HAJJ, AUTHORITY, AND JIHĀD: THE HAJJ AS SOCIAL MOBILISATION IN THE MOVEMENT OF SAYYID AḤMAD BARAYLVĪ

Abstract

This article attempts to evaluate Sayyid Aḥmad Baraylvī’s performance of Hajj in 1821-24 as an empirical event in the ideological and organisational history of his reformist-jihād movement. Based on the Waqā’i‘-i-Sayyid Aḥmad, Urdu tazkirah, and modern scholarship, it suggests that pilgrimage was not only fulfilling a religious obligation but also a strategy of networks and charismatic accumulation. Using Green’s approach to itinerancy as a system of religious circulation, the paper suggests how the path between Rāe Barēlī and Calcutta and onward to the Ḥijāz enabled Sayyid Aḥmad to expand his sphere of influence, establish centres of recruitment, appoint khulafā’, and bring fragmented followers together into a trans-regional community of devotion. The article adds insight into the role of authority, travel, and reform in early nineteenth-century South Asian Islam by foregrounding Hajj as a catalyst of circulatory charisma and organisational formation.