2026/05/21 by Али Алтаф Миан · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Asian Studies and History #Bangladesh Politics, Society, and Development #Islamic Studies and History
paper · doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197532805.013.12
openalex publication_date 2026/05/21 · openalex created_date 2026/05/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/22
Abstract This chapter analyzes the valences of reform in South Asian Salafism and to that end foregrounds the Ahl-i Ḥadīth movement. The first two sections demonstrate how the Ahl-i Ḥadīth movement’s formation in nineteenth-century India reflected both ongoing conversations in the Islamic tradition and the material realities of colonialism. The next section explores this movement’s reformist agenda by zooming in on its plain-sense scriptural theology, traditionist jurisprudence, non-formalized spirituality, and cultural conservatism. This section clarifies Ahl-i Ḥadīth scholars’ critique of conformity (taqlīd) and their relationship to institutional Sufism. The final section touches on the movement’s trans-regional character and its diverse scenes of social engagement (mosques, madrasas, and Jihadist training camps, but also online platforms such as YouTube channels). The Ahl-i Ḥadīth movement has changed in significant ways over the course of the twentieth century, especially in the past forty years in the context of intensifying intra-Muslim sectarian conflicts, globalization, and Islamism.