268 Islam and Modernity
It is clear from the quotation above that this is neither a modern nor a revolu-
tionary perspective of government. It set down a framework for the generosity
that Khan expected from the new rulers. For Khan, this meant that the British
colonial authorities had to recognise the special needs and interests of Muslims
(and also Hindus) in the new order. So, also in this text, Khan (2000: 22, 44–5,
51) demanded non-interference in religious matters, special consideration for
employment in government service and separate cooks for Muslims and Hindus
in the military regiments. It would appear that what I refer to as criticism seems
mild in the context of colonialism and the economic control of India’s resources.
But the substantial argument presented here is that Khan expected particular
rights for religious groups from the British. In the framework of a critique of
British policy, Khan demanded very narrowly defi ned religious rights.
Khan’s ideas implied a construction of Muslim identity in the British colonial
order that took two distinct forms. On the one hand, Islam as universal and indis-
tinguishable from the natural order posited a framework for a new politics, and
a new basis of human society. Personifi ed in science, the new natural identity of
Islam may be regarded as a submergence (even dissimulation) of the Muslim iden-
tity within the new universal order led by the British colonial rulers. This univer-
sal identity emerged in a critique of the existing Muslim society and its history of
theology and Quran commentary. Such a legacy could not claim a special place
in this universal framework unless it was transformed. But, within this universal
political order, Khan made a claim against the British as well. And this claim was
formulated in favour of Muslim interests that were very narrowly defi ned. The
second critique, again directed at the British, supported Muslim identities in their
most particular forms (food and ritual requirements). But this critique supported
a distinctively personal Muslim identity within a universal framework. And the
two movements were not reconciled in any way. The critique of the Muslims was
balanced uncomfortably with the critique of the British.
Other reformist Muslim intellectuals appearing at the end of the nineteenth
century produced similar possibilities for identities. The political contexts of
these countries varied considerably, and thus the double critical movements
against the local traditions, and against colonial political practices, were not
exactly the same in Iran, Egypt, Tunisia and Nigeria, as they were in India. But
the primacy of reason among the modernists promoted a bid for universalism.
Islam was a universal order that Muslims should embrace, with the implication
that they participate fully in the new political projects as equals with the colo-
nialists and other groups. At the same time, in their critique of the colonising
other, the Muslim modernists restored the Muslim in his and her uniqueness.
Usually, this implied that Muslims drew their inspiration from the very sources
and histories that were unsettled and undermined in the fi rst movement. The
double, often contradictory, projects were bequeathed to the Islamists, who in
turn followed in their steps.