Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Linda Benson, The Ili Rebellion: The 

Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang 

1944–1949 (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1990); Dru C. 

Gladney, Ethnic Identity in China: The Making of a Mus-

lim Minority Nationality (Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt 

Brace College Publishers, 1998).

K  138  

China

---

Chiragh Ali

 

(1844–1895)  19th-century Indian 

religious reformer and secularist thinker

Chiragh Ali was a Kashmiri Muslim who served in 

the British government of north i

ndia

 in his early 

career. In 1877, he was appointed to the court of 

the nizam (ruler) of Hyderabad, where he served as 

the revenue and political secretary. He was a close 

ally of s

ayyid

 a

hmad

 k

han

 (d. 1898), the leading 

advocate for modern Islamic reform in India after 

the 1857 uprising against British rule that resulted 

in the end of the m

Ughal

 

dynasty

 and marked 

the demise of Muslim rule in that land. Ali is best 

known for books and essays that articulated the 

Aligarh program for Islamic modernization in the 

late 19th and early 20th centuries. He maintained 

that the q

Uran

 was authoritative in matters of 

worship and morality but denied that it provided 

an infallible blueprint for government or legisla-

tion. He objected to British Orientalists, Chris-

tian missionaries, and Muslim traditionalists who 

claimed that Islam endorsed theocratic govern-

ment (the combination of religion and the state) 

and that Islamic law was unchangeable. Instead, 

he insisted that Islamic government and the 

sharia

 were largely human creations that adapted 

to changing historical circumstances in different 

localities. His interpretation of 

Jihad

 was that it 

was a defensive strategy used by m

Uhammad

 and 

the first Muslims when threatened with attack; 

it was never intended to legitimate aggression in 

the name of religion. He was critical of British 

colonial rule in India, for he charged them with 

having turned the country into a great prison—a 

situation that would only bring about the “decay” 

of the people. He called for political liberty and 

thought it could best be achieved under the sov-

ereignty of the Ottoman 

sUltan

, who at that time 

was trying to resuscitate the Ottoman Empire in 

order to hold off the European powers. This does 

not mean that he wanted a return to the old ways 

of Muslim rule in India, however. He charged that 

traditional Islamic legal rulings concerning gov-

ernment, slavery, concubinage, marriage, divorce, 

and the status of non-Muslims were not suited to 

the needs of modern Muslims, and he called for 

their revision or elimination. Ali recognized that 

his views were controversial but believed they 

provided a basis upon which Muslims could erect 

a platform for progressive change and freethink-

ing in the modern era. His life’s work, therefore, 

contributed significantly to the formation of the 

modern Islamic liberal tradition in South Asia.

See also  o

rientalism

;  o

ttoman

 

dynasty

; 

reneWal

 

and

 

reForm

 

movements

; 

secUlarism

.