Moral Conduct and Authority

THE PLACE OF ADAB IN

SOUTH ASIAN ISLAM

EDITED BY

Barbara Daly Metcalf

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley · Los Angeles · London
 Contents

Preface vii
List of Contributors xi
Note on Transliteration xv
Introduction 1
BARBARA DALY METCALF

PART ONE: CLASSICAL ADAB

1. Late Antiquity and Islam: Parallels and Contrasts 23
PETER BROWN
2. Knowledge, Virtue, and Action: The Classical Muslim
Conception of Adab and the Nature of Religious
Fulfillment in Islam 38
IRA M. LAPIDUS
3. The Adah Literature of Classical Sufism: Ansari's Code
of Conduct 62
GERHARD BÖWERING

PART TWO: ADAB AS ISLAMIC IDEAL

4. The Tuhfa i nasa'ih of Yusuf Gada: An Ethical Treatise
in Verse from the Late-Fourteenth-Century Dehli
Sultanate 91
SIMON DIGBY
5. Adab al-Mufti: The Muslim Understanding of Values,
Characteristics, and Role of a Mufti 124
M. KHALID MASUD
6. The 'Ulama' of Farangi Mahall and Their Adab 152
FRANCIS ROBINSON
7. Islamic Reform and Islamic Women: Maulana
Thanawi's Jewelry of Paradise 184
BARBARA DALY METCALF
8. Morality, Personhood, and the Exemplary Life: Popular
Conceptions of Muslims in Paradise 196
RICHARD KURIN
vi CONTENTS

9. Shrines, Succession, and Sources of Moral Authority 221

DAVID GILMARTIN
10. A Note on Adab in the Murshid-Murid Relationship 241
MOHAMMAD AJMAL

PART THREE: ADAB AS COSMOPOLITAN CULTURE

11. Norms of Comportment among Imperial
Mughal Officers 255
J. F. RICHARDS
12. Prize-Winning Adab: A Study of Five Urdu Books
Written in Response to the Allahabad Government
Gazette Notification 290
C. M. NAIM
13. The Adab of Musicians 315
BRIAN SILVER

PART FOUR: ALTERNATIVES TO ADAB

14. The Political and Religious Authority of the Shrine of
Baba Farid 333
RICHARD M. EATON
15. Malangs of the Punjab: Intoxication or Adab as the
Path to God? 357
KATHERINE EWING

Glossary of Selected Terms 373

Index 381