PREFACE
This study is an introduction to Haji Imdadullah Muhajir Makki (b. 1817 in Nanauta, India; d. 1899 in Makka), a Sufi shaykh of the Chishti-Sabri order. His life, works, and legacy are a window on an early stage of Muslim response to the forced encounter with the processes of modernization that gathered momentum over his lifetime. There were certain anxieties over the loss of political power and fragmentation of religious authority attendant on the break-up of Muslim polities. At the same time there were strong aspirations to repair that loss through the improvement of devotional religious life, which was (or was understood to be) the legitimizing motive for political power and religious authority. Imdadullah's influence on the direction of the ideas and the institutions that developed in response to the stresses of change and modernization, most notably in the Indian subcontinent, is still evident today. His lifework is representative of the tendency among Muslim intellectuals to seek some measure of explicit convergence between the sufi (mystical) and 'alim (scholarly) traditions, between expertise in inward, devotional practice and expertise in adapting or applying Islamic legal precedents to the needs of everyday life. The former was the 'specialization' of the Sufi orders and their institutions, the khangabs; the latter the 'specialization' of the ulema and their institutions, the madrasas. As a practising Sufi master, Imdadullah drew into his circle and provided spiritual guidance and training to a large number of religious scholars with different doctrinal orientations. His influence on the affairs of leading South Asian ulema made him an intellectual and spiritual forefather of some of the major educational institutions (madrasas) in South Asia, which in turn have shaped the response to issues that Muslims in the region, and more widely in the Islamic world, are still grappling with. Imdadullah's spiritual guidance endured beyond his own lifetime through the seminaries that his students and disciples administered during the late nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.
We can also trace and demonstrate Imdadullah's indirect influence on major religious movements that emerged in the early twentieth century including the Tablighi Jama'at (now operating on an international scale) and the Jamīʻat-i ulama'-i Hind (a leading organization of Islamic scholars in India). His early opposition to British colonialism, his involvement in the 1857 Uprising against the British which led to his exile, and his contribution to the anti-colonial discourse that pervaded the writings of many Muslim intellectuals of the period, provide valuable insights into the origins and history of the social and cultural tensions that, albeit in altered forms, are still with us. In Makka, where he settled after the 1857 Uprising, he was able to create a niche for himself and tap into the trans-Asian network of scholars, inspired to some extent by the pan-Islamic sentiment growing in the Muslim lands. Through a continuous exchange of books, letters and students, Imdadullah remained in effective contact with South Asian scholars. His writings also became popular in the Ottoman lands and he supervised their translation and printing. His life thus also enables us to better understand and appreciate the role that migrant scholar played: how they used the print media to their advantage, and how increased mobility helped to consolidate the existing intellectual networks that connected South Asian scholars with those further afield.
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