Sufi Traditions, Vijayanagara, and Mughal Rural Society

Posted on Jun 8, 2025 in Geography

Similarities and Differences Between Be-Sharia and Ba-Sharia Sufi Traditions

Meaning of Sharia: The Sharia is the law governing the Muslim community. It is based on the Qur’an and the Hadith, traditions of the Prophet including a record of his remembered words and deeds.

  1. Some mystics initiated movements based on a radical interpretation of Sufi ideals. Many scorned the khangah and took to mendicancy and observed celibacy. They ignored rituals.
  2. They observed extreme forms of asceticism. They were known by different names:
  3. Qalandars, Madaris, Malang, Haidari, etc. Because of their deliberate defiance of the Sharia, they were often referred to as be-sharia in contrast to the ba-sharia Sufis who complied with it.
  4. A group of religious-minded people called Sufis turned to criticism and mysticism in protest against the growing materialism of the caliphate as a religious and political institution. The Sufis sought an interpretation of the Qur’an based on their personal experiences. The Sufi tradition which were anti-Sharia (or the law governing the Muslim community) are called ba-sharia.

Similarities: Both Sufi traditions are critical of the dogmatic definitions and scholastic methods of interpreting the Qur’an and Sunna.

Accounts of Foreign Travelers About the City of Vijayanagara

  1. Colonel Colin Mackenzie: The ruins at Hampi were brought to light in 1800 by an engineer and antiquarian named Colonel Colin Mackenzie. An employee of the English East India Company, he prepared the first survey map of the site.
  2. Abdur Razzaq: Noted that between the first, second, and third walls there are cultivated fields, gardens, and houses.
  3. Domingo Paes: Observed: “From the first circuit of fortification to the city there is a great distance, in which are fields in which they sow rice and have many gardens and much water, in which water comes from two lakes.”

N.G. Ranga’s View on Minorities in Economic Terms

N.G. Ranga felt that minorities should be interpreted in economic terms because:

  1. According to N.G. Ranga, the real minorities were the poor and the downtrodden.
  2. The real minorities needed protection from zamindars and moneylenders and assurances of protection.
  3. In his opinion, it was meaningless for the poor people in the villages to know that they now had the fundamental right to live, to have full employment, or that they could have their meetings, their inferences, their associations, and various other civil liberties.
  4. According to him, it was essential to create conditions where these constitutionally enshrined rights could be effectively enjoyed. For this, they needed protection.
  5. They needed to be given representation to the Assembly.

The Condition of Agrarian Women in Mughal Rural Society

Role of Rural Women:

  1. They worked shoulder to shoulder in the fields.
  2. Men tilled and ploughed, while women sowed, weeded, threshed, and winnowed the harvest.
  3. Artisanal tasks such as spinning yarn, sifting and kneading clay for pottery, and embroidery were among the many aspects of production dependent on female labor.
  4. They even went to the houses of their employers or to the markets if necessary.
  5. They were child bearers in a society dependent on labor.
  6. Marriages in many rural communities required the payment of bride price rather than dowry to the bride’s family.
  7. Remarriage was considered legitimate.