ASHA: Blast From The Past

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

The enthusiasm with which much of India’s Hindutva ecosystem celebrates Israel’s assault upon Gaza cannot be explained by strategic partnership alone. It springs from ideological recognition: in the militarised ethnonationalism of the Israeli state, the Hindu Right sees an image of the country it wishes India to become. Israel offers a model of a religiously defined nation-state that combines electoral democracy for the dominant community with occupation and political exclusion for others. Gaza fascinates because it appears to show what a state can do once it has designated an entire population a security problem.

This admiration has translated into tangible policy. India has become the world’s top importer of Israeli weaponry, with Israeli drones and missiles reportedly deployed in operations against Pakistan. But the emulation goes deeper than arms. The Indian government has purchased ‘Blue Wolf‘ tracking software from Israel, a surveillance tool originally deployed in the West Bank to monitor Palestinians, and has reportedly installed it in Kashmir to track and control local voices. Israeli surveillance systems from companies like Cognyte and Septier have been installed on subsea cable landing stations across India, allowing security agencies to access the personal data and communications of 1.4 billion citizens. The Pegasus spyware scandal further revealed how Israeli technology was allegedly used to hack the phones of Indian journalists, opposition leaders and activists.

The occupation of Kashmir increasingly resembles Israel’s settler-colonial project in the West Bank, with both states applying brutal methods in occupied territories. Indian officials and academics have publicly stated that the Israeli ‘model’ should be replicated in Kashmir. This ideological kinship is reflected in policy: India has abandoned its earlier support for Palestine, abstaining from UN votes calling for investigations into Israeli atrocities and saying almost nothing about the genocide in Gaza. At home, the government has demolished hundreds of Muslim family homes in campaigns that human rights groups have likened to Zionist tactics, using bulldozers as weapons of collective punishment. The Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens exemplify this ideological shift toward an ethnic state, systematically marginalising religious minorities.

The ideological affinity rests on a shared narrative of permanent siege, where a numerical majority imagines itself as a besieged minority, with victimhood mobilised to immunise contemporary power from moral scrutiny. In this political imagination, Gaza is a demonstration that a modern state need not apologise for using overwhelming force; the blockade becomes an example of population management, and the destruction of homes becomes counter-terrorism. The phrase “Israel-style response” conveys freedom from legal inhibition and humanitarian concern – the fantasy of a state that strikes first and treats criticism as collaboration with terrorism. Hindutva admirers of Israel repeat a simple script: Hamas attacked on 7 October 2023, so Israel possesses an unlimited right to continue destroying Gaza. Everything before that date – occupation, blockade, settlement expansion and the deliberate fragmentation of Palestinian politics – is erased.

The scale of Gaza’s destruction is now undeniable: residential districts, hospitals, schools and water systems have been reduced to rubble, with the Palestinian death toll above 70,000 by mid-2026. In September 2025, a UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide; in June 2026, it stated that authorities continued to commit such crimes. Yet sections of Indian social media respond to each new image of death with celebration or denial. Gaza has become another vocabulary through which Indian Muslims are abused; anti-Muslim hate-speech incidents invoking the conflict rose sharply, with Palestinians and Indian Muslims merged into a single imagined enemy. Israeli flags appeared in anti-Muslim demonstrations, and calls for the destruction of Gaza were accompanied by warnings that Indian Muslims might face a similar future. The foreign war became a stage for domestic intimidation.

The attraction to Israel extends from the bomb to the database, admiring not only the capacity to destroy an enemy but to classify, monitor and immobilise one. This alignment represents a profound departure from India’s anti-colonial inheritance. India voted against the partition of Palestine in 1947, recognised the PLO in 1974 and supported Palestinian self-determination within its opposition to colonialism. Hindutva has reversed that moral lens, identifying not with the colonised but with the technologically superior occupying power. At the centre of both ideologies lies demographic anxiety – the fear of losing control makes birth rates and citizenship matters of national security. Both promise democracy while insisting the state must permanently belong to one community.

The Hindutva supporter loves Israel instrumentally, as the enemy of the enemy. The Palestinian becomes a substitute Indian Muslim; Gaza becomes an imaginary Kashmir. This is not solidarity with Israelis as human beings but with an apparatus of domination – the wall, the missile and the checkpoint. India can maintain relations with Israel while condemning occupation and collective punishment, but strategic cooperation does not require moral surrender. What India cannot do without diminishing itself is exchange its anti-colonial inheritance for applause from an embassy. For a temporary sense of military masculinity, it risks sacrificing moral authority accumulated across generations.

When the slogans have disappeared and the triumphant videos have been deleted, the record will remain: the names of the dead, the destroyed hospitals, the displaced children, and the people thousands of kilometres away who cheered. They were warned by international courts, by UN investigators, by Israeli dissidents. But the Zionist dream had given Hindutva a picture of its desired future, and it was too intoxicated by the spectacle of domination to notice that it was applauding not security, not patriotism, not civilisation, but the destruction of all three.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

As the Chehlum of Imam Husain falls on 4th August in India, we present this essay before you as a reminder of a shared heritage that transcends religious boundaries. The fortieth day of mourning, known as Chehlum or Arba’een, commemorates the endurance of Imam Husain’s message and the steadfastness of his companions. It is an occasion that, as the following pages demonstrate, was once observed across communities, honoured by Hindu rulers, artisans, and citizens alike within the Maratha dominions. What follows is an exploration of this remarkable tradition.

“The Hindoos have already begun to sing their Hohlee songs; and the Moosulmans to prepare their Taziyas for the Moohurrum; these two most opposite festivals happening this year to fall together.”

• Thomas Duer Broughton, Letters Written in a Mahratta Camp (1813)

The Myth of Religious Exclusivism

One of the most enduring myths propagated in modern times is that the Marathas represented an exclusively Hindu political power fundamentally opposed to Islamic religious traditions. This interpretation owes far more to nineteenth and twentieth-century communal historiography than to the historical record itself. The Marathas undoubtedly fought many Muslim rulers, just as they fought Hindu rulers, Rajputs, Jats, the forces of Mysore, the Nizam, and even fellow Maratha houses. Their conflicts were political struggles over territory, revenue, and sovereignty rather than wars against Islam as a religion. If one looks beyond later ideological narratives and turns instead to contemporary accounts, administrative records, and local traditions, a very different picture emerges. Among the most striking examples of this shared cultural world is the widespread observance of Muharram within the Maratha dominions.

The memory of Imam Husain had travelled far beyond the confines of Shi’i communities long before the rise of the Maratha Confederacy. Through Persian literature, Sufi traditions, Deccani court culture, and centuries of interaction between Hindus and Muslims, the tragedy of Karbala had acquired a universal moral significance. Husain came to symbolise steadfastness in the face of oppression, sacrifice for truth, and the refusal to compromise with tyranny. These ideals resonated deeply within the political culture of eighteenth-century India, irrespective of religious affiliation (Rizvi 1986, I: 234-237).

The Maratha state itself emerged in a Deccan that had for centuries been shaped by Persianate political culture. The Bahmani Sultanate and its successor states had already introduced Persian administration, courtly etiquette, architecture, literature, and religious ceremonies into the region. When the Marathas expanded their authority under the Peshwas, Scindias, Holkars, Gaekwads, and Bhonsles, they inherited much of this administrative and cultural world. Persian continued to be widely employed in diplomacy and revenue administration. Muslim soldiers, scribes, artillerymen, and nobles remained integral to the functioning of Maratha governments. It is therefore hardly surprising that Muharram also found an honoured place within their domains (Wink 1990, 45-48; Gordon 1993, 88-92).

Perhaps no contemporary observer has left a more vivid description of Muharram among the Marathas than Thomas Duer Broughton, who accompanied the British Resident to the camp of Daulat Rao Scindia during 1809. His Letters Written in a Mahratta Camp constitute one of the finest eyewitness accounts of everyday life in a major Maratha army. Although writing from the perspective of a British officer unfamiliar with many Indian customs, his observations remain invaluable precisely because they record what he personally witnessed.

One of the most revealing passages occurs while describing the approach of the festival. Broughton writes:

“The Hindoos have already begun to sing their Hohlee songs; and the Moosulmans to prepare their Taziyas for the Moohurrum; these two most opposite festivals happening this year to fall together.” (Broughton 1813, 114)

This apparently simple observation carries profound historical significance. It shows that within Scindia’s predominantly Maratha camp, preparations for Holi and Muharram proceeded simultaneously without any sense of contradiction. Hindu celebrations and Muslim mourning occupied the same social space. The construction of taziyas was sufficiently widespread for Broughton to regard it as one of the defining activities of the camp, while Holi preparations continued alongside them. Rather than competing festivals, they formed part of the shared annual rhythm of life.

Equally significant is Broughton’s description of the commencement of Muharram itself. Although the sounds disturbed his sleep, his annoyance has preserved for historians a remarkably detailed account of the ceremonies:

“The ceremonies of the Moohurrum are commenced, and we are annoyed from the close to the break of day with the discordant noises of drums, trumpets, and matchlocks, mixed with the beating of breasts, loud sobbing, and half frantic exclamations of the devout Moslems about us.” (Broughton 1813, 144)

Modern readers can easily recognise in this description the essential features of the Muharram commemorations that continue to this day. The rhythmic beating of the breast (matam), collective lamentation, the sounding of drums, ceremonial firing of matchlocks, and processional mourning all formed part of the observances. Significantly, these ceremonies unfolded within the encampment of one of the principal Maratha rulers of India, not within an isolated Shi’i enclave.

Broughton later describes the procession itself in greater detail. Participants moved in measured formation while brandishing naked swords, repeatedly invoking the sacred names of Muhammad, Ali, and Husain:

“…calling out the names of Moohumed, Alee, and Hoosen.” (Broughton 1813, 145)

This was not merely an act of private devotion. It was a public performance of memory, courage, and mourning conducted before the entire camp. The accompanying illustration in the volume, entitled “Procession of the Taziya,” confirms that Broughton regarded the taziya procession as one of the characteristic spectacles of Maratha India. As Pinault has observed, such processions represented a fusion of devotional intensity and public spectacle that defined Muharram observance throughout the subcontinent (Pinault 2001, 67-70).

These observations demolish the modern assumption that Muharram belonged exclusively to Muslim society. In the world witnessed by Broughton, Muharram formed part of the broader public culture of the Maratha state. Hindu and Muslim artisans alike prepared the taziyas. Soldiers of different faiths witnessed or participated in the ceremonies. The state neither suppressed nor discouraged the commemorations. Instead, they unfolded naturally alongside Hindu festivals within the same political community.

Broughton’s testimony is all the more valuable because it predates the rigid communal classifications that would later emerge under colonial administration. He observed India before the census began assigning people to sharply demarcated religious categories and before nineteenth-century polemics hardened cultural boundaries. His account therefore preserves something of the older, shared world in which Muharram could be simultaneously an Islamic commemoration and a civic festival participated in by diverse communities (Jones 2012, 21-25).

Independent Witnesses and Convergent Testimony

Thomas Duer Broughton’s observations do not stand in isolation. During the first half of the nineteenth century, a succession of British travellers, administrators, and missionaries independently recorded remarkably similar scenes from different parts of India. Although they wrote from differing perspectives and often misunderstood the theological significance of what they witnessed, their narratives consistently reveal that Muharram had become one of the great public festivals of the subcontinent, attracting participation from Muslims and Hindus alike. In many instances, this participation was especially visible within the territories ruled by the Maratha states.

Among the earliest of these observers was Bishop Reginald Heber, who travelled extensively through India between 1824 and 1826. His Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India repeatedly remarks upon the extraordinary popularity of Muharram. Heber was struck not only by the scale of the processions but also by the involvement of Hindus in their organisation. Writing as an Anglican bishop, he naturally viewed many of the ceremonies through Protestant eyes, often comparing them to Catholic processions or medieval pageantry. Yet beneath these comparisons lies invaluable testimony that Muharram had become an occasion shared across religious communities.

Heber repeatedly noticed that Hindu artisans were responsible for constructing the elaborate taziyas, while Hindu spectators crowded the streets to watch the processions. In several towns he found Hindu chiefs making contributions towards the expenses of the ceremonies. Such patronage did not indicate conversion to Islam. Rather, it reflected a conception of kingship in which rulers were expected to support the principal public festivals of all their subjects (Heber 1828, II: 174-178). This ideal of sovereign impartiality had characterised the Mughal Empire and was inherited by many successor states, including the Marathas.

The same phenomenon appears even more vividly in the writings of Fanny Parks, whose Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque remains one of the richest descriptions of everyday life in nineteenth-century India. Unlike many male travellers, Parks delighted in observing festivals, domestic customs, and urban spectacles. Muharram fascinated her. She described brilliantly decorated taziyas carried through crowded streets amid beating drums, standards, horses, elephants, musicians, and mourners.

What impressed Parks most was the diversity of those participating. She repeatedly observed Hindus joining the crowds, assisting in the construction of taziyas, making offerings, and accompanying the processions. To her, Muharram appeared less as an exclusively Islamic observance than as one of the great civic festivals of Indian towns. The festival brought together craftsmen, merchants, nobles, soldiers, women observing from balconies, children following the processions, and entire neighbourhoods united in a common spectacle (Parks 1850, I: 314-318).

Parks also noticed that many of the finest taziyas were works of remarkable artistic craftsmanship. Bamboo, paper, coloured glass, silver foil, painted wood, mirrors, and embroidered fabrics were transformed into elaborate replicas of the mausoleums at Karbala. Their construction required the labour of carpenters, painters, metalworkers, and paper craftsmen, many of whom were Hindus. Thus Muharram became not merely a religious ceremony but also an annual flowering of Indian artistic traditions.

Another important witness is Emma Roberts, whose writings on India combine careful observation with literary elegance. Roberts likewise emphasised the magnificence of Muharram processions and the participation of people belonging to different faiths. She observed that entire cities appeared transformed during the first ten days of Muharram. Streets were illuminated, temporary structures erected, and neighbourhoods organised around their respective taziyas.

Roberts particularly remarks upon the atmosphere of solemnity that accompanied the principal processions. Even non-Muslim spectators treated the ceremonies with respect. Hindu princes and wealthy merchants frequently sponsored taziyas, not because they had abandoned their own religious identities, but because Imam Husain had come to represent ideals admired across religious boundaries. Courage, loyalty, honour, sacrifice, and resistance to injustice were virtues that transcended sectarian divisions (Roberts 1835, II: 87-91).

The observations of Colonel William Henry Sleeman provide further confirmation. Best remembered for his campaigns against the Thugs, Sleeman spent many years travelling through Central India, Bundelkhand, Malwa, and territories closely associated with the Maratha confederacy. His Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official contains numerous references to Muharram as a festival shared by Muslims and Hindus.

Sleeman repeatedly notes that Rajputs, Marathas, Bundelas, and other Hindu communities joined Muharram processions or maintained hereditary taziyas. In some places entire villages contributed towards their construction. Elsewhere Hindu landholders regarded patronage of Muharram as an established custom inherited from previous generations. These practices had become so deeply rooted that neither participants nor observers appear to have considered them unusual (Sleeman 1844, II: 245-249).

Taken together, the testimonies of Broughton, Heber, Parks, Roberts, and Sleeman are remarkably consistent despite being entirely independent of one another. They travelled through different regions, belonged to different professions, and wrote for different audiences. Yet each records essentially the same phenomenon: Muharram in nineteenth-century India had become a public commemoration in which participation frequently crossed religious boundaries.

These contemporary observations find powerful corroboration in the painstaking research of Saiyid Sibtul Hasan. His Urdu work Hindu Qaum Aur Azadari remains one of the most valuable documentary studies of Hindu participation in Muharram. Drawing upon local histories, archival records, family traditions, newspapers, and oral testimonies, Sibtul Hasan demonstrates that participation by Hindus was neither accidental nor confined to isolated localities. Rather, it constituted a widespread historical phenomenon extending across large parts of the Indian subcontinent (Sibtul Hasan 1979, 45-67).

Of particular relevance is his discussion of the Maratha states. Sibtul Hasan records numerous examples of Maratha rulers, sardars, and officials extending patronage to Muharram observances. In Gwalior, Indore, Nagpur, Baroda, and other centres, Hindu nobles contributed financially towards taziyas, alams, sabeels, and majalis. Certain Brahmin and Maratha families became hereditary custodians of particular taziyas, preserving these traditions across successive generations. In several localities, participation in Muharram came to be regarded as an expression of local identity rather than merely of religious affiliation (Sibtul Hasan 1979, 112-118).

This evidence compels us to rethink the conventional understanding of Maratha political culture. The Maratha rulers inherited a world shaped by centuries of interaction between Sanskritic, Persianate, and regional traditions. Their courts employed Persian secretaries, Muslim commanders, Deccani nobles, and Hindu ministers simultaneously. Their armies contained soldiers drawn from virtually every religious community. Their capitals were inhabited by diverse populations whose public festivals naturally reflected this plural society (Gordon 1993, 156-160).

Consequently, Muharram flourished not despite Maratha rule but within it. The patronage extended to the commemoration of Imam Husain formed part of a broader political ethic in which rulers demonstrated legitimacy by protecting the religious practices of all their subjects. Such patronage neither diminished the Hindu identity of the Maratha rulers nor altered the Islamic character of Muharram. Instead, it reflected an older Indian understanding that public rituals could simultaneously express religious devotion, civic identity, and political legitimacy.

Indeed, one may go further. For many Marathas, Imam Husain represented ideals that resonated deeply with their own martial ethos. His refusal to submit to tyranny, his steadfastness in adversity, and his willingness to sacrifice everything for honour possessed an appeal extending far beyond doctrinal boundaries. It was these universal ethical qualities, rather than theological considerations, that enabled the memory of Karbala to enter the moral imagination of so many non-Muslim communities (Halder 2023, 78-82).

The Cultural Language of Early Modern India

If the testimony of nineteenth-century travellers establishes that Muharram flourished within the Maratha dominions, the larger historical question still remains. Why did a predominantly Hindu political elite embrace the public commemoration of the grandson of the Prophet? The answer lies not in religious conversion or theological convergence, but in the ethical, political, and cultural language through which early modern India understood kingship, heroism, and justice.

Long before the rise of the Marathas, the memory of Karbala had escaped the confines of sectarian devotion. Persian poets had transformed Imam Husain into the supreme exemplar of moral courage. Sufi saints interpreted his martyrdom as the highest manifestation of self-sacrifice in the path of God. In the Deccan, where Persian, Arabic, Marathi, Dakhni Urdu, Kannada, and Telugu traditions interacted for centuries, Karbala acquired an even broader cultural resonance. By the seventeenth century, Muharram was already being observed not merely by Shi’i dynasties such as the Qutb Shahis of Golconda, but also in regions ruled by Sunni sovereigns and in towns inhabited by diverse religious communities (Rizvi 1986, I: 198-203).

The Marathas emerged from precisely this cultural environment. Shivaji himself was born into the political world of the Deccan Sultanates. His father, Shahaji Bhonsle, served both the Ahmadnagar Nizam Shahis and the Bijapur Adil Shahis. Maratha nobles, cavalry commanders, revenue officials, diplomats, and soldiers spent generations working within Indo-Persian administrative systems. Persian remained the language of diplomacy and high administration throughout much of the eighteenth century, even in many Maratha states. Consequently, the ethical vocabulary associated with Imam Husain was already deeply embedded in the political culture inherited by the Marathas (Laine 2003, 45-50; Eaton 2005, 141-146).

It is therefore misleading to imagine the Maratha state as representing a purely Sanskritic or exclusively Hindu polity. Rather, it was a composite state whose institutions reflected centuries of interaction between indigenous and Persianate traditions. The observance of Muharram belonged naturally within this wider political culture.

Another reason for the popularity of Muharram among the Marathas lay in the character of Imam Husain himself. His story appealed to values cherished by every martial society. He confronted overwhelming military power without abandoning principle. He preferred death to dishonour. He refused to acknowledge an unjust ruler merely for the sake of political survival. His companions remained loyal despite certain defeat. Such ideals possessed an obvious attraction for communities whose own historical memory celebrated courage, fidelity, and sacrifice.

The Maratha conception of mardangi, heroic manliness expressed through honour, endurance, and loyalty, found a natural counterpart in the Karbala narrative. The battlefield of Karbala became a universal symbol of resistance rather than exclusively a theological event. This explains why Hindu poets, Rajput chiefs, Sikh writers, and later even Indian nationalists would all invoke Imam Husain without any sense of contradiction (Halder 2023, 92-97).

Saiyid Sibtul Hasan’s Hindu Qaum Aur Azadari illustrates this process through numerous examples drawn from Maharashtra, Malwa, Bundelkhand, and the Deccan. Hindu rulers endowed alams, financed sabeels, maintained hereditary taziyas, and protected Muharram processions. In many towns, Hindu artisans became renowned for constructing the finest taziyas, while Maratha nobles regarded contributions towards Muharram as part of their customary obligations towards the communities under their protection. These practices were not isolated acts of generosity but expressions of a political culture that viewed public patronage of religious ceremonies as a responsibility of kingship (Sibtul Hasan 1979, 134-139).

Indeed, the position of the Scindias is especially instructive. Although the dynasty traced its legitimacy to Maratha military success, its court at Gwalior retained many features inherited from Mughal political culture. Persian poets flourished there, Muslim nobles occupied important offices, and Muharram received official encouragement. It was within this environment that Thomas Duer Broughton witnessed Muslims preparing their taziyas while Hindus simultaneously celebrated Holi. The coexistence of the two festivals was not accidental. It reflected the composite character of the state itself.

The Holkars of Indore likewise ruled over a population of extraordinary diversity. Their armies included Afghans, Rajputs, Marathas, Muslims, Rohillas, Arabs, and numerous other communities. Muharram naturally became one of the shared ceremonial occasions through which this heterogeneous society expressed collective identity. Similar patterns can be observed in Nagpur under the Bhonsles and in Baroda under the Gaekwads, where Muharram remained firmly embedded within local civic traditions throughout the nineteenth century (Gordon 1993, 178-182).

The taziya itself deserves particular attention. Although originating as a symbolic representation of the mausoleum of Imam Husain at Karbala, in India it evolved into a remarkable work of popular art. Built from bamboo, wood, paper, mica, coloured glass, mirrors, silver foil, and embroidered textiles, each taziya represented the combined labour of entire neighbourhoods. Hindu carpenters, Muslim painters, goldsmiths, bamboo workers, paper craftsmen, and textile artisans all contributed to its construction. In many places the most celebrated taziyas were produced by Hindu families who had inherited the craft over generations. Thus the taziya became not merely an object of devotion but also an embodiment of India’s shared artistic traditions (Pinault 2001, 154-158).

This civic character of Muharram impressed virtually every nineteenth-century observer. Fanny Parks marvelled at the artistic splendour of the taziyas and the immense crowds accompanying them. Emma Roberts emphasised the participation of people belonging to different faiths. Bishop Heber recognised the support extended by Hindu rulers towards the ceremonies. Sleeman encountered hereditary Hindu custodians of taziyas in central India. Independently, each of these observers documented the same historical reality: Muharram had become woven into the fabric of Indian public life.

Unfortunately, this older composite tradition gradually came under increasing pressure during the nineteenth century. Colonial administrators, influenced by European notions of fixed religious identities, sought to classify Indian society into discrete and mutually exclusive communities. The decennial census, legal codification of personal laws, and ethnographic surveys encouraged people to identify themselves primarily through religion. Festivals that had long functioned as shared civic institutions increasingly came to be interpreted as exclusively Hindu or exclusively Muslim (Jones 2012, 34-38).

The growth of competitive communal politics during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries further accelerated this process. Reform movements within both Hinduism and Islam often criticised inherited popular customs as religiously impure. Some Muslim reformers denounced taziyas, alams, and public mourning as innovations lacking scriptural authority. Certain Hindu organisations, meanwhile, discouraged participation in Muharram on the grounds that it belonged to another religion. Practices that earlier generations had regarded as natural expressions of neighbourhood solidarity were now viewed with suspicion (Sibtul Hasan 1979, 187-192).

Yet these later developments should not obscure the historical reality preserved in earlier sources. The cumulative testimony of Broughton, Heber, Parks, Roberts, Sleeman, and Saiyid Sibtul Hasan reveals an India in which the memory of Imam Husain transcended sectarian boundaries. For the Marathas, participation in Muharram did not imply any dilution of their own religious identity. Rather, it reflected an older civilisational ethos that recognised moral greatness wherever it appeared and honoured sacrifice irrespective of communal affiliation.

The story of the Marathas and Muharram therefore compels historians to abandon simplistic narratives that reduce early modern India to a perpetual conflict between monolithic religious communities. Instead, it reveals a society in which political rivalry coexisted with cultural exchange, where Hindu rulers patronised Islamic commemorations, Muslim artisans contributed to Hindu festivals, and the martyr of Karbala became a symbol of justice revered far beyond the boundaries of Islam (Eaton 2005, 267-271; Wink 1990, 156-160).

Remembering a Composite Civilisation

The history of the Marathas and Muharram invites us to reconsider one of the fundamental assumptions that has shaped modern interpretations of Indian history. Too often the eighteenth century has been portrayed as an age of relentless religious conflict in which Hindu and Muslim identities became the principal determinants of political action. Such an interpretation owes more to the ideological preoccupations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries than to the evidence preserved in contemporary sources. The Maratha experience demonstrates that political rivalry and cultural exchange frequently coexisted, and that participation in one another’s religious traditions formed an accepted part of public life.

The observance of Muharram within the Maratha dominions illustrates this reality with exceptional clarity. From the camps of Daulat Rao Scindia to the streets of Indore, Gwalior, Nagpur, Baroda, and numerous smaller towns, the commemoration of Imam Husain attracted the patronage of Hindu rulers, the craftsmanship of Hindu artisans, the participation of Hindu soldiers, and the respect of Hindu spectators. None of these practices appear to have been regarded as extraordinary by contemporaries. Rather, they belonged to the normal rhythm of civic life.

Thomas Duer Broughton unknowingly captured this composite civilisation in a single sentence when he observed that Hindus were singing Holi songs while Muslims were simultaneously preparing their taziyas. His remark is valuable precisely because it is so matter-of-fact. He did not present this coexistence as remarkable. It simply reflected the India that he encountered in 1809. Likewise, his description of matam, lamentation, processions, and the repeated invocation of Muhammad, Ali, and Husain demonstrates that Muharram flourished openly within the camp of one of the principal Maratha rulers.

The independent testimony of Bishop Reginald Heber, Fanny Parks, Emma Roberts, and William Henry Sleeman strengthens this conclusion. Travelling through different regions over several decades, each witnessed Hindu participation in Muharram, Hindu patronage of taziyas, and the transformation of Ashura into a shared civic observance. When multiple observers, writing independently and often without knowledge of one another’s works, record essentially the same phenomenon, their evidence acquires considerable historical weight.

Saiyid Sibtul Hasan’s Hindu Qaum Aur Azadari provides the indispensable Indian perspective on this shared heritage. By assembling local histories, archival records, family traditions, and regional memories, he demonstrates that Hindu participation in Muharram was not confined to isolated anecdotes but constituted a widespread and enduring feature of Indian society. His work rescues from oblivion a historical reality that later communal narratives sought either to ignore or explain away. Particularly significant are the examples drawn from the Maratha states, where rulers, sardars, Brahmin families, artisans, and entire neighbourhoods contributed to the maintenance of taziyas, alams, sabeels, and majalis. These traditions survived not for years but, in many places, for centuries (Sibtul Hasan 1979, 203-208).

What explains this remarkable phenomenon? The answer ultimately lies in the universal appeal of Imam Husain himself. His stand at Karbala was understood not merely as an episode in early Islamic history but as the supreme illustration of fidelity to conscience. He refused political expediency when it demanded moral surrender. He chose martyrdom over submission. He transformed apparent military defeat into enduring ethical victory. Such values possess an appeal that transcends theology.

It is therefore unsurprising that Hindu rulers, Rajput warriors, Maratha chiefs, Sikh writers, Urdu poets, Bengali authors, and later Indian nationalists all found inspiration in Karbala. Imam Husain came to represent what Thomas Carlyle called the triumph of moral force over material power. In the Indian context, his memory became woven into a civilisational vocabulary of justice, sacrifice, honour, and resistance to oppression (Halder 2023, 112-116).

The Marathas understood this language. Their participation in Muharram was not an abandonment of their own faith but an affirmation of shared ethical ideals. They could celebrate the courage of Shivaji while mourning the martyrdom of Husain. They could patronise temples and support taziyas without perceiving any contradiction. Such actions reflected an older conception of kingship in which rulers protected and honoured the diverse religious traditions flourishing within their dominions.

The subsequent decline of this composite culture owes much to the changing intellectual climate of the nineteenth century. Colonial ethnography, census operations, and legal classifications increasingly divided Indians into rigid religious categories. Reform movements within different communities questioned inherited local customs, while communal politics encouraged exclusive rather than shared identities. Muharram, once a festival in which neighbourhoods of every faith participated, gradually came to be viewed through narrower sectarian lenses (Jones 2012, 156-161).

Yet history reminds us that these divisions are neither timeless nor inevitable. The India described by Broughton, Parks, Heber, Roberts, Sleeman, and documented by Saiyid Sibtul Hasan was an India in which the moral grandeur of Imam Husain belonged to the shared cultural inheritance of the subcontinent. Remembering that world does not diminish the distinctiveness of any religious tradition. Rather, it restores to Indian history one of its most remarkable characteristics: its extraordinary capacity to transform the memory of a seventh-century martyr into a universal language of justice recognised by people of every faith.

The story of the Marathas and Muharram is therefore more than an episode in regional history. It is a reminder that India’s civilisation has long been nourished by encounters rather than isolation, by participation rather than exclusion, and by the recognition that truth and moral courage can inspire reverence far beyond the boundaries of creed. In that sense, the annual mourning for Imam Husain within the Maratha states was not simply an act of religious devotion. It was an affirmation of a civilisational ideal in which ethical greatness belonged to all humanity.

As we observe the Chehlum of Imam Husain on 4th August, let us remember that his message of justice, sacrifice, and unwavering commitment to truth has resonated across centuries and communities. The Maratha participation in Muharram stands as a testament to the shared moral heritage that unites Indians beyond the narrow confines of creed, reminding us that the universal values for which Husain stood continue to inspire people of all faiths.

References and Reading List

Primary Sources

Broughton, Thomas Duer. Letters Written in a Mahratta Camp During the Year 1809. London: John Murray, 1813. [Constable’s Oriental Miscellany edition, 1892.]

Heber, Reginald. Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India, from Calcutta to Bombay, 1824-1825. 3 vols. London: John Murray, 1828.

Parks, Fanny. Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, during Four-and-Twenty Years in the East. 2 vols. London: Pelham Richardson, 1850.

Roberts, Emma. Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan, with Sketches of Anglo-Indian Society. 3 vols. London: W.H. Allen, 1835.

Sleeman, William Henry. Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official. 2 vols. London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1844.

Secondary Sources

Eaton, Richard M. A Social History of the Deccan, 1300-1761: Eight Indian Lives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Gordon, Stewart. The Marathas 1600-1818. The New Cambridge History of India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Halder, Epsita. Reclaiming Karbala: Nation, Islam and Literature of the Bengali Muslims. Abingdon: Routledge, 2023.

Hasan, Saiyid Sibtul. Hindu Qaum Aur Azadari [The Hindu Community and Muharram Commemoration]. Lucknow: Nami Press, 1979. [Urdu.]

Jones, Justin. Shi’a Islam in Colonial India: Religion, Community and Sectarianism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Laine, James W. Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Pinault, David. Horse of Karbala: Muslim Devotional Life in India. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.

Rizvi, Saiyid Athar Abbas. A Socio-Intellectual History of the Isna ‘Ashari Shi’is in India. 2 vols. Canberra: Australian National University, 1986.

Wink, André. Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Vol. 1: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam, 7th-11th Centuries. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

If the earlier chapters of this memoir were about discovering history, this one is about discovering that becoming a historian was, in itself, a rather long historical process. One might even say it required the patience of a medieval scribe and the constitution of a Mughal revenue collector.

Those were the days when the academic system was very different. Admission was formally to the PhD programme, but the first stage was effectively an MPhil. One had to complete a substantial piece of research before being allowed to proceed seamlessly to doctoral work. It was not the neatly packaged coursework one encounters today, where students are handed reading lists like supermarket shopping catalogues. Under Professor Irfan Habib, the MPhil had already become a miniature PhD – which is to say, it was a PhD in miniature, but without the miniature expectations.

My assigned topic was Lower Bureaucracy under the Mughals.

To an unsuspecting student, the title sounded harmless enough. Little did I know that it meant months and years buried beneath manuscripts, Persian chronicles, archival documents, rotographs, photographs of manuscripts, and endless reels of microfilm. Those who have never used microfilm can never appreciate the peculiar form of torture it represented. After hours spent peering into the dimly lit machine, every passing pedestrian appeared to be made of blurred black and white images. I occasionally found myself wondering whether the entire world had been reduced to grainy negative strips, and whether I too might soon dissolve into celluloid.

Friends in other universities often remarked that the MPhil was merely a training exercise. Not in Aligarh. Professor Habib had converted it into a full-fledged exercise in original research based on primary sources. There was no escaping the archives. Every assertion had to be traced back to documentary evidence. Every conclusion had to be earned. You could not simply wave your hands and declare something to be ‘generally accepted’. You had to produce the exact folio, waqai or the akhbarat or the particular farman that proved your point, or else retreat in ignominy.

In retrospect I remain grateful for that uncompromising training, although at the time I confess I entertained less charitable thoughts. I occasionally wondered whether Professor Habib had been sent by some celestial authority to test the patience of aspiring historians, much as the Mughal emperors tested the patience of their karkhanas.

There was, however, one great consolation. Under the UGC regulations prevailing then, an MPhil qualified one to apply for a university lectureship. It was comforting to know that one might at least find employment before completing the seemingly endless PhD. This was rather like being told that one could start building a house before finishing the architectural drawings—slightly unorthodox, but reassuring.

The viva voce remains one of my most vivid memories which perhaps I can never forget.

Professor Harbans Mukhia had been invited as the external examiner, while Professor Habib sat beside him as my supervisor.

Naively, I imagined the examination would consist of questions directed at me.

How mistaken I was.

Within minutes the discussion had ceased to be about my dissertation. Instead it transformed into a spirited scholarly contest between the two distinguished historians. One would make a point. The other would disagree. References flew across the table like arrows at Panipat. Counter-arguments followed. Interpretations collided. Professor Habib’s face gradually turned crimson with intellectual excitement, while Professor Mukhia’s famous mane shook energetically as he defended his position. It was rather like watching two heavyweight champions spar, except the blows were delivered in Persian citations and the footwork consisted of academic footnotes.

I, meanwhile, sat silently between them like an accidental spectator who had wandered into the wrong room. I felt rather like the unfortunate clerk in a Mughal diwan who finds himself caught between two contending nobles, each demanding his allegiance.

Occasionally I would turn hopefully towards one, then towards the other, wondering whether someone might remember that I was actually the candidate. I even considered raising my hand, but thought better of it.

After what seemed an eternity- and I suspect the actual duration was considerably less than what my anxiety suggested – Professor Mukhia smiled and announced, “Congratulations. You are awarded the MPhil degree leading to the PhD.”

My immediate reaction was one of immense relief.

Not because I had passed.

Because my supervisor had finally won.

I had acquired the valuable academic skill of knowing when to remain silent and allow the senior scholars to resolve their differences. This, I later discovered, was a survival strategy that would serve me well in countless committee meetings.

The years that followed were devoted almost entirely to satisfying Professor Habib’s exacting standards. Material had to be collected, references checked, arguments refined and evidence expanded. It was rather like being a Mughal munshi who must verify every revenue record before submitting it to the diwan. During this period I also began presenting papers at the annual sessions of the Indian History Congress. Some found their way into publication, while others appeared in edited volumes. And some, I confess, vanished into that mysterious void where unpublished papers go to rest, occasionally haunting their authors at inconvenient moments.

Looking back, those years quietly laid the foundations of whatever confidence I later acquired as a researcher. They were the academic equivalent of learning to walk – painful, frequently humiliating, but ultimately necessary.

Then, sometime around 1985, Professor Habib summoned me to his chamber.

“I want you to work on urban housing at Akbar’s capital,” he said.

The proposal itself was fascinating. Fathpur Sikri had already begun exercising a strange attraction over me. Yet another puzzle had been occupying my mind – a puzzle that, I confess, had been irritating me for some time.

For years Professor Habib had entrusted me with taking groups to Fathpur Sikri. Sometimes they were participants in the Teachers’ Workshops organised by the Department. At other times they were visiting scholars from abroad or researchers passing through Aligarh. I had walked through the ruins so often that I almost knew every street, courtyard and building by instinct. I could have navigated the city blindfolded, or at least with one eye closed.

And almost invariably someone would stop before a wall and ask, “What do these strange marks carved on the stones signify?”

I always had an answer.

Unfortunately, it was rarely the correct one.

Like all confident young scholars, I possessed the remarkable ability of converting ignorance into plausible-sounding explanations. This is a skill that is not taught in any university curriculum but is, I suspect, unconsciously acquired by every postgraduate student within the first six months.

The visitors generally appeared satisfied. They would nod sagely, murmur something about ‘fascinating’, and move on to the next structure.

I was not.

The marks continued to haunt me. They appeared everywhere – on walls, on pillars, on lintels. They were not inscriptions in any conventional sense. They were symbols, signs, mysterious glyphs that seemed to say something but refused to speak. I found myself lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling and wondering what those marks might mean. This was not, I should add, a healthy development.

Eventually I confessed to Professor Habib that before taking up urban housing I wished to solve this particular mystery. I wanted to understand the masons’ marks and symbols scattered across the monuments of Fathpur Sikri.

To my delight he agreed.

That decision altered the course of my academic life. It was rather like setting out to investigate a minor footnote and discovering that the footnote contained an entire library.

My first sustained research on Akbar’s capital was therefore not on palaces, planning or imperial ideology, but on the humble marks left behind by anonymous craftsmen centuries earlier. I spent months crawling through ruins, squinting at stones, making rubbings, photographing symbols, and generally behaving in a manner that caused the local guides to regard me with deep suspicion. I suspect they thought I was either a spy or a madman. Possibly both.

Let me narrate an episode: One day while I was collecting and sketching the mason’s marks on my notebook at Akbar’s tomb at Sikandara, I heard a young voice “Mama, I am feeling so sorry for that guy! He is handsome, youthful but mad. Instead of looking at the monument, he is walking in circles with his head down!” I went to the child, smiled at her and told her that I was looking for such and such scrawling on the stone slabs. After some time I heard her call me: “Hey Man! Look here, those scratching are here too”.

Once that work was completed, I moved on to surveying the excavated residential structures of the city. This was archaeology of a different sort – not the digging kind, but the patient, systematic examination of what had already been uncovered. It required the eye of a detective, the patience of a saint, and the capacity to spend hours contemplating a broken wall without losing one’s sanity.

Without realising it, I had crossed an invisible frontier.

I was no longer merely reading about medieval history.

I was walking through it.

Every ruined wall became a document. Every foundation trench became a text. Every discarded fragment of pottery demanded to be read with the same care as a Persian manuscript. I found myself developing a new vocabulary, a new way of seeing, a new appreciation for the material remains of the past. It was rather like learning a new language, except this language was spoken in stone and mortar.

Those years were enriched enormously by Professor Habib’s Regional Teachers’ Workshops. Lasting nearly a fortnight, these workshops attracted scholars from universities across the country. Many who later emerged as some of India’s finest historians first crossed my path during those gatherings. For a young researcher they were an extraordinary education. The lectures were stimulating, the discussions often fierce, and the conversations over tea sometimes even more enlightening than the formal sessions. I learned as much from the gossip in the corridors as from the papers in the auditorium.

Looking back, those workshops created a generation of historians who remained connected through friendship as much as scholarship. We argued fiercely in the seminar rooms and drank chai together afterwards. We disagreed about interpretations but never about the importance of the enterprise. It was, I now realise, a golden age of academic camaraderie – the sort of thing that probably only exists in retrospect, but which felt real enough at the time.

Then came 1989.

For me it was the year in which history finally began paying a salary. This was, I should add, a welcome development, as my previous method of subsistence had involved eating less and hoping for the best.

In January the local Selection Committee selected both my friend Jawaid Akhtar and me for appointment as Lecturers. Curiously, both of us had also been selected for the post of Research Assistant.

This created a genuine dilemma – the sort of dilemma that only academia can produce, where one is offered two jobs and must choose between them, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

One evening we found ourselves walking Professor Shireen Moosvi home from the Department, as we frequently did. Seizing the opportunity, we asked for her advice.

Jawaid spoke first.

“Madam, which post should I join?”

She replied without the slightest hesitation.

“The Research Assistant’s post is permanent. The lectureship is temporary. Join as Research Assistant.”

A perfectly sensible answer. Logical, prudent, the sort of advice one would expect from a wise and experienced academic.

Then, without missing a step, she turned towards me.

“Nadeem, don’t even think about it. Join as Lecturer. It is, after all, a teaching post. Don’t worry. This is a clear vacancy. You won’t be thrown out.”

Jawaid and I exchanged bewildered glances.

There we were, walking on either side of Professor Moosvi, both asking precisely the same question, and receiving two completely opposite pieces of advice.

To one she said, “Don’t join the lectureship.”

To the other she said, “Join the lectureship immediately.”

She had assessed not the posts, but the people.

It was one of those moments that only a truly perceptive teacher could produce. She had looked at us, weighed our temperaments, our capabilities, our likely futures, and had tailored her advice accordingly. It was rather like watching a chess grandmaster make two entirely different moves on two different boards, each perfectly suited to the position.

Jawaid and I walked on in bemused silence, each digesting our respective advice. I have often wondered what would have happened if we had asked the question on different days, or in different order. But such speculations are the stuff of counterfactual history, and I have long since learned to leave that to others.

On 10 February 1989 I formally joined the Department as a Lecturer.

I did not know it then, but that appointment marked the beginning of several journeys simultaneously.

It began my career as a teacher, a career that would see me standing in front of hundreds of students, occasionally making sense, frequently being asked questions I could not answer, and learning to say “That’s an excellent question, let me think about it” with sufficient gravitas to convince everyone that I actually knew the answer.

It strengthened my lifelong engagement with Fathpur Sikri, an engagement that would eventually produce books, articles, and a collection of anecdotes that grow taller with every telling.

It gradually drew me towards what would eventually become my second academic identity: that of a historian working through archaeology. This was not a planned development. It was rather like discovering that you have been speaking a second language all along without realising it.

In the years that followed, as I established myself within the Department, I had the privilege of introducing a specialised course on Medieval Archaeology. To the best of my knowledge, it remains one of the very few university courses in India devoted exclusively to that subject. I say ‘to the best of my knowledge’ because I have learned never to make absolute claims in academia—there is always someone who knows better.

The research too continued to evolve.

The work on Fathpur Sikri eventually resulted in my first major book on the city. Field explorations later took me far away into the abandoned settlements of the Jaisalmer region, where deserted villages opened yet another window onto India’s medieval past. There is something profoundly moving about walking through a village that has been empty for centuries – the silence, the crumbling walls, the sense of lives once lived and now vanished. It is rather like reading a history book in which every page has been torn out, but the shadows remain.

And after what often felt like an archaeological excavation of my own unfinished research, complete with layers of delay, periods of abandonment, and occasional discoveries, I finally submitted my long-delayed PhD on the Middle Classes. (Those who have followed this memoir will know that ‘long-delayed’ is something of an understatement, but I am trying to be charitable to myself.)

Its examiners represented three distinguished traditions of historical scholarship: Professor Satish Chandra, Professor Indu Banga and Professor Frank Perlin. I remember sitting through the viva and thinking that, unlike my MPhil examination, I was actually being asked questions. This was both reassuring and alarming, reassuring because I was clearly the subject of the examination, alarming because I had to answer.

Looking back now, I sometimes smile at how uncertain everything had seemed.

The student who once invented explanations for mysterious marks on the stones of Fathpur Sikri would spend decades trying to understand the city. The universe, it seems, has a sense of irony.

The bewildered candidate who watched two eminent historians debate across his MPhil viva would one day himself examine generations of research scholars. (I try to ensure that my own vivas are more interactive for the candidate, though I confess I occasionally find myself getting drawn into scholarly disputes that are, strictly speaking, irrelevant.)

And the young lecturer who walked into the Department on a February morning in 1989, uncertain of what lay ahead, had no inkling that the profession he had entered would soon cease to be merely a career.

It had already become a way of life.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

On 1 August 2026, as we commemorate the birth centenary of Professor Rahi Masoom Reza (1926–1992), there is a curious irony that deserves reflection. The man who spent his entire life resisting labels has himself become imprisoned within a single cultural memory. For millions of Indians, Rahi survives chiefly as the writer of the television serial Mahabharat (1988–90), whose unforgettable opening invocation of Samay – “Time” – became etched into the consciousness of an entire generation:

“मैं समय हूँ…” I am Time…

Rahi Masoom Reza’s opening invocation presented Time (Samay) as the eternal witness to all of human history. It was sutradhar through whose eyes we view our past to understand what we are. Samay declared that it had seen empires rise and fall, kings and warriors come and go, and countless generations repeat the same struggles between justice and ambition, truth and falsehood. The Mahabharata, it was thus suggestsed was not merely the story of one ancient family but the story of humanity itself, for the conflicts of greed, power, duty, love and sacrifice recur in every age. The narration invited the viewer to see the epic not as distant mythology but as a timeless mirror in which every generation can recognise its own moral dilemmas.

For nearly two years, every Sunday morning at 9.30, India appeared to suspend itself. Streets fell silent. Public transport ran half empty. Shops opened late. Families, neighbours and friends gathered around television sets in villages and cities alike. Religious identity momentarily dissolved before a shared narrative that belonged to everyone. It is difficult today to explain to younger generations the extraordinary cultural phenomenon that Mahabharat became. There had been successful television serials before it, but none that united India in quite the same manner. That a Muslim scholar from Ghazipur should become the voice through which much of modern India rediscovered the Mahabharata remains one of the finest illustrations of India’s composite civilisation. For countless Indian Muslims too, the serial offered their first sustained encounter with one of the foundational epics of the subcontinent. It reminded them that the Mahabharata, like the Ramayana, was not the property of any single community. It belonged to the civilisational inheritance of everyone who called India home.

Yet therein lies the tragedy of memory. The overwhelming success of Mahabharat has obscured the larger literary personality of Rahi Masoom Reza. He deserves to be remembered not merely as the scriptwriter of an immensely popular television serial but as one of the most original Urdu poets of the twentieth century, an important Hindi novelist, a fearless public intellectual, a distinguished academic and among the finest dialogue writers Indian cinema has ever produced.

Rahi Masoom Reza was born on 1 August 1926 in Gangauli, a village in Ghazipur district of eastern Uttar Pradesh. The landscape of Purvanchal, with its mingling of Hindu and Muslim traditions, its dialects, festivals, shared memories and everyday coexistence, never left him. Even after migrating to Bombay and achieving fame in cinema, the soil of eastern Uttar Pradesh continued to nourish his imagination. His village became not merely a geographical location but a metaphor for India itself.

His education at Aligarh Muslim University shaped him profoundly. At Aligarh he completed his higher studies in Urdu and eventually earned his doctorate. He later joined the Department of Urdu as a lecturer. The intellectual atmosphere of Aligarh in the years immediately following Independence exposed him simultaneously to classical Persian and Urdu literature, modern literary criticism, Marxist thought, progressive literature and the complex debates surrounding nationalism, language and identity.

Although later generations often remember him as a novelist, Rahi first established himself as a poet. He published seven collections of Urdu poetry and was recognised by critics as one of the most distinctive poetic voices to emerge after Independence. His verse combined lyricism with political consciousness, tenderness with irony, and personal experience with historical reflection. Unlike poets who remained imprisoned within inherited conventions, Rahi continually experimented with language while retaining an unmistakably Indian sensibility. Among his poetic achievements, his long poem 1857 occupies a unique place. Rather than presenting the uprising merely as military history or nationalist mythology, he transformed it into a meditation upon memory, loss, betrayal and the making of modern India. The poem mourns not simply a defeated rebellion but the fragmentation of a civilisation whose composite culture had once flourished across north India. It remains one of the significant long poems in modern Urdu literature and alone would have secured him an honoured place in the Urdu canon.

Yet poetry was only one aspect of his creativity. His novels fundamentally altered modern Hindi fiction. The irony itself is striking. An Urdu scholar by training chose Hindi as the principal language of his novels, demonstrating that the division between Hindi and Urdu was largely political rather than cultural. His masterpiece, Aadha Gaon (Half a Village), published in 1966, remains one of the greatest novels produced in post-Independence India. Set in Gangauli during the final years of British rule and the trauma of Partition, it refuses simplistic narratives of communal conflict. Instead, it portrays a society whose shared relationships are slowly eroded by political developments imposed from outside. The novel captures the rhythms of rural life with extraordinary authenticity while exposing the tragic absurdity of identities that become hardened under the pressures of modern politics. Its language itself was revolutionary. Rahi allowed the speech of ordinary villagers to enter literature without apology. Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Urdu, Persian expressions and colloquial Hindi coexist naturally, reproducing the multilingual reality of north India rather than the artificial purity demanded by language ideologues.

His subsequent novels, including Topi Shukla, Os Ki Boond, Himmat Jaunpuri, Dil Ek Saada Kagaz and others, repeatedly explored questions of identity, belonging and secularism. In Topi Shukla, perhaps his most explicitly political novel, friendship becomes the prism through which the hypocrisies of post-Partition India are examined. It remains one of the sharpest literary critiques of communalism written in modern Indian literature. Throughout his writings, Rahi refused to accept that religious identity determined cultural identity. This conviction became the defining principle of his intellectual life.

Perhaps no episode illustrates this better than the controversy surrounding his authorship of Mahabharat. Some objected that a Muslim had been entrusted with writing dialogues for what they regarded as a sacred Hindu text. Rahi’s response has since become legendary. He reminded his critics that he was neither an Arab nor a Turk. He was an Indian. The Mahabharata belonged as much to him as to anyone else born in this land. It was part of his inheritance. That simple assertion represented something much larger than personal defence. It articulated an understanding of India rooted not in religious exclusivism but in shared civilisation. It rejected the notion that literature, history or culture could be partitioned according to faith.

His adaptation of the epic reflected precisely this understanding. Rather than reducing the Mahabharata to theological instruction, he presented it as an exploration of moral ambiguity, political power, human frailty and ethical responsibility. The dialogues retained a literary dignity while remaining accessible to millions of viewers. Characters were rendered psychologically complex rather than merely symbolic. The serial succeeded not because it preached religion but because it revealed humanity. His famous opening narration on Time itself possesses remarkable philosophical depth. Time appears not merely as chronology but as the ultimate witness before whom kings, empires, victories and defeats all pass away. In many respects, that meditation reflects the historical imagination of a novelist rather than the outlook of a television scriptwriter.

Bombay brought Rahi another arena in which to display his astonishing versatility. He wrote dialogues, screenplays and lyrics for numerous films over several decades. His association with filmmakers such as Gulzar, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, B. R. Chopra and others produced dialogues that combined literary elegance with everyday speech. Unlike many writers who regarded cinema as a compromise, Rahi treated popular culture with seriousness. He understood that films could communicate ideas to audiences vastly larger than literary journals ever could. Even while working within commercial cinema, he retained his unmistakable voice. His characters spoke like real people rather than literary abstractions. Humour, irony and emotional restraint characterised much of his writing. He possessed an extraordinary ear for spoken language.

Yet behind the celebrated public figure stood a deeply committed secular intellectual. Rahi consistently opposed every attempt to divide Indian society along communal lines. He criticised both Hindu and Muslim communalism with equal courage. He believed that India’s strength lay precisely in its shared cultural traditions and its capacity to absorb multiple histories into a common civilisation. His lifelong attachment to the Ganga became almost symbolic. He often described himself not in terms of religion but in relation to the river and the landscape that had shaped him. The Ganga represented continuity, memory and belonging beyond sectarian identities. In one of his most moving reflections, he wrote that if anyone asked who he was, the answer was simple: he was a son of the Ganga.

This profound attachment to place also explains why nostalgia never became sentimental in his writings. He mourned the disappearance of an older India not because he rejected modernity but because he feared the destruction of its composite social fabric. He recognised that villages were changing, languages were becoming standardised and identities increasingly politicised. Much of his fiction is therefore an attempt to preserve voices, memories and relationships before they disappeared.

As a teacher at Aligarh Muslim University, Rahi inspired students not merely through scholarship but through intellectual independence. He belonged to that generation of academics for whom literature was inseparable from public responsibility. Writers were expected not simply to entertain but to intervene in the moral life of society.

Today, more than three decades after his death, his concerns appear remarkably contemporary. Questions of identity, language, history and belonging continue to dominate public discourse. Attempts to claim exclusive ownership over India’s past have become increasingly frequent. In such a climate, Rahi Masoom Reza’s life offers an alternative vision of patriotism, one grounded not in exclusion but in cultural confidence. Remembering him only as the writer of Mahabharat therefore does him an injustice, even though that achievement remains monumental. He was far more than the creator of memorable television dialogues. He was among the finest Urdu poets of his generation. He transformed the Hindi novel through works of enduring significance. He enriched Indian cinema with language of rare literary quality. Above all, he embodied the composite civilisation that he celebrated throughout his life.

This remembrance is also personal to me. I was fortunate enough to meet him on a number of occasions with my father – a man of religion, to boot – and those encounters left an indelible impression upon a young mind. I remember the warmth of his presence, the quiet wit that sparkled in his conversation, and the complete absence of any pretension despite his towering achievements. He made you feel that literature was not a distant pursuit but a living, breathing engagement with the world. The Rahi I met was not the celebrated public figure alone but a man of deep affection, keen observation and an abiding faith in the essential goodness of ordinary people. He belonged to that rare breed of writers whose life and work were seamless.

It would also be remiss not to recall his elder brother, Moonis Raza (d.1994), who shared the same intellectual soil and was an eminent Indian academic administrator, geographer, and a founder-chairman of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). The third brother was Prof Mehdi Raza, (d.2015) who was the head and professor of geography at Aligarh. The Raza family of Gangauli produced not one but three sons of extraordinary calibre, each in his own way contributing to the nation’s life. The brothers remained close, and one can only wonder at the conversations that must have passed between the novelist who chronicled India’s soul, the geographer and the diplomat who represented India’s face to the world. Their shared inheritance – the same village, the same river, the same composite culture – nourished two distinct but equally remarkable careers.

On his centenary, the greatest tribute we can offer Professor Rahi Masoom Reza is to recover the whole writer. The poet who mourned the wounds of history. The novelist who chronicled the disintegration of rural India. The scholar who crossed linguistic frontiers with effortless ease. The screenwriter who brought an ancient epic alive for modern audiences. And the Indian who insisted that culture cannot be divided by religion because civilisation is always larger than faith. His Mahabharat gave India unforgettable words. He did to Mahabharata what Tulsi had done to Ramayana: brought it to the masses. His larger body of work gave India something even more precious: a language through which it could recognise itself. As we honour his memory, let us remember that the voice which once invoked Time itself now belongs to eternity – and yet, in his pages, he remains forever our contemporary, speaking to us across the decades with undiminished urgency and love.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

The uproar over Priyanka Gandhi’s speech in Parliament reveals far more about the condition of public discourse in India than it does about the speech itself.

Within hours, an entire ecosystem had mobilised to accuse her of insulting a distinguished academic. Television debates, social media campaigns and partisan commentators all converged on a single phrase she used. Almost no one bothered to engage with the question she had actually raised.

That question was simple. Should those who publicly advance scientifically unverified claims be entrusted with shaping the future of Indian education?

It is a question that deserves an answer.

Priyanka Gandhi did not deny Professor V. Kamakoti’s accomplishments as a computer scientist. Those achievements are real, substantial and deserving of respect. Scientific excellence in one discipline, however, does not exempt anyone from scrutiny when making empirical claims in another. Science does not recognise authority. It recognises evidence.

That principle is the very foundation of modern civilisation.

Every scientific proposition, whether it concerns quantum computing, vaccines or the medicinal properties of cow urine, must pass through the same process of observation, experimentation, peer review and reproducibility. Reputation cannot substitute for evidence. Institutional office cannot replace scientific proof.

Yet this elementary distinction has increasingly become blurred in India’s public life.

A Pattern, Not an Isolated Incident

The controversy surrounding Professor Kamakoti’s appointment is not an isolated episode. It belongs to a much larger pattern that has unfolded since 2014, one in which the language of science has repeatedly been appropriated to legitimise assertions that belong either to mythology, faith or speculation rather than empirical inquiry.

One of the earliest signals came from the highest political office in the country.

At the 2015 Indian Science Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to the story of Lord Ganesha as evidence that ancient India possessed plastic surgery and cited Karna’s birth in the Mahabharata as suggesting knowledge of genetic science. Many defended these remarks as expressions of cultural pride or metaphor. That defence misses the point entirely. The issue was never whether Indians should celebrate their civilisation. The issue was whether historical and scientific claims made before an audience of scientists should be supported by evidence rather than sentiment.

The distinction matters.

Civilisations earn respect through what they actually achieved, not through claims made on their behalf centuries later.

India possesses one of the richest scientific traditions in human history. Aryabhata transformed mathematics and astronomy. Brahmagupta developed concepts that changed numerical thought. Sushruta’s surgical observations continue to command scholarly attention. Ancient Indian metallurgy produced achievements that remain objects of admiration. None of these accomplishments requires embellishment through extravagant assertions unsupported by historical or archaeological evidence.

Ironically, exaggeration diminishes genuine achievement. It replaces scholarship with mythology masquerading as history.

The same tendency became visible in successive sessions of the Indian Science Congress, where presentations claiming the existence of ancient aircraft, interplanetary travel, advanced stem-cell technology and other extraordinary achievements received national attention. Many eminent Indian scientists expressed deep embarrassment that one of the country’s oldest scientific institutions appeared willing to provide a platform for claims that would not survive elementary scientific scrutiny.

The criticism came not from enemies of Indian civilisation but from some of India’s most respected scientists. Their concern was straightforward. Scientific conferences exist to test hypotheses against evidence, not to confer legitimacy upon ideological preferences.

Science has only one language.

Evidence.

Everything else is opinion.

The Erosion of Intellectual Independence

Unfortunately, a wider intellectual climate has emerged in which evidence increasingly appears negotiable. Mythological narratives are presented as historical fact. Ancient texts are treated as repositories of modern scientific discoveries. Rational criticism is dismissed as hostility towards Indian culture. Scholars who ask inconvenient questions are frequently accused of lacking patriotism rather than being answered with evidence.

The consequences extend well beyond academic debate.

Universities are not merely institutions that award degrees. They are where societies teach future generations how knowledge itself is created. Students do not merely learn physics, biology or history. They learn habits of mind. They learn whether difficult questions are welcomed or discouraged, whether evidence matters more than authority, and whether intellectual disagreement is an essential feature of scholarship or an act of ideological disobedience.

It is precisely for this reason that appointments to educational bodies matter.

Following repeated controversies surrounding public examinations, particularly the NEET crisis, India expected committees composed of specialists in assessment, pedagogy, psychology, educational administration and examination reforms. Instead, the debate once again shifted to the public positions of some of those appointed. That was entirely avoidable.

The deeper concern is not one appointment. It is a philosophy of governance that increasingly appears comfortable allowing ideological symbolism to occupy spaces where intellectual independence ought to prevail.

The consequences are already visible across education.

School textbooks have been repeatedly revised in ways that many historians, scientists and educationists have criticised as privileging ideological narratives over established scholarship. Historical complexity is often replaced with simplified civilisational binaries. Mythological traditions are sometimes presented alongside historical evidence without clearly distinguishing between the two. Universities have witnessed growing pressure over curricula, appointments and research priorities. Academic disagreement is increasingly interpreted through political rather than scholarly lenses.

One need not agree with every criticism levelled against these developments to recognise the cumulative direction in which they point.

The Constitutional Promise

The Constitution anticipated precisely such dangers.

Article 51A(h) declares that every citizen has the duty “to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.” These words were not inserted accidentally. They reflected the conviction that democracy depends upon citizens capable of asking questions, evaluating evidence and resisting dogma, irrespective of its source.

Scientific temper does not require hostility towards religion.

It requires honesty about the difference between belief and evidence.

A citizen may believe that the universe was created through divine intervention. A scientist investigating the origins of the universe must nevertheless rely upon observation and demonstrable evidence. Both occupy different domains. Confusing them impoverishes both science and faith.

Jawaharlal Nehru understood this distinction better than most. For him, scientific temper was not merely the cultivation of laboratories or the expansion of technological education. It was an attitude of mind. It meant intellectual humility, respect for evidence, openness to criticism and the willingness to abandon cherished assumptions when facts demanded it.

That ideal now appears under strain.

The Real Tragedy

The real tragedy is not that politicians exchange sharp words in Parliament. Parliamentary democracy has always thrived on vigorous disagreement. The tragedy is that asking for scientific evidence has itself become controversial.

When demands for proof are portrayed as insults, when criticism of pseudoscience is interpreted as disrespect for civilisation, and when loyalty to ideological narratives becomes more valuable than intellectual honesty, science ceases to function as science. It becomes political theatre.

Priyanka Gandhi’s critics have concentrated on a phrase.

They have carefully avoided confronting the principle behind it.

The issue was never one professor. Nor was it one speech.

It is whether India wishes to be governed by a constitutional commitment to scientific temper or by the political convenience of pseudoscience.

A civilisation confident of its past does not invent discoveries it never made. A nation confident of its future does not fear evidence. It welcomes it.

India has produced some of humanity’s greatest mathematicians, astronomers, physicians and philosophers. Their legacy was built upon observation, argument and intellectual courage.

If we truly wish to honour that inheritance, then the highest offices in our scientific and educational institutions must stand for one principle above every other.

Not ideology.

Not mythology.

Not political expediency.

Evidence.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

Few concepts have assumed greater prominence in the contemporary discourse of the Islamic Republic of Iran than Jihād al-Tabyīn (‘the Struggle for Clarification’), and few books attempt to present this concept as systematically as Tabyeen: The Neglected Obligation. Published by the Ahlulbayt Islamic Mission (AIM), this substantial volume gathers speeches delivered by Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei over several decades and organises them into a coherent thematic exposition. Rather than being an original treatise, it is an editorial reconstruction of Khamenei’s thought on one of the defining concepts of his intellectual and political project.

The editors have arranged the material into five broad sections covering the conceptual foundations of tabyeen, its practical requirements, methods of implementation, areas requiring clarification, and the responsibilities of various sections of society. The organisation succeeds remarkably well in transforming scattered speeches into what almost reads as a unified philosophical work. Detailed references to the original speeches further enhance its scholarly value as a documentary source.

The central thesis of the volume is straightforward but far-reaching. Khamenei argues that clarifying truth has itself become one of the highest forms of jihad. The struggle is no longer confined to military confrontation but encompasses education, scholarship, journalism, media, cyberspace and public discourse. The principal battlefield of the twenty-first century is the arena of ideas and narratives. Scholars, students, writers, teachers and ordinary believers all become participants in this intellectual jihad.

One of the book’s strengths is its insistence that jihad should not be narrowly understood as armed conflict. Khamenei repeatedly defines jihad as sustained, purposeful struggle against obstacles, whether intellectual, political, educational or cultural. This wider understanding has deep roots in Islamic thought and allows the concept to be relocated within the domains of scholarship, research and public communication.

To appreciate the full weight of Khamenei’s argument, one must first understand how Shi’i tradition conceptualises jihad. In classical Shi’i jurisprudence, jihad is typically divided into two categories: the ‘greater jihad‘ (al-jihād al-akbar), which denotes the inner struggle against one’s own baser desires and spiritual shortcomings, and the ‘lesser jihad‘ (al-jihād al-asghar), which refers to external armed struggle in defence of the faith. This distinction, rooted in a famous saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, has long given Shi’i thought a rich vocabulary for discussing moral and spiritual endeavour alongside military defence. However, Shi’i scholars have also historically recognised a third category: the jihad of the tongue and the pen (jihād al-lisān wa al-qalam), which encompasses the duty to speak truth, refute falsehood and disseminate religious knowledge. It is this latter tradition that Khamenei revives and expands, elevating intellectual and communicative struggle to a status comparable with, and in the contemporary context even surpassing, physical combat. By anchoring his doctrine in this established jurisprudential framework, Khamenei presents tabyeen not as an innovation but as the recovery of a neglected obligation whose time has now come.

Equally noteworthy is the ethical framework within which this struggle is situated. Throughout the opening chapters Khamenei insists that clarification must not descend into slander, rumour, deception or abusive polemics. Rather, it should proceed through reasoned argument, ethical conduct and intellectual honesty. These passages represent some of the strongest sections of the book and distinguish tabyeen, at least in principle, from mere political propaganda.

The work also demonstrates how deeply Shi’i historical memory informs Khamenei’s political theology. Karbala occupies a central place in his conception of clarification. Sayyida Zaynab’s speeches in Kufa and Damascus are presented as the paradigmatic example of preserving truth through testimony after military defeat. Likewise, Imam ‘Ali’s teachings on truthfulness and moral steadfastness are repeatedly invoked to provide scriptural and ethical legitimacy to the concept of Jihād al-Tabyīn.

Yet the real significance of this volume becomes apparent only when it is situated within the broader tradition of modern Shi’i political thought.

Although Khamenei presents tabyeen as an essential Islamic obligation, the underlying idea is by no means entirely new. The duty to explain truth (tablīgh), remove misunderstanding and defend religion has long occupied an important place in Shi’i scholarship. What distinguishes Khamenei is the unprecedented scope he gives to the concept by making it the central organising principle of political communication in the age of mass media and cyberspace.

The intellectual lineage begins most obviously with Imam Khomeini. Indeed, the editors themselves open the volume with an extended selection from Khomeini’s speeches emphasising the responsibility of scholars and preachers to awaken society and defend Islam through explanation. Khamenei’s work therefore represents continuity rather than rupture. Yet there is also an important evolution. Khomeini generally discussed propagation in the context of revolutionary mobilisation, whereas Khamenei transforms it into a comprehensive doctrine governing media, education, universities and digital communication. The battlefield shifts from revolution itself to the contest over public consciousness. To fully grasp the evolution from Khomeini to Khamenei, one must consider how Khomeini’s concept of clarification was inextricably tied to his doctrine of Wilāyat al-Faqīh (Guardianship of the Jurist). In his seminal essays and lectures collected in Wilāyat al-Faqīh: Islamic Government, Khomeini argued that religious scholars bear not only the authority but the sacred duty to guide the political community in the absence of the Imams. Within this framework, propagation (tablīgh) served primarily as an instrument of revolutionary awakening and institutional consolidation. Khomeini’s speeches during the 1970s and early 1980s were characteristically urgent and mobilising, calling upon clerics, students and the broader public to expose the tyranny of the Pahlavi regime and rally behind the nascent Islamic state. His famous lectures in Najaf and Paris were exercises in clarification aimed at transforming passive believers into active revolutionaries. Yet for Khomeini, the ultimate objective remained the establishment and preservation of the Islamic polity itself; explanation was the means, not the end. Khamenei, by contrast, operates in a very different context. Having inherited a fully established Islamic Republic, he confronts not the challenge of building a state but of sustaining its legitimacy across generations in an environment saturated with competing narratives and digital misinformation. Consequently, Khamenei’s deployment of tabyeen is more systemic, more institutionally embedded and more defensive in character. Whereas Khomeini used clarification to dismantle an old order, Khamenei uses it to fortify a new one, embedding the duty of explanation within the very fabric of governance, education and media policy. This shift reflects not a departure from Khomeini’s vision but its adaptation to the demands of longevity, as the revolutionary movement transforms into a permanent civilisation project requiring constant intellectual renewal.

The comparison with Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr is equally illuminating. Like Khamenei, al-Sadr regarded intellectual struggle as indispensable for preserving Islamic civilisation against competing ideologies. His Falsafatunā and Iqtisādunā were themselves exercises in explaining Islam rationally before an educated audience. Yet al-Sadr’s engagement remained primarily philosophical. He debated Marxism and capitalism through systematic reasoning. Khamenei, by contrast, is less concerned with constructing philosophical systems than with countering what he regards as organised campaigns of misinformation. His principal adversary is not philosophical materialism but media distortion.

A similar distinction emerges when one compares this work with the writings of Murtaza Mutahhari. Mutahhari consistently argued that misconceptions about Islam should be removed through reasoned explanation and that every generation requires a fresh intellectual presentation of religion. In many respects Khamenei follows this educational impulse. Nevertheless, Mutahhari’s concern remained principally pedagogical and philosophical. In Tabyeen, clarification becomes inseparable from preserving the political order established by the Islamic Revolution. The educational project is thus incorporated into a theory of governance.

Perhaps the greatest contrast is provided by Allama Muhammad Husayn Tabataba’i. His monumental al-Mīzān fi Tafsīr al-Qur’ān is itself an exercise in clarification, but one grounded in Qur’anic hermeneutics, philosophical reflection and rational inquiry. Khamenei shares Tabataba’i’s confidence that truth must be explained rather than imposed. Yet whereas Tabataba’i asks how revelation should be interpreted, Khamenei asks how truth should be defended amidst global information warfare. Hermeneutics yields to communication strategy.

The most significant divergence within contemporary Shi’ism appears in comparison with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Both scholars regard clarification as a religious responsibility, but they locate its institutional expression very differently. Sistani’s Najaf tradition generally favours moral authority exercised from a distance from state power, intervening directly only during exceptional crises. Khamenei, writing from within the doctrine of Wilāyat al-Faqīh, frequently identifies the defence of the Islamic Republic with the defence of Islam itself. This distinction reflects the continuing divergence between the Najaf and Qom schools of political thought.

Historical comparison with Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Naini is equally revealing. In Tanbīh al-Ummah wa Tanzīh al-Millah, Naini viewed public explanation as a means of exposing tyranny and limiting arbitrary authority through constitutional government. Khamenei similarly opposes falsehood but directs his attention primarily towards foreign intervention, sanctions, media campaigns and ideological infiltration. Whereas Naini feared despotism from within, Khamenei emphasises manipulation from without.

The comparison with Ali Shariati reveals another important dimension. Both thinkers stress intellectual awakening, youth mobilisation and resistance to cultural domination. Yet Shariati frequently challenged established religious institutions themselves, whereas Khamenei speaks from within the clerical establishment. Shariati’s primary concern was stagnation within Muslim society; Khamenei’s is distortion imposed through hostile narratives.

Ali Shariati’s understanding of jihad departed significantly from both traditional jurisprudence and the clerical establishment of his time. For Shariati, jihad was not primarily a military or even a defensive legal category, but rather an existential and revolutionary call to action against all forms of oppression, injustice and intellectual stagnation. He reimagined jihad as the perpetual struggle of the oppressed (mustad’afūn) against their exploiters, drawing heavily on his distinctive synthesis of Islamic symbolism and Third World liberationist thought. In Shariati’s reading, the tragedy of Karbala was not merely a historical event to be mourned but a revolutionary paradigm requiring active emulation: Imam Husain’s stand was the ultimate act of jihad against tyrannical power, regardless of the odds. Crucially, Shariati also emphasised what he called the ‘red martyrdom’ (shahādat-i surkh) – a dynamic, life-affirming struggle against injustice – over the passive, otherworldly piety he associated with established religious authority. His jihad was thus thoroughly this-worldly, politically engaged and deeply suspicious of clerical quietism. This stands in marked contrast to Khamenei’s more institutionally anchored vision, where jihad is channelled through state structures and framed as defence of the Islamic Republic against external threats. Where Khamenei sees clarification as a duty to protect an established order, Shariati saw clarification – or what he termed ‘enlightenment’ (rūshanfikrī) – as a weapon to dismantle all established orders that perpetuated inequality, including, at times, the very religious establishment from which Khamenei now speaks.

Seen against this wider background, Tabyeen emerges not as a novel theological doctrine but as a distinctive synthesis. Khamenei combines Imam ‘Ali’s emphasis on truthfulness, Imam Husain’s witness against oppression, Sayyida Zainab’s preservation of Karbala through testimony, Imam Khomeini’s revolutionary activism, Mutahhari’s intellectual defence of Islam and al-Sadr’s ideological confidence into a unified theory for the age of digital communication. His original contribution lies in identifying information itself as the principal arena of jihad.

At the same time, the volume inevitably reflects its ideological location. Discussions of Yemen, Syria, Iraq, sanctions, the Pahlavi monarchy and Western media all proceed from the perspective of the Islamic Republic. Alternative interpretations receive relatively little attention, and criticism of the Revolution is frequently interpreted as the product of organised external distortion. From an academic standpoint, this represents the principal limitation of the work. The concept of clarification occasionally risks becoming synonymous with defending a particular political order rather than facilitating genuinely open intellectual inquiry.

Another weakness arises from the nature of the source material itself. Since the volume is compiled from speeches delivered over many years, certain themes recur repeatedly. While this repetition reinforces the centrality of the concept in Khamenei’s thinking, tighter editorial condensation and fuller historical introductions explaining the circumstances of each speech would have enhanced the book’s scholarly utility.

The English translation is generally smooth and readable, successfully preserving the sermonic tone of the original Persian. The editors have also performed a valuable service by documenting the provenance of individual passages, enabling researchers to locate the original speeches and trace the evolution of Khamenei’s thought over time.

Ultimately, Tabyeen: The Neglected Obligation should not be read simply as a work of religious instruction or political advocacy. It is a major primary source for understanding the intellectual vocabulary of the Islamic Republic during the twenty-first century. Whether one agrees with its political assumptions or not, it reveals how contemporary Shi’i political thought has reconceptualised jihad, authority, communication and historical memory in response to the age of digital media.

For historians of modern Iran, scholars of Shi’i Islam and students of political theology, the book provides invaluable insight into one of the most influential contemporary Shi’i conceptions of religion and politics. Its greatest significance lies less in its originality than in its successful synthesis of classical Shi’i ethical traditions with the realities of modern information warfare. It therefore deserves careful reading not merely as a statement of Ayatollah Khamenei’s views, but as an important document in the continuing evolution of modern Shi’i political thought.