British deposition of Indian Muslim rulers catalyzed the founding of Deobandi Islamism in 1867
Evidence
In India, for instance, after the last Muslim ruler was deposed by the British in 1857, Muslims found themselves in the minority in a country dominated by Hindus. The Deobandi Islamic movement came into being shortly afterward, in 1867, as a response to this situation. It was founded as a means to provide Muslims in the Indian subcontinent with a set of rules to live by, in order to preserve Islam in a country where Muslims were a minority. Toward this end, the Deobandis trained a core of ulama to issue fatwas, or legal opinions, to make sure that Muslims in India conformed to their very rigorous and conservative interpretation of Islam (Kepel, Jihad, 223). In this, the Deobandis became very similar to the Wahhabis and in the later part of the twentieth century established close ties with them in the context of US-sponsored activities in Pakistan (57–58). — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 729
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s inquiry into how the empire project interacts with Islamist movements — the Deobandi-Wahhabi alliance via US-sponsored Pakistan activity is a material link between domestic imperial strategy and Islamism. — connects to: British colonial ideology consolidated the essentialized idea of Islam as a homogeneous threat