Fatawa 'Alamgiri, also called Al-Fatawa al-Hindiyyah (; ), Fatawa-e-Alamgiri or Al-Fatawa al-'Alamkiriyyah (; ), is a 17th-century

sharia Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...

based compilation on statecraft, general ethics, military strategy, economic policy, justice and punishment, that served as the law and principal regulating body of the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...

, during the reign of the Mughal emperor Muhammad Muhiuddin Aurangzeb Alamgir.Jamal Malik (2008), Islam in South Asia: A Short History, Brill Academic, , pp. 194-197 It subsequently went on to become the reference legal text to enforce sharia in colonial South Asia in the 18th century through early 20th century,David Arnold and Peter Robb, Institutions and Ideologies: A SOAS South Asia Reader, Psychology Press, pp. 171-176 and has been heralded as "the greatest digest of

Muslim law Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...

during the Mughal India".

Outline

Fatawa-e-Alamgiri was the work of many prominent scholars from different parts of the world, including

Hejaz Hejaz is a Historical region, historical region of the Arabian Peninsula that includes the majority of the western region of Saudi Arabia, covering the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif and Al Bahah, Al-B ...

, principally from the

Hanafi The Hanafi school or Hanafism is the oldest and largest Madhhab, school of Islamic jurisprudence out of the four schools within Sunni Islam. It developed from the teachings of the Faqīh, jurist and theologian Abu Hanifa (), who systemised the ...

school. In order to compile Fatawa-e-Alamgiri, emperor Aurangzeb gathered 500 experts in Islamic jurisprudence, 300 from

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

, 100 from

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

and 100 from the

. Shaikh Nizam, a celebrated lawyer from

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

was appointed the chairman of the commission which would compile the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri. The years long work of these scholars resulted in an Islamic code of law for South Asia, in the late Mughal Era. It consists of legal code on personal, family, slaves, war, property, inter-religious relations, transaction, taxation, economic and other law for a range of possible situations and their juristic rulings by the

faqīh A ''faqīh'' (: ''fuqahāʾ'', ; : ‏‎) is an Islamic jurist, an expert in ''fiqh'', or Islamic jurisprudence and Islamic law. Definition Islamic jurisprudence or ''fiqh'' is the human understanding of Sharia, which is believed ...

of the time. The collection comprises verses from the

Qur'an The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...

, supplemented by

hadith Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...

narratives, including those of

Sahih al-Bukhari () is the first hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. Compiled by Islamic scholar al-Bukhari () in the format, the work is valued by Sunni Muslims, alongside , as the most authentic after the Qur'an. Al-Bukhari organized the bo ...

Sahih Muslim () is the second hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. Compiled by Islamic scholar Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj () in the format, the work is valued by Sunnis, alongside , as the most important source for Islamic religion after the Q ...

Sunan Abu Dawood ''Sunan Abi Dawud'' () is the third hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. It was compiled by scholar Abu Dawud al-Sijistani (). Introduction Abu Dawood compiled twenty-one books related to Hadith and preferred those (plural of ...

and

Sahih at-Tirmidhi ''Sunan al-Tirmidhi'' () is the fourth hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. It was compiled by Islamic scholar al-Tirmidhi in (250–270 AH). Title The full title of the compilation is (). It is shortened to , , , or . The t ...

. The Fatawa is notable for several reasons: * It spanned 30 volumes originally in various languages, but is now printed in modern editions as 6 volumes * It provided significant direct contribution to the economy of

, particularly

Bengal Subah The Bengal Subah (Bengali language, Bengali: সুবাহ বাংলা, ), also referred to as Mughal Bengal and Bengal State (after 1717), was one of the puppet states and the largest subah, subdivision of The Mughal India, Mughal Emp ...

, waving the

proto-industrialization Proto-industrialization is the regional development, alongside commercial agriculture, of rural handicraft production for external markets. Cottage industries in parts of Europe between the 16th and 19th centuries had long been a niche topic of ...

. * It served as the basis of judicial law throughout the Mughal Empire * It created a legal system that treated people differently based on their religion In substance similar to other

texts, the laws in Fatawa-i Alamgiri describe, among other things, the following:

Criminal and personal law

*Personal law for South Asian Muslims in the 18th century, their inheritance rights, *Personal law on gifts, * Apostates neither have nor leave inheritance rights after they are executed, *The guardian of a Muslim girl may arrange her marriage with her consent, *A Muslim boy of understanding, requires the consent of his guardian to marry. *Laws establishing the paternity of a child arising from valid or invalid Muslim marriages, *A Muslim man with four wives must treat all of them justly, equally and each must come to his bed when he so demands, * Hudud punishments for the religious crime of

zina ''Zināʾ'' () or ''zinā'' ( or ) is an Islamic legal term referring to unlawful sexual intercourse. According to traditional jurisprudence, ''zina'' can include adultery, fornication, prostitution, sodomy, incest, and bestiality. ''Zi ...

(pre-marital, extra-marital sex) by free Muslims and non-Muslim slaves. It declared the punishment of flogging or stoning to death ( Rajm), depending on the status of the accused i.e. Stoning for a Married (Muhsin) person (free or unfree), and as for the non-Muhsin, a free person will get one hundred stripes and a slave will get fifty if they self confess.

Pillage and Slavery

*If two or more Muslims, or persons subject to Muslims, who enter a non-Muslim controlled territory (properties of non-combatants are excluded) for the purpose of pillage(seizing booties of the fighters) without the permission of the Imam, and thus seize some property of the inhabitants there, and bring it back into the Muslim territory, that property would be legally theirs.” *Plundering and pillaging of residential areas is forbidden in Islam. *The right of Muslims to purchase and own

slaves Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

. *A Muslim man's right to have sex with a captive slave girl he owns. *No inheritance rights for slaves. *The testimony of all slaves was inadmissible in a court of law. *Slaves require permission of the master before they can marry. *An unmarried Muslim may marry a slave girl owned by another but a Muslim married to a Muslim woman may not marry a slave girl. *Conditions under which the slaves may be emancipated partially or fully.

Office of Censor

The Fatwa-e-Alamgiri also formalized the legal principle of ''Muhtasib'', or office of censor that was already in use by previous rulers of the

. Any publication or information could be declared as heresy, and its transmission made a crime. Officials (''kotwal'') were created to implement the

Sharia Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...

doctrine of hisbah. The offices and administrative structure created by Fatawa-e-Alamgiri aimed at Islamisation of South Asia.

Development

The Fatawa-e-Alamgiri (also spelled Fatawa al-Alamgiriyya) was compiled in the late 1672, by 500 Muslim scholars from

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

and in the Indian Subcontinent, in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

(India) and

(Pakistan), led by Sheikh Nizam Burhanpuri.M. Reza Pirbhai (2009), Reconsidering Islam in a South Asian Context, Brill Academic, , pp. 131-154 It was a creative application of Islamic law within the

fiqh. It restricted the powers of Muslim judiciary and the Islamic jurists ability to issue discretionary

fatwa A fatwa (; ; ; ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (sharia) given by a qualified Islamic jurist ('' faqih'') in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a ''mufti'', ...

s. It is compiled in eight years between 1664–1672. Ahmet Özel from Atatürk University has reported in his work on ''TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, el-alemgiriyye'', that Fatawa-e-Alamgiri has spread fast to

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

during Aurangzeb rule due to the promotions of travellers, scholars, and officials. As the power shifted from Muslim rulers in India to the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

, the colonial authorities decided to retain local institutions and laws, to operate under traditional pre-colonial laws instead of introducing secular European common law system. Fatawa-i Alamgiri, as the documented Islamic law book, became the foundation of legal system of India during Aurangzeb and later Muslim rulers. Further, the English-speaking judges relied on Muslim law specialist elites to establish the law of the land, because the original Fatawa-i Alamgiri (Al-Hindiya) was written in Arabic. This created a social class of Islamic gentry that zealously guarded their expertise, legal authority and autonomy. It also led to inconsistent interpretation-driven, variegated judgments in similar legal cases, an issue that troubled British colonial officials. The assumption of the colonial government was that the presumed local traditional sharia-based law, as interpreted from Fatawa-i Alamgiri, could be implemented through

common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...

-style law institution with integrity. However, this assumption unravelled in the 2nd half of the 19th century, because of inconsistencies and internal contradictions within Fatawa-i Alamgiri, as well as because the Aurangzeb-sponsored document was based on Hanafi Sunni sharia. Shia Muslims were in conflict with Sunni Muslims of South Asia, as were other minority sects of Islam, and they questioned the applicability of Fatawa-i Alamgiri. Further, Hindus did not accept the Hanafi sharia-based code of law in Fatawa-i Alamgiri. Thirdly, the belief of the colonial government in "legal precedent" came into conflict with the disregard for "legal precedent" in the Anglo-Muhammadan legal system which emerged during the Company period, leading colonial officials to distrust the Maulavis (Muslim religious scholars). The colonial administration responded by creating a bureaucracy that created separate laws for Muslim sects, and non-Muslims such as Hindus in South Asia. This bureaucracy relied on Fatawa-i Alamgiri to formulate and enact a series of separate religious laws for Muslims and common laws for non-Muslims (Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs), most of which were adopted in independent India after 1947.J. Duncan Derrett (1999), Religion, Law and State in India, Oxford University Press, The British tried to sponsor translations of Fatawa-i Alamgiri. In the late 18th century, at the insistence of the British, the al-Hidaya was translated from Arabic to Persian. Charles Hamilton and William Jones translated parts of the document along with other sharia-related documents in English. These translations triggered a decline in the power and role of the

Qadi A qadi (; ) is the magistrate or judge of a Sharia court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and minors, and supervision and auditing of public works. History The term '' was in use from ...

s in colonial India. Neil Baillie published another translation, relying on Fatawa-i Alamgiri among other documents, in 1865, as ''A Digest of Mohummudan Law''. In 1873, Sircar published another English compilation of Muhammadan Law that included English translation of numerous sections of Fatawa-i Alamgiri. These texts became the references that shaped law and jurisprudence in colonial India in late 19th and the first half of the 20th century, many of which continued in post-colonial

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

and

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

Contemporary comments

Burton Stein states that the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri represented a re-establishment of Muslim ''

ulama In Islam, the ''ulama'' ( ; also spelled ''ulema''; ; singular ; feminine singular , plural ) are scholars of Islamic doctrine and law. They are considered the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious knowledge in Islam. "Ulama ...

'' prominence in the political and administrative structure that had been previously lost by Muslim elites and people during Mughal Emperor

Akbar Akbar (Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, – ), popularly known as Akbar the Great, was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expa ...

's time. It reformulated legal principles to expand Islam and Muslim society by creating a new, expanded code of Islamic law.Burton Stein (2010), A History of India, John Wiley & Sons, , pp. 177-178 Some modern historians have written that British efforts to translate and implement Sharia from documents such as the Fatawa-e Alamgiri had a lasting legal legacy during and in post-independence India (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka). According to Jamal Malik, the document stiffened the social stratification among Muslims and broke from the consensus of Hanafi Law. He argues certain punishments reified the established categories: it introduced that Muslim nobles such as ''Sayyids'' were exempt from physical punishments, the governors and landholders could be humiliated but not arrested nor physically punished, the middle class could be humiliated and put into prison but not physically punished, while the lowest class commoners could be arrested, humiliated and physically punished. The emperor was granted powers to issue ''farmans'' (legal doctrine) that overruled fatwas of Islamic jurists. Mona Siddiqui notes that while the text is called a ''fatawa'', it is actually not a fatwa nor a collection of fatwas from Aurangzeb's time. It is a ''mabsūts'' style, ''furu al-fiqh''-genre Islamic text, one that compiles many statements and refers back to earlier

sharia texts as justification. The text considers contract not as a written document between two parties, but an ''oral'' agreement, in some cases such as marriage, one in the presence of witnesses.M Siddiqui (2012), The Good Muslim: Reflections on Classical Islamic Law and Theology, Cambridge University Press, , pp 12-16

Translation

In 1892, Bengali scholar Muhammad Naimuddin published a four-volume

Bengali language Bengali, also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Bangla (, , ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. ...

translation of the ''Fatawa ʿAlamgiri'' with the assistance of Wajed Ali Khan Panni and the patronage of Hafez Mahmud Ali Khan Panni, the

Zamindar A zamindar in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semi-autonomous feudal lord of a ''zamindari'' (feudal estate). The term itself came into use during the Mughal Empire, when Persian was the official language; ''zamindar'' is the ...

of Karatia. Kafilur Rahman Nishat Usmani, a Deobandi jurist translated the ''Fatawa 'Alamgiri'' into Urdu language.

References

Notes

: However Hadd (scripturally proscribed) punishments applied to all subjects regardless of status and could not be modified by the Judge.Hakeem, Farrukh B. "From Sharia to Mens rea: Legal transition to the Raj." International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 22, no. 2 (1998): 211-224.