Notes on Publishing Books (24): Print Media and the Reconfiguration of Sectarian Controversies in the Indian Subcontinent—A Case Study of Tuḥfa-yi ithnā ‛asharīyya, Ṣawārim al-ilāhīyyāt, and Ḥusām al-Islām
Document Type : pajoohesh
Author
10.22081/jap.2026.80494
Abstract
This study examines the role of print media in transforming sectarian controversies between Shiites and Sunnis in the Indian subcontinent, focusing on the place of three works—Tuḥfa-yi ithnā ‛asharīyya, Ṣawārim al-ilāhīyyāt, and Ḥusām al-Islām—in the emergence of the earliest print-based rivalries between the two religious communities. Adopting a descriptive-analytical method and drawing on bibliographical sources, manuscripts, letterpress and lithographic editions, library catalogues, and historical documents, the study reconstructs the processes through which these works were composed, printed, disseminated, translated, and answered in polemical refutations. The findings indicate that although Tuḥfa-yi ithnā ‛asharīyya was composed in 1204/1789–1790, its circulation remained limited before its publication in 1215/1800–1801, and it elicited no substantial response from either Shiite or Sunni scholars. Once printed in Calcutta, however, the possibilities of mass reproduction and wide distribution transformed it into one of the most influential polemical texts of the thirteenth/nineteenth century, generating a wave of translations, reprints, supplements, and sectarian refutations. The most significant Shiite response was the publication of two works by Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī Naqawī, Ṣawārim al-ilāhīyyāt and Ḥusām al-Islām. These were printed in the same city and at the same printing house, in larger print runs than Tuḥfa-yi ithnā ‛asharīyya. This initiative demonstrates that sectarian rivalry moved beyond the realms of authorship and argumentation: print media itself became part of the polemical process and a means of consolidating religious identity, extending discursive influence, and displaying sectarian ascendancy. The study therefore concludes that during the first decades following the introduction of printing to the Indian subcontinent, print technology was not merely a vehicle for transmitting knowledge. It was an active agent in reconfiguring sectarian relations, organizing intellectual rivalries, and intensifying Shiite–Sunni controversies.
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