JIHAD, IMARAT AND LOCAL DYNAMICS IN THE AFGHAN BORDERLAND (VOLUME 1)

Altaf Qadir closely documents the chronology of events and regional geography related to the early nineteenth-century religious mobilization of Sayyid Ahmad of Rae Bareli. Qadir surveys and critiques historiographic interpretations of Sayyid Ahmad’s anti-Sikh jihad and declaration of Imarat. He offers analysis explaining the limits reached by the leader of an activist religious community who also attempted to conform customary Pashtun social practices to Sharia and subordinate Pashtun factional politics to his personal authority. This first volume of “The Jihad Movement in South Asia” three volume series by regional scholars is a thoughtful contribution to the understanding of enduring Afghan borderland and comparative conflict based in claims to political sovereignty, religious authority, and enduring social practice.
 — Robert Nichols  
Professor of History, Stockton University

In this groundbreaking book, Altaf examines jihad in the Afghan borderland and the dynamics and intricate relations between various communities in Pukhtunkhwa. Focused on the early 19th century jihad against the Sikh empire led by Sayyid Ahmad Barailvi, it examines the assumed ‘failures’ of this movement. While earlier analyses have blamed the Pukhtanah or the British colonial state for the ‘failure’, this book highlights Sayyid Ahmad and the mujahidin’s inability to understand the socio-economic dimensions of Pukhtun society. In particular, it draws attention to the leadership of Sayyid Ahmad and how he was not able to draw on the virtues and qualities of a traditional leader that the Pukhtanah would be mobilized by. The study brings a number of Pukhtu sources to the limelight, in additional to critically examining previous histories as well as colonial and Urdu language sources. 
Moving beyond colonial, postcolonial nationalist, and ethnonationalist perspectives, the book engages with crucial questions of the local and its intersections with the regional and emergent national or ummatic. It has important insights for the formation and tensions within broader political movements well beyond the Afghan borderland.
 — Hafsa Kanjwal
Associate Professor, Department of History at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania and author of Colonizing Kashmir: State-building under 
Indian Occupation

“Pulling from an impressive array of sources, this book offers an in-depth biography of Sayyid Ahmad Barailvi and a detailed history of his jihad against the Sikh Sojourn. Of particular interest to Qadir is analyzing the way that the local community influenced and was influenced by this jihad endeavor, as Sayyid Ahmad has chosen their home as the base for his operations. A highly influential figure in the history of political Islam, Sayyid Ahmad’s call for jihad predates those of the more well-known individuals like Jamal al-Din Al-Afghani and other similar anti-colonial Muslim reformers.  The book does a laudable task in considering Sayyid Ahmad’s training as both a solider and a theologian, therein analyzing the entire movement from as holistic a perspective as possible. As the call for anti-imperialist jihad continues today—and indeed many Deobandi groups specifically cite Sayyid Ahmad as an influence—it is imperative to better understand its origins in the early modern and modern eras. With this book, scholars will be able to explore the motivations and actions that defined one of the most significant iterations of jihad from the viewpoint of the believers themselves. This detailed and exhaustive account will be of great interest to those interested in histories of South Asia, Afghanistan, religious mobilizations, political Islam, nineteenth and twentieth century jihad, anti-colonialism, and more.”
 — Seema Golestaneh 
 Associate Professor, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York and author of Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran