Revival of Hadith Scholarship in Malabar from C.1850 until the Present Time: Isnad Networks, and Scholastic Contributions

While the revival of Ḥadīth scholarship in North India has drawn the attention of many scholars, it is usually ignored that the south of India also experienced a revival in Ḥadīth sciences in the course of the 19th century. This thesis studies the trajectory of Ḥadīth science in the Malabar region of south India in the modern period. Thus, it seeks to contribute to the institutional, intellectual, and social history of Ḥadīth sciences in Malabar. The thesis largely analyses the history of the Ḥadīth scholarship in the Malabar from the advent of Islam in Malabar to the modern period, but it focuses on the history of Ḥadīth science in the region from around 1850 to the current time. Drawing on historical records, I highlight the occurrence of an Islamic institutional and intellectual revival in South India starting from the late ninetieth century, and interpret how this revival resulted in the making of a relative upsurge in the production of Ḥadīth works in the Malabar in this period. I also notify the pivotal role of Vellore Bāqiyāt and Lateefiyya madrasas in this revival and their impact on the field of Ḥadīth. The thesis comprises an analysis of Isnād networks of Malabari scholars’, and it demonstrates that there is a continuation of Isnād based scholarship still in the Malabar, and it shows their great integrity and concern in the act of preserving and maintaining the Islamic tradition of Ijāzah and isnāds back to the Prophet. It also makes apparent the scholarly networks of Malabar scholars with the ‘ulema of the broader Ummah. I make a textual analysis of 11 scholarly Ḥadīth works by 10 different Malabari Ḥadīth scholars in this period to 5 distinct genres of Ḥadīth science. The thesis also interprets the different possible reasons for the revival of the Ḥadīth scholarship in the modern Malabar, along with the reasons for the relative less frequency of the Hadith contributions in Malabar in different periods.