Trustee, Mutawalli, Qayyim: Contesting Authorities in a Colonial Court

Author: Huzaifa Taquee

As the British colonial empire expanded across South Asia in the 18th century to the mid 1900’s, they encountered various different religious communities each with their own legal system, customs, and practices. In efforts to effectively adjudicate among them while also maintaining their jural sovereignty, British officials produced unprecedented and anomalous law codes and legal systems. Anglo-Mohammedan law, a product of the continuous synthesis between English legal procedure and Islamic substantive law, is such an example. Likewise, the colonial empire’s secular principles of governance necessitated a divide between state and religious authority. This principle was implemented as a state non-interference policy which was constantly invoked and contested by religious communities when they felt the state was interfering in their affairs. Waqf regulation and administration was one area of law that was particularly contentious. The limits of state control over waqf management were constantly debated throughout British India’s two-century long history. Against this backdrop, this paper finds that the nature of colonial governmentality is such that when state authority is challenged by religious authority, the bounds of the state’s non-interference policy are blurred. This results in court pronouncements on religious beliefs, tenets, and laws as being ‘unfounded’, ‘unsatisfactory’ and opposing public policy. This paper will demonstrate these findings through a close reading of the early 20th century “Chandabhai Gulla Case’s” court records. In particular it will illustrate how deliberations over jural terminology, such as trustee, mutawalli, and qayyim, seriously vexed colonial officials and ultimately limited the scope of religious authority.