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URDU-SPEAKING PEOPLES 825
gamous (although there are some hypergamous marriages among ashraf) with
interdining prohibitions and restricted mobility. Despite the often-quoted adage
concerning the greater degree of social mobility among Muslims than among
Hindus ("We used to be butchers and now we are Shaikhs; next year if the
harvest prices are good for us, we shall be Sayyids"), the fact remains that there
is considerable social stratification based upon birth and a corresponding continuity
of occupation based upon caste identity.
While among the ashraf, religious identity is marked by a cultivated style
incorporating certain Islamic virtues, among the a/7a/Islamic identity is expressed
through popular piety. Examples of this include discipleship of Sufi saints and
pilgrimages to their dargahs or tombs. The ritual at Sufi shrines, with offerings
of food, flowers and incense, resembles similar rituals at Hindu temples. These
syncretic observances, in which an essentially Hindu ritual has been endowed
with Islamic meaning, give vital evidence of the process of conversion to Islam
in India. These practices are not found uniquely among convert groups, for the
ashraf also participate in them as both patrons and as worshippers.
The ashraf enjoyed a sense of political entitlement derived from a long tradition
of military and administrative service, first to the various Indo-Muslim rulers
and then, after the collapse of the Moghul Empire, to the British. It has often
been claimed that Muslim officials were ruined by the British takeover, but this
was far from the case in north India. The Urdu-speaking ex-Moghul officialdom
retained its prominence in the legal profession and in education in the U.P. and
the Punjab until the beginning of the twentieth century. Under the guidance of
Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Aligarh College, the Urdu-speaking Muslim elites
of north India sought to retain their position of political and administrative
importance by reconciling their Islamic and Moghul culture with English education.
The Aligarh movement was a political as well as an educational movement.
Through the medium of English education, the Muslim elite sought access to
the new corridors of power in order to maintain not only their material interests
but also their cultural heritage, including the Islamic religion and Urdu language
and literature.
A somewhat different educational movement was led by the ulama of Deoband,
who founded a religious school designed to revitalize Islamic learning among
north Indian Muslims. They also sought to Islamize the religious practices of
all strata of Muslim society via an active program of proselytization and Urdu
publication.
Aligarh and Deoband both gave currency to Urdu as a medium of modern
communication. Urdu is an Indo-lranian language developed during the 500year
period of Muslim rule from the Hindi vernacular spoken in the Delhi region,
heavily laden with Persian and Arabic words and written in the Persian script.
Persian was the language of the court, but Urdu was the lingua franca, providing
a means of communication among the court, the army (Urdu means "language
of the camp") and the population. As the Moghul court declined, so, too, did
the use of Persian, and Urdu gradually gained standing in the eighteenth and