politically marginalized, despite being about 13
percent of the population, or about 130,000,000
people (the third-largest Muslim population in
the world after indonesia and pakistan).
See also ayodhya; bUddhism and islam; mUghal
dynasty; sUFism.
Anna BigelowFurther reading: David Gilmartin and Bruce Lawrence,
eds., Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Iden-
tities in Islamicate South Asia (Gainesville: University
Press of Florida, 2000); Peter Gottschalk, Beyond Hindu
and Muslim (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
2001); Andre Wink, The Making of the Indo-Islamic
World. 2 vols. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1999).
hisba (Arabic: counting, reckoning,
regulating)
The hisba was both the state institution for
promoting good and forbidding evil and the per-
sonal responsibility of Muslims to do the same.
Though the word literally means counting, it
came to be accepted as shorthand for the injunc-
tion from the qUran and the sUnna requiring
the promotion of good and the forbidding of
evil, which was the subject of extensive debate
in Islamic law. Although the Quran suggests
that every Muslim must engage in this practice
(Q 3:104), considerable difference of opinion
existed concerning whom, how, and under what
circumstances a person should actively pursue
forbidding wrong in particular. In most cases,Traditional public fruit and vegetable market in Cairo, Egypt ( Juan E. Campo)
K 302 hisba