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This paper follows the careers of ‘outlawed’ Indian Muslim subjects who moved outside the geographical and political space of British India and located themselves at the intersection of nineteenth century trans-Asiatic politics: Hijaz, Istanbul and the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and Burma and Acheh in the East. These areas were sites where ‘modern’ Empires (British, Dutch, Ottoman and Russian) coalesced to lay out a trans-Asiatic imperial assemblage. The paper shows how Muslim ‘outlaws’ made careers and carved out their transnational networks by moving across the imperial assemblages of the nineteenth century. British colonial rule, being an important spoke in the imperial wheel, enabled much of this transnationalism to weld together. Webs of connections derived from older forms of Islamic connectivity as well: diplomacy, kinship ties, the writing of commentaries on Islam and its sacred texts in unique ways, oral traditions, madrasa and student contacts. These networks were inclusive and impacted by the tanzimat-inspired scriptural reformist thought in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. They were not narrowly anti-colonial in tone as they derived from a complex inter-play of imperial rivalries in the region. Rather, they were geared towards the triumph of reformist Islam that would unite the umma (community) and engage with the European world order. The paper shows how this imperially-embedded and individual-driven Muslim transnational network linked with Muslim politics rooted within India. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the most contentious political issues in postcolonial India is the unfulfilled project of a ‘uniform civil code’ which would override the existing ‘personal laws’ or religion-based laws of domestic relations, inheritance and religious institutions. If the personal laws are admitted to be preserved (if somewhat distorted) remnants of ‘religious laws’, then the legitimacy of state intervention is called into question, especially since the Indian state claims to be secular. This paper, by discussing the history of the lesser-known Christian personal law, demonstrates that this conundrum is of considerable heritage. From the earliest days of British imperial rule in India, the quest to establish a universal body of law conflicted with other legal principles which upheld difference: that of religion, as well as race. It was the historical role of Indian Christians to occasion legal dilemmas regarding the jurisdictions of British and ‘native’ law, and concurrently about the identity of people subject to those different laws. In trying to discover who the Indian Christians were, and what laws ought to apply to them, British judges had perforce to reflect on who the ‘British’ were, whilst also dealing with conflicting collective claims made by Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, and Christians themselves about their own identity and religious rights. The Indian Christian personal law was an unintended by-product of this process, a finding which throws light both on the dynamics of colonial legislation, and on the essentially modern nature of Indian personal laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]