204 Claudia Preckel
reason for these debates was the question of authenticity and to dem-
onstrate one’s familiarity with the life, practice and utterings of the
Prophet. The discussion often even resulted in riots in several Indian
cities, as the Ḥanafīs dispelled the Ahl-i Ḥadīth from their mosques.^136
The Ahl-i Ḥadīth therefore started to build new mosques throughout
North India and from the 1870s onwards claimed that Ahl-i Ḥadīth
members should not pray behind a Ḥanafī imam.^137 Moreover, the
Ahl-i Ḥadīth demanded that men and women should bend their hands
on the chest or at the height of their navels (nāf ūpar), whereas the
Ḥanafīs said that only men should do so. Further debates between the
Ahl-i Ḥadīth and the Deobandīs arose on the question about the legiti-
macy of the Friday prayer (jumʿa). The Ḥanafīs claim that jumʿa could
only be held in towns with a congregational mosque (masjid-i jāmiʿ).
The Ahl-i Ḥadīth claimed that Friday prayers should be held even in
villages with a small Muslim population. They kept the view that the
number of believers in such a prayer was not fixed in Islamic tradi-
tions, and thus the jumʿa can be regarded as valid with e. g. three or four
believers. Another question that arose between the Ahl-i Ḥadīth and
the Ḥanafīs was that of the language of the sermon during the jumʿa,
called khuṭba. Whereas the Ḥanafīs said that a khuṭba should only
be held in Arabic, the Ahl-i Ḥadīth accept sermons either in Arabic,
Persian or Urdu.
6.3. Triple DivorceThe second controversy between Ahl-i Ḥadīth and the Ḥanafīs (again
including especially the Deobandīs) concerned divorce.^138 It is cor-
136 Metcalf, Islamic Revival, p. 152; see also Riexinger, Sanāʾullāh Amritsarī,
pp. 165–167.
137 Ibid., pp. 275, 282.
138 On this subject in general, see Rapoport, Yossef: Ibn Taymiyya on Divorce
Oaths, in: Michael Winter and Amalia Levanoni (eds.): The Mamluks in Egyp-
tian and Syrian Politics and Society, Leiden and Boston 2004, pp. 191–217; and
idem: Marriage, Money and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society, Cambridge
2005; El Azhary Sonbol, Amira: Women, the Family, and Divorce Laws in
Islam, Syracuse 1996. On India, see Ahmad, Furqan: Triple talaq. An Ana-
lytical Study, New Delhi 1994; Ahmad, Furqan and Ali, Firasat: Divorce in
Mohammedan Law. The Law of “Triple Divorce”, New Delhi 1988; and the
volume by Ahmad, Imtiaz (ed.): Divorce and Remarriage Among Muslims in
India, New Delhi 2003.
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