Ethnic Influences on the Mujahidin 1831-1901 (Volume 2)

Description

This volume offers a rigorous and original contribution to the study of Islamic revivalist movements in South Asia. Challenging the assumption that the Mujahidin movement ended with Sayyid Ahmad Barailvi’s death, it traces the movement’s persistence, reorganization, and evolving engagement with colonial power and local communities.
Foregrounding indigenous perspectives often sidelined in colonial and statist narratives, the author highlights how cultural belonging, religious conviction, and regional solidarities shaped the movement’s trajectory. Without romanticizing, the work critically explores the Mujahidin’s strategic shifts and internal complexities.
Rooted in local knowledge, linguistic access, and historical intimacy, this book exemplifies intellectually honest and ethically grounded scholarship. A vital addition to debates on religion, resistance, and historical memory in South Asia, it marks a significant step in cultivating critical, regionally informed research.
— Tariq Rahman
HEC Distinguished National Professor Emeritus

Grounded in the intricate local dynamics of the Afghan borderland, Dr. Naseem Khattak offers a compelling perspective on post-Sayyid Ahmad Barailvi’s Jihad Movement. Based on historical details, she brings clarity to a complex and under researched chapter of South Asian history.
— Prof. Husnul Amin
Director, National Institute of Pakistan Studies,
Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad

Contrary to the tendency to focus upon the singular career of Sayyid Ahmad Barailvi, Naseem Khattak’s work is an immensely valuable contribution to our understanding of the history of the Jihad Movement for its careful reconstruction of the events and fortunes of the movement that followed in the wake of Sayyid Ahmad Barailvi’s death in 1831. Furthermore, previous discussions of the Jihad Movement tended to rely upon reductive appeals to the Movement’s fanaticism or to the recalcitrance of the Pukhtanah in the Indo-Afghan borderlands. What makes Khattak’s work so refreshing, however, is that she roots herself in the perspective of the local inhabitants of the borderland regions, and this in turn offers her analysis a depth and insight that is sorely needed. By not simply writing about the borderlands but instead rooting her historical perspective in the borderlands, Khattak argues convincingly that the post-1831 Jihad Movement only rarely engaged in a full and collaborative manner with the borderland Pukhtanah. Rather, the leaders of the Jihad Movement too quickly strove to assert their authority over and against the local inhabitants, thereby destabilizing any prospective partnerships from the beginning.
— William E. B. Sherman
Associate Professor,
Department of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Charlotte;
Author of Singing with the Mountains:
The Language of God in the Afghan Highlands (Fordham 2024)

Author Biography

Naseem Khattak hails from Nowshera and currently serves as an Associate Professor of History in the Higher Education Department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. She received her early education in Peshawar, and earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Peshawar in 2016. Since joining the Department of Higher Education in 2004 as a Lecturer, she has been actively engaged in teaching undergraduate students and supervising their research. Dr. Khattak is deeply committed to academic inquiry and lifelong learning. Her research interests center on the historical dynamics of the region, and she is particularly passionate about nurturing historical understanding and critical thinking. Her dedication to the field has earned her the respect of both her colleagues and students.