A Manual for Living Together
The Adab Rule of Maulānā Ashraf ‘Alī Thānavī
Abstract
This paper is a systematic discussion of Ādāb al-Mu‘āsharat (Proper Decorum for Living Together) written in 1913 by one of the foremost Deobandi Sufi scholars of twentieth-century South Asian Islam, Maulānā Ashraf ‘Alī Thānavī. In it, he resuscitates the Proper Decorum for Living Together as an essential but forgotten dimension of the Islamic religion” (dīn). I discuss the text at length and offer selections from the 120 concrete and practical ādāb rules the author prescribes for social life and interpersonal interaction. My presentation of the text is followed by highlights and commentary in which I situate this text within South Asian Islam, Islamic intellectual life, and the study of Islamic and religious ethics. I conclude by discussing the text’s contemporary and comparative relevance and significance. Ultimately, this article is an exercise in textual theology and ethics within an Islamic context, in which a close reading of a rich text is shown to elicit resources for thinking through issues of contemporary concern and relevance.
Keywords: etiquette; sociability; interpersonal sphere; textual theology; ethics; ādāb rules
Metadata Record
References 45
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