that Revenue was the sole object of the Musalman
"
Government. Almost all the functions of Administra-

tion were heaped upon the Collectors of the Land Tax,

and they might do pretty much as they pleased so long
as they discharged their revenue . The people were op-
pressed in order that the landholder might have his rent,
and were plundered in order that the landholder's ser-

1 Mr. James O'Kinealy, C.S.

 OUR FIRST BREACH OF FAITH. 161

vants might become rich. Complaint against wrong was

useless . The landholder or his officer had it entirely in

his own option whether he should listen to it or not ; and

the complainant had very little chance of relief, for the
oppressor was often the landholder's servant, and the
plunderer, even if they took the trouble to trace him,
would not find it difficult to make friends with his

captors.'¹
The truth is, that under the Muhammadans, govern-

ment was an engine for enriching the few, not for protect-
ing the many. It never seems to have touched the hearts
or moved the consciences of the rulers, that a vast popu-

lation of husbandmen was toiling bare-backed in the heat

of summer and in the rain of autumn, in order that a
few families in each District might lead lives of luxurious
ease . It is only after we had begun to break away from
the system which we had virtually engaged to uphold,
that the existence of the People discloses itself. The

greatest wrong which we did to the Musalman aristocracy

was in defining their rights . Up to that period their title
had not been permanent, but neither had it been fixed.
At a costly sacrifice of the acknowledged claims of the
ruling power, we gave them their tenures in perpetuity ;
but in doing so, we rendered these tenures inelastic. A

race of men accustomed for centuries to the privilege of

contemptuous plunder, could not, however, learn the

¹ Mr. Westland's District of Jessore, p. 67. I refrain with difficulty from

frequent reference to my Annals of Rural Bengal, and shall only add, that till
arrangements are made for bringing the District Records into intelligent con-
tact with the European world , the Indian Government continues guilty of a
great historical injustice to the British nation. But perhaps a Government
which subverted a Power more extensive than that before which Julian fell
back, and which has built out of the shattered creeds and oppressed peoples
of India a prosperous Empire, may be pardoned a noble indifference to the
written memorials of its glory.
L
162 FIRST TWO CAUSES OF THEIR RUIN.

peaceful art of managing their estates by the mere stroke

of a Governor- General's pen. The Musalman monopoly of

rural oppression ceased, and the Resumption Laws thirty

years later put a finishing stroke to their fortunes . To

these laws I shall have to devote some paragraphs further

on, and at present shall only say that they enriched the
State by means of a stricter construction of title-deeds
than the Muhammadans had ever been accustomed to

under their own Emperors. During the last seventy-five

years the Musalman Houses of Bengal have either disap-
peared from the earth, or are at this moment being sub-
merged beneath the new strata of society which our Rule
has developed - haughty, insolent, indolent, but still the
descendants of nobles and conquerors to the last.
With regard, therefore, to the first two great sources
of Muhammadan wealth, viz. the Army and the higher
administration of the Revenues, we had good reasons for
what we did, but our action has brought ruin upon

Muhammadan Houses of Bengal. We shut the Musal-

man aristocracy out of the Army, because we believed
that their exclusion was necessary to our own safety.

We deprived them of their monopoly of the most lucra-

tive functions in the Administration, because their depri-
vation was essential to the welfare and just government
of the people . But these grounds, however good in
themselves, fail to convince an ancient nobility suffering
under the blight of British Rule. Their exclusion from
the Army seems to the Musalmans a great public wrong ;

our departure from their ancient fiscal system, an abso-

lute breach of faith .
The third source of their greatness was their monopoly

of Judicial, Political, or in brief, Civil Employ. It would

be unfair to lay much stress on the circumstance, but it
 THEIR LOSS OF OFFICIAL EMPLOY. 163

is nevertheless a significant fact, that none of the native

gentlemen who have won their way into the Covenanted
Civil Service, or up to the bench of the High Court, are
Musalmans . But for some time after the country passed
under our care, the Musalmans retained all the functions
of Government in their own hands. Musalman Collectors ,
as we have seen, gathered the Land Tax ; Musalman

Faujdars and Ghatwals officered the Police. A great

Musalman Department, with its headquarters in the
Nizam's palace at Murshidabad , and a network of officials
spreading over every District in the Province, administered

the Criminal Law. Musalman jailors took bribes from ,

or starved at their discretion, the whole prison population
of Bengal. Kazis or Muhammadan Doctors of Law sat in
the Civil and Domestic Courts. Even when we attempted

to do justice by means of trained English officers, the

Muhammadan Law Doctors sat with them as their autho-

ritative advisers on points of law. The Code of Islam

remained the law of the land, and the whole ministerial
and subordinate offices of Government continued the

property of the Musalmans . They alone could speak the

official language, and they alone could read the official
records written in the Persian current hand.¹ The

Cornwallis Code broke this monopoly less violently in the

Judicial than in the Revenue departments ; but for the

first fifty years of the Company's Rule the Musalmans
had the lion's share of State patronage. During its

second half century of power the tide turned, at first

slowly, but with a constantly accelerating pace, as the
imperative duty of conducting public business in the ver-
nacular of the people, and not in the foreign patois of its

1 Shikast, literally broken, an abominable sort of shorthand with the

Vowels left out.
164 EXCLUSION FROM OFFICIAL LIFE.

former Muhammadan conquerors, became recognised .

Then the Hindus poured into , and have since completely

filled, every grade of official life . Even in the District Col-

lectorates, where it is still possible to give appointments in

the old-fashioned friendly way, there are very few young

Musalman officials.¹ The Muhammadans who yet remain in

them are white-bearded men, and they have no successors .

Even ten years ago, the Musalmans invariably managed

to transmit the post of Nazir, or Chief of the Revenue
Bailiffs , to men of their own creed ; but now one or two
unpopular appointments about the jail are the most that

the former masters of India can hope for. The staff of

Clerks attached to the various offices, the responsible

posts in the Courts, and even the higher offices in the

Police, are now recruited from the pushing Hindu youth
of the Government School.2

Proceeding from the unconspicuous mass of non-

gazetted officials to the higher grades, the question passes
from the sphere of individual observation into the unques-
tionable domain of statistics . Two years ago I put forth
3
a series of articles, showing how completely the Judicial
and Revenue Services in Bengal, in which the appointments
are greatly coveted , and the distribution of patronage
closely watched, had been denuded of Musalmans. These

articles were immediately translated into Persian, and

copied into or discussed by many of the Anglo-Indian
and vernacular papers . A Commission was issued by the
Bengal Government to inquire into the higher class

1 Amlah.
2 These remarks apply to the whole Province of Bengal, but with special
force to every District of it, excepting those of the Bhagalpur and Patna
Divisions.
3 In the Pioneer, the leading journal of the North-West Provinces . I have
freely used these articles in this part of Chapter IV.
 STATISTICS OF CIVIL EMPLOY. 165

education of the Muhammadans in Calcutta ; but the net

result has been, that the Musalman element in the public

service has gone on growing weaker every year, just as
before.
This statement the following statistics will prove .

In the highest grade in which the appointments dated

from a previous generation, the Muhammadans had not
much to complain of, as in April 1869 there was one
Musalman to two Hindus : there is now but one Musal-

man to three Hindus . In the second grade there were

then two Muhammadans to nine Hindus ; there is now

one Musalman to ten Hindus. In the third grade there

were then four Musalmans to a total of twenty-seven

Hindus and Englishmen ; there are now three Musalmans

to a total of twenty-four Hindus and Englishmen . Passing
down to the lower ranks, there were in 1869 four Musal-
mans among a total of thirty of all creeds ; there are now

four among a total of thirty-nine. Among the proba-

tioners from whom the service is recruited , there were
only two Musalmans in a total of twenty-eight ; there is
now not a single Muhammadan in this rank.

It is, however, in the less conspicuous Departments,

in which the distribution of patronage is less keenly

watched by the political parties in Bengal, that we may

read the fate of the Musalmans. In 1869 these Depart-
ments were filled thus :-In the three grades of Assistant
Government Engineers there were fourteen Hindus and
not one Musalman ; among the apprentices there were
four Hindus and two Englishmen, and not one Musalman.
Among the sub-Engineers and Supervisors of the Public
Works Department there were twenty-four Hindus to
one Musalman ; among the Overseers, two Musalmans to
sixty-three Hindus. In the Offices of Account there were
166 STATISTICS OF CIVIL EMPLOY.

fifty names of Hindus, and not one Musalman ; and in the

Upper Subordinate Department there were twenty-two
Hindus, and again not one Musalman.
But it is unnecessary to multiply instances of a fact
that is patent in every page of the Civil List. I have

made up a table of the gazetted appointments for

which Englishmen, Muhammadans, and Hindus are alike

eligible :-

DISTRIBUTION OF STATE PATRONAGE IN BENGAL, APRIL 1871.

Euro- Hindus. Musal- TOTAL.

peans. mans.

Covenanted Civil Service (appointed in England

by the Crown), 260 260
Judicial Officers in the Non-Regulation Districts, ¹ 47 47
Extra Assistant Commissioners, · 26 7 33
Deputy-Magistrates and Deputy - Collectors, • 53 113 30 196
Income-Tax Assessors, 11 43 6 60
Registration Department, • 33 25 2 60
Judges of Small Cause Court and Subordinate
Judges, 14 25 8 47
Munsifs, 1 178 37 216
Police Department, Gazetted Officers of all grades, 106 3 109
Public Works Department, Engineer Establishment, 154 19 173
99 "" Subordinate Establishment, 72 125 4 201
22

99 99 Account Establishment, 22 54 76
Medical Department, Officers attached to Medical
College, Jails, Charitable Dispensaries, Sanita-
888888

tion and Vaccination Establishments, and Medi-

cal Officers in charge of Districts, etc. etc. , 89 65 4 158
Department of Public Instruction, 38 14 1 53
Other Departments, such as Customs, Marine,
Survey, Opium, " etc. , 412 10 0 422

TOTAL, • 1338 681 92 2111

A hundred years ago, the Musalmans monopolized

all the important offices of State . The Hindus accepted

1 This and the following grades receive their appointments from the Local
Government.
2 But exclusive of the Ecclesiastical Establishment. Some of the Opium
Officers are not gazetted.
 SHUT OUT FROM THE PROFESSIONS. 167

with thanks such crumbs as their , former conquerors

dropped from their table, and the English were repre-

sented by a few factors and clerks . The proportion of
Muhammadans to Hindus, as shown above, is now less than
one-seventh. The proportion of Hindus to Europeans

is more than one-half ; the proportion of Musalmans to

Europeans is less than one-fourteenth . The proportion

of the race which a century ago had the monopoly of

Government, has now fallen to less than one-twenty-third
of the whole administrative body. This, too, in the
gazetted appointments , where the distribution of patron-
age is closely watched . In the less conspicuous office
establishments in the Presidency Town, the exclusion of
Musalmans is even more complete . In one extensive

Department the other day it was discovered that there

was not a single employé who could read the Musalman

dialect ; and, in fact, there is now scarcely a Government

office in Calcutta in which a Muhammadan can hope for

any post above the rank of porter, messenger, filler of ink-

pots, and mender of pens.
Is it that the Hindus have all along been better
men than the Musalmans, and only required a fair field
in order to outstrip them in the race ? Or is it that

the Musalmans have so many careers open to them in

non-official life , that they are indifferent to Government
employment, and leave the Hindus to walk over the

course ? The Hindu has unquestionably a high order of

intellect ; but an universal and immeasurable superiority
on the part of the Hindus , such as would be required to
explain their monopoly of official preferment, is unknown
at the present day, and is in direct contradiction to their

past history. The truth is, that when the country passed
under our rule, the Musalmans were the superior race, and
168 STATISTICS OF THE LAW.

superior not only in stoutness of heart and strength of

arm, but in power of political organization, and in the
science of practical government. Yet the Muhammadans
are now shut out equally from Government employ and
from the higher occupations of non -official life.
The only secular profession open to well-born Muham-
madans is the Law. Medicine falls under a different cate-

gory, as I shall afterwards show. Now the Law is even

more strictly closed to the Muhammadans than the official

services. Among the Judges of Her Majesty's High Court

of Judicature in Bengal are two Hindus, ' but no Musalman .
Indeed , the idea of a High Court Judge being taken from
the race that once monopolized the whole administration
of justice, is inconceivable alike to Anglo-Indians and to
Hindus at the present day. In 1869 , when I last made up
the statistics of the Indian Professions, they stood thus :-
The Law Officers of the Crown were six in number-

four Englishmen, two Hindus, and no Musalman. Among

the Officers of the High Court of sufficient rank to have
their names published , twenty-one in number, there were
seven Hindu gentlemen, and not one Musalman . Among
the Barristers-at-Law were three Hindus (now greatly in-
creased, I believe), and not one Musalman.
But the list of Pleaders of the High Court, a sort of
subordinate Barristers, tells the most cruel story of all.
This was a branch of the Profession almost completely in
the hands of the Musalmans within the memory of men

still living. The present list dates from 1834, and the
surviving Pleaders of that year consisted in 1869 of one
Englishman, one Hindu, and two Musalmans. Up to
18 38 e
th Mu sa lm an s we re almo st as nume ro us as the

1 These gentlemen rank among the first grade of public servants ; their
salary is £5000 a year.
 STATISTICS OF THE LAW. 169

Hindus and English put together, the proportion being

six of the former to seven of both the latter. Of the

Pleaders admitted between 1845 and 1850 inclusive, the

whole survivors in 1869 were Musalmans . Even as late

as 1851 the Muhammadans stoutly held their own , and in

fact equal the whole number of the English and Hindu
Pleaders put together. From 1851 the scene changes . A
new order of men began to come to the front. Different

tests of fitness were exacted, and the list shows that out
of two hundred and forty natives admitted from 1852
to 1868, two hundred and thirty-nine were Hindus, and
only one a Musalman .

Passing to the next grade in the Profession, the

Attorneys, Proctors, and Solicitors of the High Court, '
there were in 1869 twenty-seven Hindus and not one
Musalman ; while among the rising generation of articled
clerks there were twenty-six Hindus, and again not
one Musalman. It matters not to what department of
the Profession I turn, the result is the same. In the

Office of the Registrar of the High Court there were in

1869 seventeen employés of sufficient standing to have
their names published . Six of them were Englishmen or
East Indians, eleven were Hindus, and not one was a
Musalman. In the Receiver's Office four names were

given, two Englishmen and two Hindus, but no Musal-

In the Office of the Clerk of the Crown and Taxing
Officer were four Englishmen and five Ilindus, but no
Musalman. In all the nooks and crannies of the law,

in the Offices of Account, the Sheriff's Office, Coroner's

Office, and Office of Interpreters , twenty names were
given-eight Englishmen, eleven Hindus, and one Musal-
man, the sole representative of the Muhammadan popu-

1 On the side of Original Jurisdiction.

170 THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

lation on the list, and he a miserable maula¹ on six

shillings a week .
The Profession of Medicine remains. But unhappily,

Medicine, as practised by the native doctors, scarcely

ranks as a Profession among the upper classes of Muham-
madans. A Musalman gentleman has two medical attend-
ants. The one is a physician who, under the name of

Tabib, or, as he is generally designated by English writers,

Hakim, receives honourable entertainment from his em-
ployers. The other is the Jarrah, which in simple English
means barber. It is he who performs all surgical opera-
tions, from shaving to amputation ; and so rigid is the line
between Medicine and Surgery, that a Tabib of good stand-
ing would refuse to bind up a wound . This line, however,
the surgeon-barber by no means scruples to transgress .
Practically, almost the whole science of Medicine falls

within his jurisdiction , and the Muhammadan physicians

proper are now a small and decaying class . In the great
towns of Upper India they may still be found , but in the
Bengal Districts they are never met with . The practice
of Medicine has now fallen into the hands of the illite-
rate Musalman barbers and of the Hindu doctors.2

Indeed, the traditional Muhammadan Physician, even

where he still survives in Northern India , is a scholar and

recluse rather than an active practitioner. He derives
his art from Persian and Arabic manuscripts, and con-

founds our English science of Medicine with the despised

occupation of the surgeon-barber. It thus happens that
in Bengal, where the State affords admirable facilities
for the study of Medicine, the son of a good Musalman
1 Law-officer.
2 The Hindu doctors are also of two sorts : the Kabiraj, who practises on
the native system of medicine, and is often a mere quack ; and the trained
medical man of our English Colleges.
 THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. 171

family scarcely ever enters the Profession . Crowds of

ill-bred Muhammadan boys from the lower and even the

menial walks of life, jostle for just that amount of gratui-
tous instruction which will qualify them for a regimental
apothecaryship . They are, in short, the barber-surgeons
of a former time, despised by the upper classes of the
Musalman community, absolutely unrecognised by the few
surviving Muhammadan physicians, thankless for the
benefits which they receive, and insolent to their instruc-
tors except under the weight of an almost military dis-
cipline . It has been my good fortune to be intimately
acquainted with many Hindu doctors whose bearing and

whose learning entitle them to the respect due to their

noble calling. But I have never met a single Musalman
doctor of this class. Indeed, the Muhammadans do not

seem to aspire to any of the recognised grades of the

Medical Profession . In 1869 the statistics stood thus :-
Among the Graduates of Medicine in the Calcutta Uni-

versity there were four doctors ; three Hindus, one Eng-

lishman, and no Muhammadan. Among eleven Bachelors
of Medicine , ten were Hindus and one an Englishman.
The hundred and four Licentiates of Medicine consisted

of five Englishmen, ninety-eight Hindus, and one solitary

Muhammadan. Recently the Government conferred two

titles of Bahadur upon members of the native medical

profession immediately connected with the Calcutta Uni-
versity. Political considerations rendered it expedient

that one of the titles should be given to a Hindu, the

other to a Musalman ; and it is well known how highly the
Muhammadans value such a distinction. Yet I hear that,

notwithstanding the excellent personal qualities of the

Musalman gentleman selected, the title has failed to give
him social status among the higher classes of his country-
172 THE MUHAMMADAN LAMENT.

men. The truth is, that Muhammadans do not consider

Medicine as taught in our schools the profession of a

gentleman ; and social prejudice closes this vocation to
sons of good Muhammadan families, as completely as the
other professions and the Government Services are shut to
them by the overpowering rush of highly-educated Hindus.
I have seldom read anything more piteous than the
private letters and newspaper articles of Bengal Musal-
mans. The Calcutta Persian paper¹ some time ago wrote

thus All sorts of employment, great and small, are

being gradually snatched away from the Muhammadans,
and bestowed on men of other races, particularly the
Hindus. The Government is bound to look upon all

classes of its subjects with an equal eye, yet the time has
now come when it publicly singles out the Muhammadans

in its Gazettes for exclusion from official posts. Recently,

when several vacancies occurred in the office of the Sun-

darbans Commissioner, that official, in advertising them

in the Government Gazette, stated that the appointments
would be given to none but Hindus.2 In short, the
Muhammadans have now sunk so low, that, even when
qualified for Government employ, they are studiously
kept out of it by Government notifications . Nobody

takes any notice of their helpless condition, and the

higher authorities do not deign even to acknowledge
their existence . '

The following sentences are from a petition lately

presented by the Orissa Muhammadans to the Commis-
sioner. Their stilted phraseology may perhaps raise a

1 Dúrbín, of 14th July 1869.

2 I have not at present the means of officially tracing and verifying this
statement of the Persian journalist, but it attracted some notice at the time,
and was not, so far as I heard, contradicted .
3 Mr. E. W. Molony, C.S. , to whom I am indebted for a copy.
 THE MUSALMAN LAMENT. 173

smile ; but the permanent impression produced by the

spectacle of the ancient conquerors of the Province beg-

ging in broken English for bare bread, is , I think, one of

sorrowful silence :-' As loyal subjects of Her Most Gra-
cious Majesty the Queen, we have, we believe, an equal
claim to all appointments in the administration of the
country. Truly speaking, the Orissa Muhammadans have
been levelled down and down, with no hopes of rising

again. Born of noble parentage, poor by profession , and

destitute of patrons, we find ourselves in the position of
a fish out of water. Such is the wretched state of the

Muhammadans, which we bring unto your Honour's notice ,

believing your Honour to be the sole representative of
Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen for the Orissa
Division, and hoping that justice will be administered to
all classes, without distinction of colour or creed . The

penniless and parsimonious condition which we are re-

duced to, consequent on the failure of our former Govern-
ment service, has thrown us into such an everlasting
despondency, that we speak from the very core of our
hearts, that we would travel into the remotest corners
of the earth, ascend the snowy peaks of the Himalaya,
wander the forlorn regions of Siberia, could we be con-

vinced that by so travelling we would be blessed with a

Government appointment of ten shillings a week .'
How comes it that the Muhammadan population is

thus shut out alike from official employ and from the
recognised Professions ? The Musalmans of Bengal do

not want intelligence, and the spur of poverty constantly

goads them to do something to better their condition.
The Government has covered Bengal with schools, and

many of its Districts are peopled with Muhammadans ;

yet the Government schools fail to develop a class of
174 WHO IS TO BLAME ?

Musalmans who can compete successfully at the Univer-

sity, or find an entrance into any of the professions . The
same schools send forth every year a vast body of well-
read, ambitious, and intellectual Hindu youths, who dis-
tinguish themselves as young men at the University,
and in after-life monopolize every avenue to wealth or
distinction.

The truth is, that our system of public instruction,

which has awakened the Hindus from the sleep of cen-

turies, and quickened their inert masses with some of

the noble impulses of a nation, is opposed to the tradi-
tions, unsuited to the requirements, and hateful to the
religion, of the Musalmans. Under Muhammadan Rule

the Hindus accepted their fate exactly as they have done

under our own. At present, preferment depends upon a

knowledge of English, and they learn English . Formerly,

preferment depended upon a knowledge of Persian, and
they learned Persian . As far back as 1500 A.D. they had

begun to compose works in that language . The verses of

one of these early Hindu authors survive ; and although

an Infidel, he obtained a public position as a teacher of
the Muhammadan youth , and a lecturer on their sciences .
Under Akbar, the Hindus met the enlightened monarch
half- way, and produced an eminent Persian poet. But it
was not till a knowledge of Persian had become profitable
to the Hindus that it became general among them. At

the end of the sixteenth century the Chancellor of the

Empire, himself a Hindu , commanded that the public
accounts should thenceforward be written in Persian, and
the Hindu subordinate Revenue Service forthwith learned

Persian to a man . When, therefore, we introduced Eng-

lish into the public offices, the facile Hindu immediately

mastered the language necessary to his success in life.
 HINDUS VERSUS MUSALMANS. 175

The former language of public business under the Muham-

madans, and the new one under ourselves, were alike
foreign tongues to him. He was equally indifferent to
both, except as a means of preferment ; indeed, as our Go-
vernment schools gave him this important talisman of suc-
cess at less than half the cost price to the State, he greatly
preferred our system to the one which had preceded it.
With the Musalmans the case was altogether dif-
ferent. Before the country passed to us, they were not
only the political but the intellectual power in India .
'They possessed a system of education which, ' to use the
words of the Indian statesman who knows them best,
'however inferior to that which we have established, was

yet by no means to be despised ; was capable of affording

a high degree of intellectual training and polish ; was
founded on principles not wholly unsound, though pre-
sented in an antiquated form ; and which was infinitely
superior to any other system of education then existing
in India ; -a system which secured to them an intellec-
tual as well as a material supremacy, and through the
medium of which alone the Hindus could hope to fit
themselves for the smallest share of authority in their

native country.'¹ During the first seventy-five years of

our Rule we continued to make use of this system as a
means for producing officers to carry out our administra-
tion. But meanwhile we had introduced a scheme of

Public Instruction of our own ; and as soon as it trained

up a generation of men on the new plan, we flung aside
the old Muhammadan system, and the Musalman youth
found every avenue of public life closed in their faces.
Had the Musalmans been wise, they would have
perceived the change, and accepted their fate. But an
1 Mr. E. C. Bayley, C.S.I.
176 OUR NEW SYSTEM OF EDUCATION.

ancient conquering race cannot easily divest itself of the

traditions of its nobler days. The Bengal Muhammadans
refused a system which gave them no advantages over the

people whom they had so long ruled , a people whom they

hated as idolaters and despised as a servile race . Religion

came to the support of the popular feeling against the

innovation , and for long it remained doubtful whether a
Musalman boy could attend our State Schools without
perdition to his soul . Had we introduced our system by
means of English masters , or boldly changed the language
of public business to our own tongue , their religious diffi-
culty would in one important respect have been less . For
the Muhammadans admit that the Christian Faith , how-
ever short of the full truth as finally revealed by their
Prophet , is nevertheless one of the inspired religions
which have been vouchsafed to mankind . But Hinduism

is to them the mystery of abominations , a system of devil-

worship and idolatry unbroken by a single gleam of the
knowledge of the One God.¹ The language of our Govern-
ment Schools in Lower Bengal is Hindu, and the masters
are Hindus . The Musalmans with one consent spurned

the instructions of idolaters through the medium of the

language of idolatry .
By degrees this detestation yielded to the altered
necessities of the age. Religion, which had at the begin-
ning shed its sanction upon the popular dislike to our
Schools, began to waver. Decisions by the most learned
Law Doctor of the age, the Sun of India, who has already
appeared more than once in this book, were wrested into
an approval of an English education . This celebrated

1 I need hardly say that I totally disagree from this view, which is pos-
sibly still the view of some uninstructed Christians. The Muhammadans simply
paid the price of their bigoted ignorance touching the faith of the people over
whom they had so long ruled.
 UNSUITED TO THE MUSALMANS. 177

Professor had already decided as to employment under

the English. Some official occupations, he had said , are
desirable, others indifferent, and others sinful. Thus, if
the English engage Musalmans for praiseworthy posts,
such as Law Officers according to the Muhammadan
Code, overseers on roads or resting - houses for poor
travellers, as protectors of property or suppressors of
6
thieves , it is well. For thus the Prophet Joseph was
employed as Treasurer and Inspector- General of Police
to the Infidel King of Egypt, and likewise Her Highness
Musi served Pharaoh for the purpose of suckling Moses .'
But if the service tends to make a person irreligious,

then the Musalman who accepts it commits sin.

In the same way, when his disciples asked him whether
it was lawful to learn logic or English, he replied :-
' Logic is not necessary for salvation, but it is a help like
grammar in learning the necessary knowledge. If any
man learns it in order to cast doubts on religion, he is a
sinner . But if he learns it for learning's sake, he is guilt-
less . Learning English for the purpose of reading books,
writing letters, and knowing the secret meanings of words,
is permitted ; because Zaid Ibar Sabit learned the lan-

guage and dictionaries of the Jews and Christians by the

Prophet's order, that he might be able to answer the
letters which the Jews and Christians sent to the Prophet.
But if any man learns English for pleasure, or in order to
unite himself with the English, he sins and trangresses
the Law : even as in the case of a weapon of iron , if the

weapon is made for driving away thieves or for arresting

them, then the making of it is a pious act ; but if it is
made to help or defend the thieves, then the making of
it is sinful.'

The more zealous Muhammadans, however, have

M
178 OUR SYSTEM ALMOST PROHIBITIVE.

never quite accepted the lawfulness of an education in our

State Schools . While the worldly-minded among them
made advances towards our system , the fanatical section
shrunk still further back from it. During the last forty
years they have separated themselves from the Hindus

by differences of dress , of salutations , and other exterior

distinctions , such as they never deemed necessary in the
days of their supremacy . Even as late as 1860-62 there
was only one Musalman to ten Hindus in our schools ; and
although the proportion has increased since then , the
increase is due to the additional Aided Institutions , and
not to the District Government Schools . The attendance

at the English Schools has not increased ; and the officer

in charge of the Wahábi prosecutions , on whose authority
I make these statements , and who is intimately acquainted
with Eastern Bengal , declares that the number of Mu-
hammadan students bears no fair ratio to the Muham-

madan population.
The truth is, that our system of Public Instruction
ignores the three most powerful instincts of the Musal-
man heart. In the first place, it conducts education in
the vernacular of Bengal, a language which the educated
Muhammadans despise , and by means of Hindu teachers,
whom the whole Muhammadan community hates . The
Bengali schoolmaster talks his own dialect and a vile
Urdu, the latter of which is to him an acquired language
almost as much as it is to ourselves. Moreover, his gentle
and timid character unfits him to maintain order among
Musalman boys. ' Nothing on earth, ' said a Muhamma-

dan husbandman recently to an English official, ' would

induce me to send my boy to a Bengali teacher. ' In the
second place, our rural schools seldom enable a Muham-
madan to learn the tongues necessary for his holding a
 OUR SYSTEM ALMOST PROHIBITIVE. 179

respectable position in life, and for the performance of his

religious duties . Every Muhammadan gentleman must
have some knowledge of Persian, and Persian is a language
unknown even in our higher class District schools . Every
Musalman , from the peasant to the prince , ought to say his
prayers in one of the sacred languages, Persian¹ or Arabic,
and this our schools have never recognised . It was lately
asserted on high authority, that the prayers of the Musal-
mans find no acceptance with God unless they are offered
in the prescribed tongues. In the third place, our system
of Public Instruction makes no provision for the religious
education of the Muhammadan youth . It overlooks the
fact that among the Hindus a large and powerful caste has
come down from time immemorial for supplying this part
of a boy's training, while among the Muhammadans no
separate body of clergy exists. Every head of a Musalman
household is supposed to know the duties of his religion,
and to be his own family priest. Public ministrations are
indeed conducted at the mosques ; but it is the glory of
Islam that its temples are not made with hands, and that its
ceremonies can be performed anywhere upon God's earth
or under his heavens . A system of purely secular educa-

tion is adapted to very few nations. In theopinion of

many deeply thinking men, it has signally failed in Ire-
land, and it is certainly altogether unsuited to the illiterate

and fanatical peasantry of Muhammadan Bengal.

'Is it therefore, ' writes a high official, ' any wonder
that the Musalmans have held aloof from a system which
made no concession to their prejudices ; made no provision
for what they esteemed their necessities ; which was in its

1 Persian has become a quasi-sacred language with the Bengali Musalmans,

as it was the vehicle through which the Law and the Scriptures of Islam reached
them .
180 THE MUSALMANS REJECT IT.

nature unavoidably antagonistic to their interests , and at

variance with all their social traditions ? '

Yet many English Officers have gone through their

service with a chronic indignation against the Muham-
madans for refusing to accept the education which we
have tried to bring to every man's door. The facility with
which the rest of the population acquiesced in it made
this refusal more odious by contrast. The pliant Hindu
knew no scruples, and we could not understand why the
Muhammadan should be troubled with them. But the
truth is, that we overlooked a distinction as old as the
religious instinct itself, the distinction which in all ages
and among all nations has separated polytheism from the
worship of One God . Polytheism, by multiplying the
objects of its followers ' adoration, divides its claims on
their belief. What Gibbon finely said of the Greeks ,
applies at this moment with more than its original force
to the Hindus : ' Instead of an indivisible and regular

system which occupies the whole extent of the believing

mind, the mythology of the Greeks was composed of a
thousand loose and flexible parts, and the servant of the
gods was at liberty to define the degree and measure of
his religious faith. " The Muhammadans have no such
licence. Their creed demands an absolute, a living, and

even an intolerant belief ; nor will any system of Public

Instruction, which leaves the religious principle out of
sight, ever satisfy the devout follower of Islam.
How far it may be possible to do justice to the
Musalman population in this respect, without sacrificing
our position as a Christian Government, I shall afterwards
inquire. Meanwhile the Muhammadans have just ground
for complaining that the funds which we levy impartially

1 Roman Empire, vol. ii. p . 360, quarto ed. of 1786.

 RUIN OF THEIR OWN SYSTEM. 181

from all classes for State Education, are expended on a

system exclusively adapted to the Hindus.

But unfortunately this is not their most serious

charge against us . While we have created a system of

Public Instruction unsuited to their wants, we have also

denuded their own system of the funds by which it was

formerly supported . Every great Musalman House in
Bengal maintained a scholastic establishment in which its
sons and its poorer neighbours received an education free
of expense. As the Muhammadan families of the Pro-

vince declined, such private institutions dwindled in num-

bers and in efficiency . It was not, however, till the
second half century of our Rule that we arrayed against
them the resistless force of British Law. From time
immemorial the Native Princes of India had been accus-

tomed to set apart grants of land for the education of the

youth and for the service of the gods . The ruling power
for the time being always possessed unquestioned and
unlimited powers in this respect. Under the careless
sway of the Mughals, and during the anarchy amid which

their Empire closed, the power had been to some extent

transferred to, and to a still greater extent usurped by,
the Provincial Governors and their subordinates . The
distant Dehli Court troubled itself little about what

was going on in Lower Bengal, so long as the total

tribute of the Province was discharged. The indolent and
luxurious Governor at Dacca or Murshidabad was equally
indifferent to the details of the District Administration.

Every great Farmer of the Revenue or native land-

holder could do pretty much as he liked with the lands
under his care, so long as he paid up the stipulated Land
Tax. According to the form of his religion, he gave rent-
free tenures to the temples or to the mosques, and a long
182 RELIGIOUS RENT-FREE GRANTS.

life of cruelty and extortion might always be condoned

by liberal death-bed devises in pios usus.
When we took over charge of Bengal, the ablest
Revenue Officer of the time¹ estimated that one-fourth of
the whole Province had been transferred from the State .

In 1772 Warren Hastings discerned the gigantic fraud,

but the feeling against resuming such tenures was then

too strong to allow of any active steps being taken. In
1793 Lord Cornwallis again asserted in the strongest and
broadest manner the inalienable right of Government to
all rent-free grants which had not obtained the sanction
of the Ruling Power. But even the stronger Govern-
ment of that day did not venture to carry out this
principle. The subject rested for another quarter of a
century, until 1819 , when the Government again asserted

its rights, but again shrank from enforcing them. It was

not until 1828 that the Legislature and the Executive
combined to make one great effort. Special Courts were
created, and during the next eighteen years the whole
Province was overrun with informers , false witnesses, and
calm, stern Resumption Officers.
At an outlay of £ 800,000 upon Resumption pro-
ceedings, an additional revenue of £300,000 a year was
permanently gained by the State, representing a capital
at five per cent . of six millions sterling. A large part of
this sum was derived from lands held rent free by Musal-
mans or by Muhammadan foundations . The panic and
hatred which ensued have stamped themselves for ever
on the rural records . Hundreds of ancient families were

ruined, and the educational system of the Musalmans,

1 Mr. James Grant.
2 Vide Friend of India of 30th April 1846 , whose calculations have been
accepted by subsequent Revenue Authorities ; e.d. Mr. J. H. Young, C. S. , in
the Revenue Handbook, p. 69. Calcutta , 1861 .
 WE RESUME THEM, 1828-1846. 183

which was almost entirely maintained by rent-free grants,

received its death-blow. The scholastic classes of the

Muhammadans emerged from the eighteen years ' of

harrying, absolutely ruined . Any impartial student will
arrive at the conviction, that while the Resumption Laws
only enforced rights which we had again and again most
emphatically reserved, yet that the Resumption Proceed-
ings were harsh in the extreme, and opposed to the
general sense of the Indian people. Prescription cannot
create rights in the face of express enactments , but
seventy-five years of unbroken possession give rise to
strong claims on the tenderness of a Government. Our

Resumption Officers knew no pity. They enforced the

law. The panic of those days is still remembered, and it
has left to us a bitter legacy of hatred. Since then the
profession of a Man of Learning, a dignified and lucra-
tive calling under Native Rulers, has ceased to exist in
Bengal. The Muhammadan foundations suffered most ;

for with regard to their title-deeds, as with regard to all

other matters, the former conquerors of India had dis-
played a haughty indifference unknown to the provident
and astute Hindu . We demanded an amount of proof
in support of rent-free tenures, which, in the then uncer-
tain state of real-property law, they could not have pro-
duced in support of their acknowledged private estates.
During seventy- five years we had submitted under protest
to a gigantic system of fraud, and the accumulated
penalty fell upon a single generation. Meanwhile the

climate and the white -ants had been making havoc of

their sanads and title -deeds. There can be little doubt

1 The Resumption proceedings were fiercest at the beginning, and after

languishing for some years, were officially terminated by the Government Order
of March 4, 1846.
184 MISAPPROPRIATION OF THEIR FUNDS.

that our Resumptions fell short of what had been stolen

from us ; but there can be no doubt whatever, that from
those Resumptions the decay of the Muhammadan system
of education dates. The officer now in charge of the

Wahabi prosecutions cites them as the second cause of the

decline of the Musalman community.

The justice of these proceedings may, however, be

defended ; the absolute misappropriation of scholastic
funds, with which the Musalmans charge us, cannot.

For it is no use concealing the fact that the Muham-

madans believe that, if we had only honestly applied the
property entrusted to us for that purpose, they would at
this moment possess one of the noblest and most efficient
educational establishments in Bengal . In 1806 a wealthy

Muhammadan gentleman of Hugli District died, leaving

a vast estate in pios usus. Presently his two trustees.

began to quarrel . In 1810 the dispute deepened into a

charge of malversation , and the English Collector of the

District attached the property, pending the decision of

the Courts . Litigation continued till 1816, when the
Government dismissed both the trustees, and assumed the
management of the estate, appointing itself in the place
Next year
of one trustee, and nominating a second one.
it let out the estate in perpetuity, taking a suitable pay-
ment from each of the permanent lease-holders . These
payments, with the arrears which had accumulated dur-

ing the litigation, now amount to £ 105,700, ¹ besides over

£ 12,000 which has since been saved from the annual
proceeds of the estate.

The Trust had, as I have said, been left for pious uses .
These uses had been defined by the will, such as the
maintenance of certain religious rites and ceremonies, the

1 The College building, however, was paid for out of this source.
 THE HUGLI COLLEGE CASE. 185

repair of the Imambarah or great mosque at Hugli, a

burial ground, certain pensions, and various religious
establishments . An educational foundation came strictly

within the purposes of the Trust, but an educational

establishment on the Muhammadan plan, such as the
founder would have himself approved. A College for
9
poor scholars has always been considered ' a pious use

in Musalman countries. But any attempt to divert the

funds to a non-Muhammadan College would have been
deemed an act of impiety by the testator, and could
only be regarded as a gross malversation on the part
of the trustees . Indeed, so inseparable is the religious
element from a Muhammadan endowment, that the

Government had to carefully investigate the legality of

applying a Trust, made by a gentleman of the Shiah sect,

to the education of the Suni Musalmans.

We may imagine, then, the burst of indignation with

which the Muhammadans learned that the English

Government was about to misappropriate the funds to

the erection of an English College . This, however, it
did. It devoted an estate left expressly for the pious
uses of Islam, to founding an institution subversive in
its very nature of the principles of Islam, and from which

the Muhammadans were practically excluded . At this

moment the head of the College is an English gentleman
ignorant of a single word of Persian or Arabic, who draws
£ 1500 a year from a strictly Muhammadan endowment
for teaching things hateful to every Musalman. It is
not, of course, his fault, but the fault of the Government

which placed him there, and which for thirty-five years

has been deliberately misappropriating this great educa-

tional fund . In vain it attempted to cloak so gross a

breach of trust by attaching a small Muhammadan school

186 THE HUGLI COLLEGE CASE.

to the English College . Besides the misappropriation of

the accumulated fund in building the College, it annually
diverted £ 5000 to its maintenance. That is to say, out

of an income of £ 5260, it devoted only £ 350 to the

little Muhammadan school which alone remained to bear

witness to the original character of the Trust.

It is painful to dwell on this charge of misappropria-
tion, because it is impossible to rebut it. The Muham-
madans declare that the English took advantage of
irregularities on the part of the first Musalman trustees ,
to place an Infidel Government in charge of their largest
religious endowment ; and that they have since aggra-
vated this initial wrong by substituting for the ' pious
objects ' of the Musalman testator, an Institution which
is of no service to the Muhammadans whatever. Some
years ago it is stated that, out of three hundred boys in

the English College, not one per cent. were Musalmans ;

and although this disgraceful disproportion has since been
lessened, the sense of injustice still remains among the
Muhammadan community. 'I believe it is difficult,'
writes a civilian who has studied the matter deeply, ' to
over-estimate the odium, not to say the contempt, which

the British Government has incurred by its action in this

case. This language may perhaps be deemed strong, but

I can testify to the fact that during twenty-eight years'

residence in India I have repeatedly broached the sub-

ject (I visited Hugli within a few weeks after my first

arrival) , and I can affirm that I never heard from
native or European any other account. Rightly or not,
the Muhammadans do think that Government has be-

haved unjustly, and even meanly, towards them in this

matter, and it is a standing sore and grievance with
them .'
 THE MUSALMAN FESTIVAL CHARGE. 187

Even this, however, does not complete the wrongs

with which the Musalmans charge their English Rulers.
They arraign us not only upon depriving them of any
chance of success in this life, but also upon attempts to
imperil their salvation in the next. All religions of the
noble type have set apart certain days for the perform-
ance of their spiritual duties. We can picture the sorrow
and indignation with which the English would regard
the arbitrary fiat of a foreign conqueror, declaring that
Sundays should no longer be days of rest. The Hindus

and the Muhammadans venerate with emotions of equal

tenderness their own solemn festivals . In most parts of
India we have respected this feeling. But in Lower
Bengal the Muhammadans have of late so completely
sunk out of sight, that their religious requirements were
gradually overlooked, then neglected , and finally denied .
Last year the Muhammadan Pleaders of the High Court
presented two memorials on this subject. They pointed
out, that while the number of closed days allowed to the
Christians were sixty-two in number, and those to the
Hindus fifty-two, only eleven were granted to the Muham-
madans. Formerly the sanctioned Musalman holidays

amounted to twenty-one ; and all that the petitioners

ventured to beg was, that they should not be further
decreased below the minimum of eleven which they had
already reached. These memorials were called forth by
an order that the native holidays observed by the High
Court should hereafter be the same as those allowed in

other Government Offices. Now, ' in other Government

Offices ' no Muhammadan holidays are sanctioned at all.
The head of each establishment may allow any Muham-
madans whom he may have under him to absent them-
selves during their six great festivals, making a total of
188 THEIR HOLIDAYS REFUSED.

twelve days per annum ; but the office remains open, and
the general work goes on as usual.
The Muhammadan Pleaders pointed out that a per-

missive system of this sort would by no means meet the

requirements of a public Court of Justice. Such tribunals
have to consider not only their officers and practitioners,

but also the public for whose convenience they exist.

They urged that, although the number of Muhammadan

Pleaders has greatly diminished, yet that the number of

Muhammadan suitors who come to look after their cases

has, in consequence of railway communication , more than

proportionately increased . That even if the Muhammadan

Pleaders might be excused from attendance on a Muham-

madan holiday, yet that they could not divert their minds
from suits which might still be carried on if a Hindu or
an English Pleader happened to be also engaged in them .
In short, that the order amounted to a total abolition
of their religious festivals, -an abolition opposed to the
practice of the seventy-two years during which the Court

had sat, and prohibitive of the duties enjoined by their

faith. ' If holidays are to be allowed to Hindus and

Christians according to their religion, your Memorialists

submit why the Muhammadans should be deprived of the
holidays set apart for the performance of their religious
duties and ceremonies . ' ¹
To so low an estate has the community which
formerly monopolized the whole legal appointments
throughout India fallen. It is gratifying to know that
at least this piece of injustice was not allowed to take
effect. The Supreme Government interfered and authori-
tatively set apart a certain limited number of Muham-

1 Memorial of the Muhammadan Pleaders of the High Court to the

Officiating Chief-Justice and his companion Justices, para. 3.
 ' ABOLITION- OF
-KAZI' CHARGE. 189

madan holidays ; not, indeed , so many as the Musalmans

desired, but as many as the exigencies of public business.
would permit, and sufficient for the observance of the
great festivals of their faith .

One charge yet remains. The Muhammadans com-

plain that not only has our system extruded them from
the legal profession, but that by an Act of the Legislature
we have deprived them of the one essential functionary
for the fulfilment of their domestic and religious law.
Under a Muhammadan Government, the Kázi unites

many of the functions of a criminal, a civil, and an

ecclesiastical judge . It was to him that we chiefly trusted
to carry on the administration of justice when we first
took charge of the country. Our earliest code recognised
his importance and confirmed his office, and a long list
of twenty-five Regulations touching his duties may still
be found in our Indian Statute Books.¹ Indeed, so in-

dispensable is the Kázi to the Muhammadan domestic

and religious code, that it was decided that India would

continue a Country of Islam so long as the Kázis were

maintained, and become a Country of the Enemy the
moment they were abolished .

Unfortunately, the intimate acquaintance with

Muhammadan popular feeling, which Muhammadan dis-
affection has now forced us to acquire, is of a very
recent date. In 1863 one of the Provincial Governors

called in question the propriety of continuing to appoint

Kázis . He appears to have thought that such appoint-

1 BENGAL CODE.-Reg. IV. , 1793 ; Reg. XII. , 1793 ; Reg. XXXIX., 1793 ;
Reg. VIII. , 1795 ; Reg. xI. , 1795 ; Reg. XLIX. , 1795 ; Reg. II. , 1798 ; Reg. III. ,
1803 ; Reg. XI. , 1803 ; Reg. XLVI. , 1803 ; Reg. x. , 1806 ; Reg. või ., 1809 ;
Reg. xvIII., 1817 ; Reg. xI. , 1826 ; Reg. III. , 1827 ; Reg. III. , 1829. MADRAS
CODE. - Reg. XI., 1802 ; Reg. III., 1808 ; Reg. vII. , 1822 ; Reg. 1. , 1828.
BOMBAY CODE . Reg. II., 1827 ; and Reg. XXVI., 1827. Act XXVII. of 1836 ;
Act VII. of 1813 ; and Act v. of 1845.
 190 'ABOLITION-OF
-KAZI CHARGE.

ments involved a recognition of their sacerdotal charac-

ter by the Government, and to have believed that the
Muhammadan community might be safely allowed to

make the appointments themselves . Accordingly, after

some discussion, and a strong protest from Bombay, the
whole previous legislation on the subject was repealed,
and Government formally discontinued its appointment
of Kázis.¹

During the past seven years a great and constantly

increasing section of the Muhammadan community have

been deprived of the functionary necessary for the

celebration of marriages and other important ceremonies

of their domestic Code . The evil did not tell at first so

severely as afterwards, for the old Kázis remained . It

was only on the death or retirement of one of them that

the law took effect, by having abolished the machinery

for filling his place. The subject early attracted the

attention of the present Viceroy, but no absolutely con-
clusive evidence could be obtained until in 1870 the

Madras High Court took up and decided the question.

Mr. Justice Collett's decision 2 leaves no doubt that

Kázis can only be appointed by the ruling Power ; that

in default of such appointment the Muhammadans are
powerless to elect one themselves ; and that the Act of
1864 has deprived their community of the most important
officer of their law. His duties are defined as preparing

and attesting Deeds of Transfer, celebrating marriages,

and performing certain other religious rites and ceremonies.

Now it so happens that one of the crying evils in Lower

1 By Act XI. of 1864, subsequently repealed by the schedule attached to

Act VIII. of 1868, which, however , did not revive the old Regulations under
which the appointments had formerly been made.
2 Original Suit, No. 453 of 1869 ; Muhammad Abubikr v . Mir Ghulam
Husain and Anor.
 EFFECTS OF THEIR ABOLITION. 191

Bengal which embarrass and defy the Magistrates is

marriage litigation among the Muhammadans. For some
reason or another, the marriage tie has of late been

relaxed . Charges of adultery or abduction , both of which

come under the Penal Code, pour into the Courts of the
Deltaic Districts, and in nine cases out of ten it is impos-
sible to prove the legality of the marriage. Such cases
in the two Divisions of Eastern Bengal rose from 561 in
1862 , two years before the discontinuance of the official

appointment of Kázis, to 1984 in 1866 , or two years after

that discontinuance. Since then the number has decreased

in the Criminal Returns, apparently not from any real

diminution , but because it has become customary to refer
such complaints to the Civil Courts.¹

I take these figures from a valuable note by the

officer in charge of the Wahabi prosecutions, and an
official of still greater weight and experience thus sums

up the political evil that the discontinuance of officially

appointing Kázis has done : - ' In connection with the

Wahabi movement, there is, I think , no doubt that their

abolition has acted in two ways. It has increased the
number of zealous partially instructed men of letters,2
who, without other means of livelihood , and embittered
against the existing state of things , go about preaching
among the ignorant Muhammadan population , apostles of
disloyalty. But it also acts in a far more serious way.
There can be no doubt that a Muhammadan's life can

1 The excessive growth of marriage litigation was to some extent due to

the people learning more fully how to make use of the Indian Penal Code. But
the fact of our having rendered breaches of the marriage tie a criminal offence
made it the more important that the marriage law should be well defined . We
took the very worst moment that could possibly have been chosen for the
abolition of the Musalman marriage officers.
2 The class from whom the Kázis were recruited, and who looked to that
office as their career in life.
192 PROPOSAL TO RE-ESTABLISH THEM.

hardly be conducted in conformity to the rules of his

religion where no proper Kázi exists . Not only do cer-
tain ceremonies require their sanction, but there are per-
petually small questions of religious and formal law
cropping up in the every-day life of a Muhammadan ,
which should properly be resolved by a Kázi. If no such
officer exists, it gives a broad opening to a man who
is disloyal to Government to press on a conscientious
Muhammadan that the Government is not one he can
properly live under. On the other hand, the use and
recognition of a Kázi appointed by Government is virtu-
ally a recognition of the authority and lawfulness of that
Government.'

The question is one of the most important that ever

came before the Indian Legislature. Deep consideration
of the whole bearings of the case, and consultation with
the ten Provincial Governments into which India is

divided, will no doubt be required before a decision can

be safely arrived at. But the earnest attitude which the

Viceroy has taken up, and the firm resolve of Govern-

ment to do justice to the Muhammadans, at whatever cost
of admitting its former mistakes, give good ground for
belief that this too will presently be removed from the
list of Musalman charges against British Rule .
The neglect and contempt with which, for half a
century, the Muhammadan population of Lower Bengal
has thus been treated, have left their marks deep in
recent Indian literature . The former conquerors of the

East are excluded from our Oriental journals and libraries

as well as from the more active careers in life. The old

Court of Directors wisely shared its favours between

Musalmans and Hindus, and the admirable Arabic and
Persian scholarship displayed in the earlier series of the
 MUHAMMADAN TEXTS NEGLECTED. 193

Bibliotheca Indica was merely the literary representative

of this political impartiality. But during the last fifty
years the Hindus have extruded the Muhammadans alike

from State literature and State employ, and the £ 600 a

year which the Court of Directors granted to the Biblio-
theca Indica has been allotted in almost as one-sided a
way as Bengal official patronage. Between 1847 and

1852, under Dr. Roer's rule, few efforts of Semitic scholar-

ship appeared ; and although, during the brief incum-
bency of Dr. Sprenger, a reaction set in, and two works

of the first magnitude were begun, they have been left

unfinished.

Dr. Horace Hayman Wilson's enthusiastic Sanskrit

Scholarship could ill brook the expenditure of an Indian
grant upon Arabic literature. Under his inspiration, the

Court of Directors issued an injunction that the Biblio-

theca Indica should be devoted entirely to Indian subjects,

upon pain of withdrawal of the £ 600 a year. Perhaps it

was well that a man with so much force of character, and

with such paramount claims to be heard on his own sub-

ject, should have been temporarily allowed to have his
way. Dr. H. H. Wilson built the basement of modern

Sanskrit learning ; the masonry which Max Müller is now

overlaying with his exquisite ornamentation, and upon
which he is rearing upper storeys of a light and graceful
architecture hitherto unattempted in scholarship . Mean-
while Goldstücker, Aufrecht, Fitzedward Hall, and Muir
are strengthening the foundation , throwing out buttresses,
and adding substantial wings, so that the beautiful struc-
ture shall abide for ever.
But a little band of Semitic scholars were still hold-

ing together, and defending their position to the last.

The Court of Directors had withdrawn its support from
N
194 THEIR LITERATURE NEGLECTED.

any undertaking extraneous to India Proper. The Semi-

tic scholars did not feel strong enough to fight on this

ground, and accordingly abandoned the Arabic outworks ;

only to entrench themselves, however, behind the Persian
literature of the Muhammadan Empire. Sir Henry Elliot
went on with his labours unmoved. Mr. Thomas, Mr.

Hammond, Sir William Muir, and a few others, formed a

brilliant group of Civilians, who wrung from the Local
Government what the distant Court of Directors had re-
fused. In 1855 the Lieutenant- Governor of the North-
West Provinces sanctioned the collection of Persian MSS.
at the public expense. Sixty-seven were landed at a

single haul. The publication of Sir Henry Elliot's papers ,

under the admirable although somewhat leisurely editor-
ship of Mr. Thomas , Professor Dawson , and Mr. Beames ,
marks a vast stride . Meanwhile the Lucknow Muham-

madan Presses have been annually pouring forth their

varied, if not very careful or well-considered , productions .

Colonel Nassau Lees has devoted all his influence and

learning to the cause ; and in Dr. Rost, the new Librarian

at the India Office , Orientalists have obtained one of those
rare scholars who combine a broad range of subjects and
interests with depth and absolute trustworthiness . In

India the reaction is equally well marked , and a scholar

has arisen in the person of Mr. Blochmann , whose in-
dustry, talent, and enthusiasm recall the early days of
oriental learning.

I have now set forth the Muhammadan Petition and

Complaint against British Rule. The charges of misap-

propriation and specific wrongs may be safely left to Go-
vernment to deal with, —a Government which has during
the last two years shown its earnestness equally in putting
down disaffection and in trying to remove the causes of
 CALCUTTA MUSALMAN COLLEGE. 195

it. But on the more general and less tangible accusation

of neglect I must say a few words. If we analyse this
charge, we shall find that our unsympathetic system of
Public Instruction lies at the root of the matter. The

Bengal Musalmans can never hope to succeed in life, or

to obtain a fair share of the State patronage, until they fit
themselves for it, and they will never thus fit themselves
until provision is made for their education in our schools.
The changes required are, in my opinion, very simple and
inexpensive ones. But before entering on them, I pro-
pose to relate the one great effort we have made in this
direction. The English in India have failed in their duty
towards the Musalmans, but it is only fair to narrate the
difficulties and discouragements which they have met with
in endeavouring to do it.
During exactly ninety years, a costly Muhammadan
College has been maintained in Calcutta at the State
1
expense. It owes its origin, like most other of the

English attempts to benefit the people, to Warren Hast-

ings. In 1781 the Governor - General discerned the

change which must inevitably come over the prospects

of the Musalmans, and tried to prepare them for it. As

the wealth of the great Muhammadan Houses decayed,

their power of giving their sons an education which

should fit them for the higher offices in the State de-

clined pari passu. To restore the chances in their favour,

Warren Hastings established a Muhammadan College in
the Capital, and ' endowed it with certain rents towards
its perpetual maintenance .' Unfortunately for the Musal-
mans, he left its management to the Musalmans them-
selves. Persian and Arabic remained the sole subjects

of instruction, long after Persian and Arabic had ceased

1 Known in Bengal as the Madrissah.

196 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE, 1781-1869.

to be the bread-winners in official life. Abuses of a very

grave character crept into the College, and in 1819 it was

found necessary to appoint an European Secretary. In

1826 a further effort was made to adapt the Institution
to the altered necessities of the times ; an English class

was formed, but unhappily soon afterwards broken up.

Three years afterwards, another and a more permanent
effort was made, but with inadequate results . During
the next quarter of a century, the Muhammadan College
shared the fate of the Muhammadan community . It was

allowed to drop out of sight ; and when the Local Govern-

ment made any sign on the subject, it was some expres-
sion of impatience at its continuing to exist at all.
Between 1851 and 1853 , however, the authorities

awoke to the necessity of doing something towards re-

forming an Institution which had become a public scandal.
The sum of the proposals then put forward ' amounted to
this. The College was divided into two Departments, the
lower of which, under the name of the Anglo- Persian
Branch, taught Urdu, Persian, and English up to a very
moderate standard.2 The upper Department was devoted
entirely to Arabic . The defects of this plan soon became
apparent. When the youths passed into the purely
Arabic Branch, they forgot what they had learned in
the more miscellaneous lower Department. In 1858 the
results of the system are thus described : ' It turned out
a few scholars, good in their peculiar narrow way, but not
in the least fitted to take their place in the competition

1 By Mr. J. R. Colvin, the Civilian who then chiefly enjoyed the confi-
dence of the Muhammadan community, as from his accomplishments in Persian
and Arabic he deserved it, and who, on the death of Mr. Thomason, became
Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces. He died in the Agra
Fort during the Mutiny.
2 At present, to the entrance standard of the Calcutta University.
 CAUSES OF ITS FAILURE. 197

of official or general life ; and who were in consequence,

as a class, bigoted, self- sufficient, disappointed, and soured ,
if not disloyal.'¹
Another effort was made to reform the College, and
2
for a year or two with some success. But things soon
relapsed into their former state, and in 1869 the Bengal
Government had to issue a Commission, still sitting, to

inquire into the causes of its inefficiency. The truth is ,

that the Muhammadan College fitted its students neither
for the University nor for active life. "The whole system ,'
says the most distinguished Musalman Reformer of the

day,³ ' can land them, only in half-and-half results . As

students entirely of Arabic , they lose the benefit of the
little English training they were acquainted with ; for the
College has no means for continuing English instruction,
and it does not take much time to obliterate from their

minds whatever little English they may have learned.'

I propose briefly to explain how so sad a result has
been obtained from so well-meant an effort. In the first

place, the supervision has been all along deficient . Even

during the brief period that an English Principal has
existed, his appointment and his authority have been
little more than nominal. He has had charge of other
and more important offices ; and to these the Principal-
ship of the one great Muhammadan College that we have
in Bengal has been tacked on as a sort of honorary ap-
pointment, with a merely nominal addition to his other

1 Mr. E. C. Bayley, to whose notes I owe several of the ideas contained in

this Chapter.
2 Under the suggestion of Colonel Nassau Lees , the Honorary Principal of
the College. It is only fair to Colonel Lees (who is not now in India to speak
for himself), to state that he again and again earnestly set forth the necessity
for reform , and that some of the proposals which I shall make later on were
urged by him many years ago.
8 Maulavi Abdul Latif Khan Bahadur.
198 NO SUPERVISION.

salary. For example, the present Principal's chief ap-

pointment is Secretary to the Board of Examiners ; and
through his hands the whole of the Military Officers at
the Presidency have to pass, in order to qualify them-
selves for appointments, with all the Civilians who read
for honours in the native languages . He is also officiating
as Assistant- Secretary and Translator to the Government
of India in the Home Department, besides any occasional
work which may be thrown upon him, such as Committees
and miscellaneous references from Government. In addi-

tion to all this, he is supposed to be Principal of the

Muhammadan College ; and however enthusiastically the
present incumbent may have entered on this fragment of
his multifarious duties, it is hopeless to look for any per-
manent efficiency from such a system.
The internal arrangements are still worse. An able
and energetic scholar presides over the lower Department,
but his control ends just where such supervision is most
needed, viz. in the higher Arabic Branch . This Depart-
ment, on which the whole success of the Institution de-

pends, is left in the hands of the native Maulavis.

Nominally, indeed , one of the latter gentlemen enjoys
precedence over the other Masters, with the title of Head

Maulavi. But no distinct chain of subordination exists ;

the under Masters were not responsible to him, and he
was never seen out of his own class.¹ There were no

monthly nor quarterly examinations ; no daily, nor even

weekly, inspections of the classes . It is clear that no

good could come out of such a system. The Principal

1 I do not know whether the fact of a Commission being actually sitting

has changed matters in this and the other respects subsequently mentioned.
But I guarantee the absolute accuracy of my statements as representing the
general conduct of the College up to the time when the Commission was ap-
pointed.
 NO SUPERVISION. 199

could not really superintend, because he had other work ;

the Head Maulavi never attempted to supervise, and we
know the practical results.
It is impossible to exaggerate the evil which this

neglect has done to the Muhammadan youth of Bengal .

We must remember that, since we misappropriated the

Hugli Endowment a generation ago, the Calcutta College

is the one Institution where they can hope to obtain a
high-class education. A body of young Musalmans, about
a hundred in number, are gathered together in the heart
of a licentious Oriental capital ; kept under bad influences
for seven years, with no check upon their conduct, and no
examples of honourable efficiency within their sphere ;
and finally sent back to their native villages without being
qualified for any career in life .
About eighty per cent.
of them come from the fanatical Eastern Districts ; ¹ the

difficulty of getting any lucrative employment, without a

knowledge of English, having driven away the youth of
the more loyal parts of Bengal from the College . The
students have passed their boyhood in an atmosphere of
disaffection. Many of them are poor, and when they
come to Calcutta, lodge in the houses and live on the
2
charity of English gentlemen's butlers. These are the
moneyed men among the Muhammadan community, and
they deride their masters behind their backs with all the
suppressed insolence of menials belonging to a subject
race. The students are all above sixteen, some above

twenty, and some, I am informed, over thirty years of

age. The butlers with whom they live not only acquire
the religious merit of supporting them, but often marry

1 Chittagong, Sandwíp, and Sháhbázpúr send the majority.

2 Khánsámáns, who maintain poor scholars as a religious act. Such board
and lodging is called a jagir, the name by which the military fiefs of the
Muhammadan Empire were styled.
200 THE MUSALMAN STUDENTS.

their daughters, with a handsome dowry, to their guests .

They come from the petty landholding class, who care
nothing for English or for science, little for Persian, and
a great deal for the technicalities of Arabic grammar and
law. At home they were engaged in ploughing their

little fields or plying their boats ; and they speak the

rude peasant dialect of the Deltaic Districts - a patois
unintelligible to the Calcutta Musalman.
This is the new-caught student. In a few years he

loses his barbarous jargon, gets his beard clipped, and

sets up as a young professor of the Musalman Law. A

generous Government allows twenty-eight scholarships

among the hundred students, so that sooner or later any
youth of the smallest application is sure to get one. Mean-
while the more enterprising and less studious among them
set up a little trade. The better sort strut about Calcutta
with their books under their arms, and, throwing aside

the character of poor pensioners, demand the respect due

to men of learning from the butlers on whom they live.
Thanks to our short-sighted abolition of the Kázis, the
domestic Code of Islam has fallen into the hands of un-
licensed practitioners. The College Students read the

marriage formula in the lower sort of Muhammadan

families , settle matters of inheritance , and sell shallow
Decisions¹ according to the Hidayah and the Jámi'ur-
rumúz.

There never was a set of young men who stand more

in need of good guidance than these poor students of the
Muhammadan College . What amount of guidance they

get, I have already set forth . Every year under our

instruction makes them more confident in their own

narrow system of learning, more vicious as to their morals,

1 Fatwas.
 THE MUSALMAN STUDENTS. 201

less fit for any active career in life, and more disloyal to
our Government. They hate the sight of an Englishman .
When the scandal had grown so public as to render impe-
rative a resident English Professor in the College, ¹ he had
to be smuggled into it by night. During more than ninety
years the Chapters on Holy War against the Infidel have
been the favourite studies of the place ; and up to 1868
or 1869 , I forget the exact date, examination questions
were regularly given in this Doctrine of Rebellion. A
mosque of sedition flourishes almost within the shadow of

the College, and the students frequent the Rebel places

of worship throughout all Calcutta . The present Head
Master is the son of one of the leading Doctors whom the
Mutiny . of 1857 brought to the front, and who expiated
his crimes by transportation for life to an island in the
Indian Ocean. The library of the learned traitor, after

being confiscated by Government, is now lodged in the

Calcutta College. Within the last few months, the Resi-

dent English Professor had to turn out of the grounds a

wandering Arab, who came to ' preach religion , ' or, in
other words, the doctrines which have cost us three
Frontier Wars, and spread a network of conspiracy over
the Empire .

After a seven years ' training of this sort, we dismiss

the Muhammadan youth to the fanatical Eastern Districts
whence they came. But unhappily an even sadder tale

remains to be told . I do not speak of the last two years,

during which the Special Commission has been sitting ;
but there is evidence on record to show that , within a
quite recent period, the students brought their courtesans

¹ At present Mr. Blochmann. Unhappily the Resident English Professor

has no jurisdiction over the Arabic or Upper Department.
2 A Farázi mosque .
202 THE MUSALMAN STUDIES.

into the College.¹ About twenty-six of them have rooms ;

and the quarters thus granted by the Government were
converted into dens of profligacy. Not content with

harbouring what Carlyle calls the unmentionable women,

they sunk into those more horrible crimes against nature
which Christianity has extirpated from Europe, but which
lurk in every great city of India. Within the last five or

six years three cases were discovered ; how many occurred

can never be known.

Even the few among them who, if left to themselves,

would try to do well, had no means for obtaining any
sound or practically useful knowledge. In the first place,
the time daily devoted to teaching was too short. The
fixed hours are from ten to two, from which about twenty
minutes must be subtracted in order to allow masters and

students to smoke a hooka, known in the College slang as

Moses' Rod ; and about half an hour for calling the roll,—
a ceremony which had to be performed twice a day, as
many of the students disappear finally at twelve o'clock.
Some of the more diligent supplement the meagre College

curriculum by reading ' religion ' in private Musalman

schools outside. Such external studies consist chiefly of

the Muhammadan Traditions (Hadis) , and law-books of

the fanatical mediæval stamp, -a sort of learning which
fills the youthful brain with windy self-importance, and
gives rise to bitter schisms on the most trivial points
within the College walls. Not long ago, as the English

Resident Professor was going his evening rounds, he heard

a tumult in the students' rooms. ' Your religion is all

wrong," and similar phrases, resounded through the corri-

¹ It is only just to add that the non -resident English Principal, Colonel Lees,
was in no way responsible for these occurrences, and when the courtesan dis-
coveries were made, took steps for rendering their repetition impossible.
2 Tumhárá imám t'hik ne.'
 THE MUSALMAN STUDIES. 203

dors, and fierce were the denunciations on all sides. He

hurried to the scene of the uproar, and found that one of

the students had found in a law-book that during prayer

the heels should be joined, else the petition has no effect

in heaven or on earth. Those who had said their prayers
with unclosed heels denounced the discoverer of the new

mode as a pernicious heretic ; while he and a little band

of followers consigned all who prayed in the old fashion

to the eternal torments of hell.

Three hours' instruction is as much as they could

possibly obtain from the College teachers in the day.
One who has practical acquaintance with it, tells me that
the actual time of teaching was only two and a half hours .
Anything like preparation at home was unknown , and
indeed is opposed to Muhammadan ideas. Each master
reads out an Arabic sentence, and explains the meanings

of the first, second , and the third word, and so on till he

comes to the end of it. The diligent student writes these
meanings between the lines of his text-book, and by easy

degrees learns the whole sentence and the interpretation

thereof by heart. To teach him how to use the dictionary
at home, or to reason out the meaning of a passage on his
own account, is an altogether foreign invention, possibly
dangerous to his religious faith, and at any rate unknown
in the Calcutta College. At the end of seven years the
students know certain books by heart, text and interpre-

tation ; but if they get a simple manuscript beyond their

narrow curriculum, they are in a moment beyond their
depth. Such a training, it may well be supposed, pro-
duces an intolerant contempt for anything which they
have not learned. The very nothingness of their acquire-
ments makes them more conceited . They know as an
absolute truth that the Arabic grammar, law, rhetoric,
204 OUR NON-INTERFERENCE FATAL.

and logic, comprise all that is worth knowing upon earth.

They have learned that the most extensive kingdoms in
the world are, first Arabia, then England, France , and
Russia, and that the largest town, next to Mecca, Medina,
and Cairo, is London. Au reste, the English are Infidels,

and will find themselves in a very hot place in the next

world. To this vast accumulation of wisdom what more

could be added ? When a late Principal tried to introduce

profane science, even through the medium of their own
Urdu, were they not amply justified in pelting him with
brickbats and rotten mangoes ?

I have dwelt on these painful details, because I believe

it most important, now that the Government has awakened

to the necessity of really educating the Musalmans, that it

should avoid a system which has brought failure upon its
one great previous attempt. The Calcutta Muhammadan
College has been practically left in the hands of the
Muhammadans themselves, and it is under their manage-

ment that it has proved such a scandal and disgrace . At

first our tenderness, and afterwards our indifference, to
the waning fortunes of the Musalman community, pre-
vented the Government from interfering with an institution
which it knew to be inefficient, but which it did not see
very clearly how to amend. A hundred years of native

management has moulded the system to suit the prejudices

rather than the wants of the Muhammadans. Our one

great fault has been that we have left the Muhammadan

College too much to the Muhammadans themselves. As

early as 1819 this was clearly perceived, but the Govern-

ment of that day went on hoping against hope that a
merely nominal control by a European Secretary would
in time suffice . The same unwillingness to interfere has
characterized and has baffled the efforts to reform the
 MUSALMAN PEASANT SCHOOLS. 205

College during the past twenty years. When a Principal

was at length appointed, his office was an honorary and

a nominal one ; when a Resident Professor was finally
introduced, his jurisdiction stopped short at the Depart-
ment in which it was most needed.

Yet I believe that an efficient system of education for

all classes of the Musalman community might be organized

at a very small charge to the State. Such a system would

have to provide for low-class, middle- class, and high-class
instruction. With regard to the first, a liberal construc-
tion of the existing Grant-in-Aid Rules to Aided Schools
would almost suffice. It is not more money that is

needed, so much as a consideration of the special wants

of the Musalmans. Government has wisely declared that
it will not assist two schools within five miles of each

other, for such assistance would produce an unprofitable

rivalry at the cost of the State. The astute Hindu, in

this as in all other matters , has been first in the field .
He has covered the country with schools admirably

adapted to the wants of his own community, but wholly

unsuited to the requirements of the Muhammadans. The
five miles ' rule, therefore, should be relaxed so as to allow
a State grant to Musalman schools within that distance
of existing Hindu ones. Where separate institutions are
not needed, Government might make provision for the
Musalmans, by appointing a low-paid Muhammadan
teacher to the existing Hindu school. Such Musalman
teachers could be had at five shillings a week.
With regard to the fanatical Eastern Districts , how-
ever, I think it would well repay Government to create a
special machinery for reaching the Musalman peasantry.
Such machinery was at one time found requisite for the
Hindus. Lord Hardinge instituted a number of schools
 206 MUSALMAN PEASANT SCHOOLS.

in order to extend education into Districts where there

was no self- supporting demand for it. Of such schools
there were thirty-eight in the Educational Division of

Bengal, which I had in my charge in 1866. They cost

the Government over £ 1100 a year, besides the fees,
which amounted only to £ 267, and were in no sense self-
supporting. But it is difficult to overrate the good which
these schools have done. Wherever the peasantry were

too ignorant, too poor, or too bigoted to set agoing a

school under the Grant-in-Aid Rules, one of the Hardinge
Institutions was temporarily established . At first the

villagers got their education for almost nothing, but by

degrees, as the presence of an educated class created a

demand for further education , the fees were raised . In a

few years the self-supporting element was thus introduced,
a higher class of school was formed , and the cheap Har-
dinge School was transferred to some more backward
part of the country. In this way education has been

thrown out deeper and deeper into the jungles of South-

Western Bengal.¹

I think the same might now be done for the fanatical

Eastern Districts. The Grant-in-Aid Rules will not reach

a population hereditarily disaffected to our Government,

and averse to our system of instruction . But fifty cheap

schools , with low - paid Musalman teachers, to which

Government contributed the larger part of the expense,

would in a single generation change the popular tone of

Eastern Bengal. Such Institutions would have but a
small success at first. But they would gradually attract
not merely the Musalman peasant youth, but also the

1 In 1865-66 there were 283 schools, with an attendance of 16,043 pupils,

in the South-Western Division.
2 The attendance on the 38 ' Hardinge and Model Schools ' in the South-
 MUSALMAN MIDDLE-CLASS SCHOOLS. 207

Musalman teachers, who now earn a precarious livelihood

on their own account, and to whom an additional five
shillings a week from Government would be an inde-
pendent fortune. We should thus enlist on our side the
very class which is at present most persistently bitter
against us.
So much for the lower-class education of the Musal-
mans. With regard to their middle- class instruction a
still smaller change would be required . The officer in
charge of the Wahabi prosecutions has already urged that
Muhammadan teachers (Maulavis) should be appointed to
each of the District Government Schools, and this would
suffice. Such teachers should instruct in the usual

branches of education through the Urdu vernacular, and

give a thorough knowledge of that language, besides an

acquaintance with Persian, and perhaps a little Arabic .
The prevailing tone of a District Government School might
be safely left to itself to produce a desire of learning
English among the Musalman boys who frequented it.
These changes would cost little, but a complete and
an efficient system of higher-class Muhammadan educa-
tion would cost the State not one penny. The sum set
apart by Warren Hastings for the Calcutta Musalman

College, and the ample endowment of the Hugli Institu-

tion, would, if properly applied, amply suffice. The funds
which we at present misappropriate to maintain an Eng-
lish College should henceforth be honestly devoted to the
purpose for which the testator left them. Whether one
really good College would not be better than two, and
whether it should be fixed in Calcutta, or at Hugli,

Western Division rose from 1431 in 1861-62, to 2034 in 1865-66, the year of
my Report. The cost per pupil during the same period decreased from 12s. 6d.
per annum to 8s. 6d.
208 A MUSALMAN COLLEGE.

which is only twenty-four miles off, are matters of detail

on which I need not enter. The actual instruction might
for the most part be conducted by Muhammadan teachers
as at present ; but each College should have a Resident

European Principal acquainted with Arabic, and capable

both of supervising his subordinates and of enforcing their
respect . The emoluments of the position, say from £ 1200
to £ 1500 a year, would command a very high order of
scholarship from the English or German Universities.

Such higher-class education would consist not of two

separate branches, as in the Calcutta College, in the upper
of which the student forgets whatever he has learned in
the lower, but of a well-planned unbroken curriculum.
The Upper or Arabic Department would be turned into

an Anglo-Arabic one, and form a well-amalgamated ex-

tension of the lower Anglo-Persian branch. A Musalman
boy would thus pass by easy transitions from the District
Government School, through the two College Depart-

ments, to the highest branches of learning. It is more

than doubtful whether the Muhammadan law should be

taught as a regular study, incumbent on all. It certainly

should not be made the chief object of instruction. For
the Muhammadan Law means the Muhammadan religion

—that religion, too, at a time when its followers looked

úpon the whole earth as their lawful prey, and before
they had learned the duties of modern Musalman States in
alliance with, or in subjection to, a Christian Government.
It would not be wise to do altogether away with the

teaching of the Law, for its total abolition would imperil

the popularity of the College with the present generation
of Musalmans. Yet it should be remembered that our

original reason for encouraging Muhammadan Law, to

wit, the production of qualified Musalman Law Officers,
 REVIEW OF MY SCHEME. 209

has ceased to exist. The study no longer answers any

requirement of the Government, nor does it afford to its

students any career in life . An adequate knowledge

of it could be given in separate lectures, somewhat as

Hindu Law is taught at the Calcutta University. For
the present daily drill in the Code of Islam, might be sub-
stituted Arabic or Persian literature, and the study of
Western science through the medium of Urdu.

In this way we should develop a rising generation

of Muhammadans, no longer learned only in their own
narrow learning, nor imbued solely with the bitter doc-
trines of their medieval Law, but tinctured with the sober

and genial knowledge of the West. At the same time they

would have a sufficient acquaintance with their religious
code to command the respect of their own community,
while an English training would secure them an entry
into the lucrative walks of life.
For the lower and middle class education of the

Musalmans, a special Deputy Inspector of Schools belong-

ing to their own faith would be required . Such an officer
might be obtained for £200 a year. One of his first duties
should be to find out and report on the Musalman schools
and colleges ' under native management. Many estab-
lishments of this sort still drag on an obscure existence

wholly unknown to our Educational Inspectors . In some

of them, I believe, a fair degree of efficiency is maintained ,
and it would be well to find out if anything is to be
learned from the system they pursue. I do not think that
they would submit to regular supervision by English
officers, but many of them would agree to the visits of

a Deputy Inspector of their own faith, as the easy con-

dition of a Grant-in-Aid . We should thus enlist the most
1 Madrissas.
0
210 REVIEW OF MY SCHEME.

seditious institutions in Bengal on the side, if not of

loyalty, at least of peace and order. For the present

puerile follies which the Musalmans read in their schools ,

a series of well-chosen and well-edited Text-books should

be issued. The Colleges might be safely left to the care

of their English Principals ; and for these ample funds
exist, if properly applied, without costing an extra shilling
to the State.

We should thus at length have the Muhammadan

youth educated upon our own plan . Without interfering
in any way with their religion, and in the very process of
enabling them to learn their religious duties, we should
render that religion perhaps less sincere, but certainly less
fanatical. The rising generation of Muhammadans would
tread the steps which have conducted the Hindus, not
long ago the most bigoted nation upon earth, into their
present state of easy tolerance . Such a tolerance implies
a less earnest belief than their fathers had ; but it has
freed them, as it would liberate the Musalmans, from the
cruelties which they inflicted, the crimes which they per-

petrated, and the miseries which they endured , in the

name of a mistaken religion . I do not permit myself

here to touch upon the means by which, through a state

of indifference, the Hindus and Musalmans alike may yet
reach a higher level of belief. But I firmly believe that
that day will come, and that our system of education,
which has hitherto produced only negative virtues, is the
first, although a distant, stage towards it. Hitherto the

English in India have been but poor Iconoclasts after all.

Meanwhile it remains for Government, while sternly

putting down disaffection among the Muhammadans, to

deprive them of every excuse for it. It has to make

amends to them, not only for the decay in which our

 CONCLUSION. 211

conquest and changed administration has involved their

community, but also for the want of sympathy which

has rendered their ruin less bearable and more complete.

Its dealings with the disloyal section of the Musalmans

should be managed so as not only to commend themselves
to public justice, but also to public opinion. The unskil-
ful conduct of a well-merited condemnation¹ left for cen-

turies a stain on the memory of the most virtuous and

philosophic Emperor of Rome. Hitherto we have shed

no blood, except on the field of battle, and the result has

been a crop of Wahábi apostates instead of an army of

Wahabi martyrs. At the moment I write this page, the
infamous Meat- Supplier to the British Troops, who was
condemned to death in 1864, is giving evidence at Patna
against the brethren of his former faith. Had his original
sentence been carried out, thousands of devotees would
every year be making a pilgrimage to his tomb. A death

in the cause of religion has in all ages sufficed to illumi-

nate a life of infamy. The fortunes of an even viler Meat-

Supplier to the Army than our Dehli butcher, stand out
in history to warn the Government against capital sen-
tences, which its Musalman subjects would regard as
religious executions . It should never forget how George
of Cappadocia, after a life of obloquy as a parasite, as a
defaulting bacon-contractor to the Roman Troops , and as

a disolute archbishop, obtained an apotheosis by an unwill-

ing death, and became Saint George of Merry England .

1 That of the Viceroy of Africa, the Notary Gaudentius, and the tyrant
Duke of Egypt, under Julian.
2 Muhammad Shafi.
214 APPENDIX.

The Almighty is Omniscient, Pure, and High !

This is written by one who hopes for salvation from the God of mercy.
May God forgive him, and his parents and preceptors, and brothers
and friends, and all Muhammadans.
(Signed) AHMAD BIN ZAINI DAHLAN, Mufti of the Shafi Sect of
Mecca (the Protected).'

ANSWER No. III.

' All praises are due to God, who is One ! O ! Almighty ! increase my
knowledge !
It is written in the Commentary of Dasoki that a Country of Islam does
not become Dar-ul-Harb as soon as it passes into the hands of the
Infidels, but only when all or most of the injunctions of Islam disappear
therefrom.
God is Omniscient ! May the blessings of God be showered upon our
Chief, Muhammad, and on his descendants and companions.
(Signed) Written by HUSAIN BIN IBRAHIM, Mufti of the Malik;
Sect of Mecca (the Illustrious).'

APPENDIX II.

THE DECISION OF THE LAW DOCTORS OF NORTHERN INDIA.

TRANSLATION OF THE ISTIFTA OR QUESTION, PUT BY SAYYID AMIR HUSAIN,

PERSONAL ASSISTANT TO THE COMMISSIONER OF BHAGALPUR.

What is your Decision, O men of learning and expounders of the

law of Islam, in the following ? —
Whether a Jihad is lawful in India, a country formerly held by a
Muhammadan ruler, and now held under the sway of a Christian Govern-
ment, where the said Christian Ruler does in no way interfere with his
Muhammadan subjects in the Rites prescribed by their Religion, such
as Praying, Fasting, Pilgrimage, Zakat, Friday Prayer, and Jama'at, and
gives them fullest protection and liberty in the above respects in the
same way as a Muhammadan Ruler would do, and where the Muham-
madan subjects have no strength and means to fight with their rulers ;
on the contrary, there is every chance of the war, if waged, ending with
a defeat, and thereby causing an indignity to Islam.
Please answer, quoting your authority.

Fatwah dated the 17th Rabeeoossanee, 1287 H., corresponding with

the 17th July 1870 .
The Musalmans here are protected by Christians, and there is no
Jihad in a country where protection is afforded, as the absence of pro-
 APPENDIX. 215

tection and liberty between Musalmans and Infidels is essential in a

religious war, and that condition does not exist here. Besides, it is
necessary that there should be a probability of victory to Musalman and
glory to the Islams. If there be no such probability, the Jihad is
unlawful.
Here the Maulavis quote Arabic passages from Manhajul Ghaffar
and the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri, supporting the above Decision.
MOULAVI ALI MUHAMMAD, of Lucknow ;
MAULAVI ABDUL HAI, of Lucknow ;
MAULAVI FAZLULLAH, of Lucknow ;
MUHAMMAD NAIM, of Lucknow ;
Seals of MOULAVI RAHMATULLAH , of Lucknow ;
MOULAVI KUTAB-UD -DIN, of Dehli ;
MAULAVI and MUFTI SADULLAH , of Lucknow ;
MAULAVI LUTFULLAH, of Rampur ;
MAULAVI ALUMALI, of Rampur.

APPENDIX III.

DECISION OF THE CALCUTTA MUHAMMADAN SOCIETY .

After declaring, in opposition to the Northern Law Doctors, that

India is a Dar-ul-Islam, Moulvi Karamat Ali proceeded thus :
' The second question is, " Whether it is lawful in this Country to
make Jihad or not." This has been solved together with the first. For
Jihad can by no means be lawfully made in Dar-ul -Islam . This is so
evident that it requires no argument or authority to support it. Now,
if any misguided wretch, owing to his perverse fortune, were to wage
war against the Ruling Powers of this Country, British India, such war
would be rightly pronounced rebellion ; and rebellion is strictly forbidden
by the Muhammadan Law. Therefore such war will likewise be un-
lawful ; and in case any one would wage such war, the Muhammadan
subjects would be bound to assist their Rulers, and, in conjunction with
their Rulers, to fight with such rebels. The above has been clearly laid
down in the Fatawa Alamgiri .'
214

The A
This is
Ma
an

" All P
k
It is
N
I
t.
God
(

TH

TRAN

law

Muh
men
Mul
as 1
give
san.
ma
on t
ad

the

Ji
 APPENDIX. 215

tection and liberty between Musalmans and Infidels is essential in a

religious war, and that condition does not exist here. Besides, it is
necessary that there should be a probability of victory to Musalman and
glory to the Islams. If there be no such probability, the Jihad is
unlawful.
Here the Maulavis quote Arabic passages from Manhajul Ghaffar
and the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri, supporting the above Decision.
MOULAVI ALI MUHAMMAD, of Lucknow ;
MAULAVI ABDUL HAI, of Lucknow ;
MAULAVI FAZLULLAH, of Lucknow ;
MUHAMMAD NAIM, of Lucknow ;
Seals of MOULAVI RAHMATULLAH, of Lucknow ;
MOULAVI KUTAB-UD - DIN, of Dehli ;
MAULAVI and MUFTI SADULLAH, of Lucknow ;
MAULAVI LUTFULLAH, of Rampur ;
MAULAVI ALUMALI, of Rampur.

APPENDIX III.

DECISION OF THE CALCUTTA MUHAMMADAN SOCIETY .

After declaring, in opposition to the Northern Law Doctors, that

India is a Dar-ul- Islam, Moulvi Karamat Ali proceeded thus :
' The second question is, " Whether it is lawful in this Country to
make Jihad or not." This has been solved together with the first. For
Jihad can by no means be lawfully made in Dar-ul - Islam . This is so
evident that it requires no argument or authority to support it. Now,
if any misguided wretch, owing to his perverse fortune, were to wage
war against the Ruling Powers of this Country, British India, such war
would be rightly pronounced rebellion ; and rebellion is strictly forbidden
by the Muhammadan Law. Therefore such war will likewise be un-
lawful ; and in case any one would wage such war, the Muhammadan
subjects would be bound to assist their Rulers, and, in conjunction with
their Rulers, to fight with such rebels. The above has been clearly laid
down in the Fatawa Alamgiri.'
ив
4