Muslim Reflections on Semitic Religions in Colonial India: Abdul Haleem Sharar's Historiographical and Moral Approach

التأملات الإسلامية حول الأديان السامية في الهند الاستعمارية: النهج التاريخي والأخلاقي لعبد الحليم شرار

Abstract

This study explores the historiographical and moral dimensions of Abdul Haleem Sharar's (1860–1926) lesser-known works, Tārīkh-e-Yahūdīyat and Masīh aur Masīhiyat, which provide a unique lens into Muslim engagements with Jewish and Christian histories during the colonial era. As a prominent Urdu writer, Sharar blended traditional Islamic scholarship with reformist ideals, using these narratives to reflect on the moral decline of Semitic religious communities as allegories for Muslim self-examination. Drawing from Islamic historians like Ibn Athir, Jewish chroniclers such as Josephus, and Western sources including Gibbon, Sharar constructed accessible and emotionally resonant histories that emphasized themes of unity, ethical integrity, and spiritual renewal. His intertextual approach avoided polemics, instead inviting introspection among Indian Muslims facing colonial disempowerment and internal divisions. Rooted in the adab tradition, Sharar's prose served as a tool for cultural revival, positioning history as a site of memory, identity, and moral struggle. By comparing prophetic traditions across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, he highlighted communal trajectories of rise and fall, urging Muslims to learn from past failures to foster unity and reform. This article argues that Sharar's work represents a vital contribution to Indo-Muslim moral historiography, treating him as a thinker invested in post-Mughal Muslim consciousness. Through close textual analysis and historical contextualization, it demonstrates how his narratives function as mirrors of decline and guides for ethical reform, enriching our understanding of Muslim intellectual responses to colonialism and interreligious dialogue in South Asia.