Why did the famous North Indian modernist and founder of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh, Sayyid Aḥmad Khān (d. 1315/1898), lash out against emulation (taqlīd) in Islamic law (fiqh)? The usual explanation is that he wanted to shift religious authority away from the religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ) toward ordinary Muslims. Countering this claim, I argue that his goal and that of his followers and associates at Aligarh was not primarily to ‘democratize’ Islamic knowledge by doing away with the traditional edifice of Islamic law in general and the four established Sunni legal schools in particular. Rather, Sayyid Aḥmad Khān and his associates attacked taqlīd because, in their view, it failed to yield reliable, certain knowledge (yaqīn). Drawing on Urdu writings, I demonstrate that these modernist thinkers did not engage with the inner logic of Islamic law but rather measured it according to higher, theological, and philosophical standards. In their quest for certainty, they were inspired both by a scientific worldview as well as colonial conceptions of law.

为什么著名的北印度现代主义者和设在阿里加尔的穆罕默丹盎格鲁东方学院的创始人赛义德·阿迈德·汗（SayyidAḥmadKhān，卒于1315/1898年）强烈反对伊斯兰教法（fiqh）中的模仿（taqlīd）？通常的解释是，他想将宗教权威从宗教学者（ʿulamāʾ）转移到普通穆斯林身上。为了反驳这一主张，我认为他的目标以及他在Aligarh的追随者和同伙的目标主要不是通过消除一般的伊斯兰法传统建筑，尤其是废除四所建立的逊尼派法学院，来“民主化”伊斯兰知识。相反，赛义德·阿迈德·汗（SayyidAḥmadKhān）及其同伙袭击了塔克利德（taqlīd）因为在他们看来，它无法产生可靠的某些知识（yaqīn）。我借鉴乌尔都语著作，证明这些现代主义思想家没有参与伊斯兰法律的内在逻辑，而是根据更高的神学和哲学标准对其进行了衡量。在寻求确定性的过程中，他们受到了科学的世界观以及殖民地法律观念的启发。