The Dilemmas of the Pious Biographer: Missionary Islam and the Oceanic Hagiography

As Islam was transformed into a missionary religion in the modern sense around the turn of the twentieth century, three questions were faced by almost all writers called on to publicise the deeds of the new breed of mobile Muslim pietists: How can a biographer turn the often tedious chores of the missionary into exciting reading? How can the humdrum tasks of founding mosques and schools be turned into the narrative trappings of a Muslim hero? And how can a modern Muslim be portrayed as a saint without recourse to “superstitious” miracle stories? The essay addresses these questions through an examination of an Urdu biography written to publicise the deeds of an Indian Muslim missionary to South Africa. In view of the revival of interest in biography, through inspecting one such missionary organisation's understanding of the life of its founder, the essay explores the necessary compromises involved in writing a life at any given moment in history.