TRADITIONAL RITES AND CONTESTED MEANINGS: SECTARIAN STRIFE IN COLONIAL LUCKNOW – Mushirul Hasan
July, 20, 2022
By: Mushirul Hasan
Topics: TRADITIONAL RITES AND CONTESTED MEANINGS: SECTARIAN STRIFE IN COLONIAL LUCKNOW
Lucknow was, both before and during Nawabi rule, relatively free of religious insularity or sectarian bigotry. The Shia Nawabs took their cue from their Sunni overlords in Delhi and created a broad-based polity and a cosmopolitan cultural and intellectual ethos. They adhered to the policy of sulh-I kul (peace with all), pioneered by the sixteenth century Mughal Emperor, Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar. Wajid Ali Shah is reported to have said that «of my two eyes, one is a Shia and the other is a Sunni». No wonder, Sunni officials occupied important positions in the middle and lower echelons of government departments. The highest officials in Wajid Ali Shah’s court, including the Vazir and Paymaster, were Sunnis. Sunni officers managed the Sibtainabad imamhara and the Baitul boka (House or Lamentation) ^^. Generally speaking, the Shiism of Awadh rulers provided both a liminal cultural glue and a set of structural lines of schism along which conflict could be routed
