Decolonizing the Study of Sufism in India: An Examination of a British Colonial Text

This paper explores the position of Sufism in Qanoon-e-Islam, or the Customs of the Moosulmans of India, an 1832 text authored by Ja’far Sharif, an Indian Muslim, under the direction of G. A. Herklots, a Dutch Surgeon in the East India Company. In 1921, a revised edition was published, which made significant changes, including inserting a dedicated section on “Sufi Mysticism.” This paper seeks to provide a step towards decolonizing the study of Sufism. By analyzing colonial documents that were co-created by European Orientalists and Indian Muslims, we can understand what new conditions of knowledge were being created about Muslims. Ultimately, the construction of Sufi practice as an anthropological object of study, as initiated through Qanoon-e-Islam, produces inherent contradictions as Sufism is forced to cohere in the secular grid of intelligibility. This has significant implications for understanding the role of Sufism within broader Islamic thought and practice.