Jeffrey A. Redding's A Secular Need is an important addition to the burgeoning scholarship on Islamic law and secularism in India. The continued relevance of such a topic cannot be overstated, especially in light of the ongoing state-sanctioned violence against Muslim bodies, sentiments, institutions, and places of worship. The central argument of this book hinges on an intriguing paradox: secular law and governance in postcolonial India are both dependent on and have an agonistic relationship with nonstate Islamic legal institutions known as dar ul qazas. Redding interrogates this dependency in five richly nuanced and thoroughly researched chapters. His aim in this book is not to offer a solution to the problems and underlying inconsistencies in Indian secularism, but to highlight the ways in which the Indian state and the dar ul qazas are knotted in a “complicated relationship of hate, love, and need” (p. 15; emphasis in original).
Dar ul qazas are nonstate Islamic legal institutions that frequently deal with divorce petitions brought forth by Muslim women. They are crucial spaces not only for Muslims seeking redressal, but also for relieving the burden on the state's formal legal system, which by some estimates has the largest backlog of court cases in the world. Dar ul qazas thus perform an important material function, and in some cases, they are even legitimized by state courts. Despite secular law's need for the Islamic nonstate, Redding argues, the dar ul qaza network has consistently confronted an issue that the plethora of other nonstate legal spaces in India have not—namely, a pervasive anti-Muslim sentiment that is, at the very least, seven decades old.
One of the key strengths of the book is its interdisciplinary methodology—a combination of archival research that analyzes a vast legal archive consisting of court and government opinions, legal petitions and counterpetitions, and journalistic stories, as well as statistical and ethnographic methods. Redding provides a close reading of a few case studies—drawn from northern and eastern India where the dar ul qaza network is particularly strong—instead of glossing over numerous cases (for which he provides statistics in chapter 1), thereby capturing the detail and nuance of the complexity that is at the heart of his main argument.
In chapter 1, Redding traces the historical background for the emergence of dar ul qazas. He shows how contemporary claims that dar ul qazas are opposed to the Indian state represent an ironic disconnect from the history of these Islamic institutions, which were established by staunch anticolonial nationalists such as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in the early twentieth century. This chapter goes on to show, through an analysis of two Islamic divorce cases, how the state judiciary can also endorse the judgments of dar ul qazas.
Chapter 2 convincingly demonstrates the Indian state's simultaneous dependence on and resentment toward Islamic nonstate legal entities by detailing the constitutional controversy surrounding a petition filed by a private attorney to the Supreme Court in 2005. The petition argued that the continued presence of dar ul qazas could lead to a breakdown of the state's judicial system and, eventually, Indian secularism itself. The petition, mired in negative stereotypes of the Muslim community, ultimately rested on the grounds that the Indian Constitution should be the sole source of legal authority (p. 63).
Chapter 3 first highlights the problems with “rule of law ideology” and the way it often (implicitly) places state courts on a higher pedestal than nonstate legal venues (pp. 80–87). The chapter then shifts to an ethnographic register and focuses on the divorce case of Ayesha, a Delhi-based Muslim woman who petitioned a dar ul qaza twice to dissolve her marriage. By paying close attention to Ayesha's case and her travails, Redding presents a compelling analysis of how state and nonstate legal venues can be remarkably similar and procedural. He asserts that “rule of law” advocates often end up otherizing and marginalizing nonstate legal spaces, furthering his thesis about the interplay between secular need and hate.
Chapters 4 and 5 provide in-depth analysis of the complicated landscape of Islamic divorce and the (il)legitimacy of state and nonstate legal spaces, respectively.
While the first five chapters focus on the ideological and material dimensions of the secular need for the Islamic nonstate, the conclusion pivots to the affective dimension. Given that the idea of “secular need” (and therefore hate and love) that anchors the book is vitally concerned with feelings, emotions, and sentiments, the affective dimension could have been woven more strongly throughout the chapters instead of relegating it solely to the conclusion.
Redding's research brings a much-needed contemporary focus to the workings of secularism and Islamic law while situating the tensions and paradoxes he explores within a longer historical durée. The timing of his contribution is also important, coming at a particularly charged moment in Indian political and social life where lynchings, mosque demolitions, the passing of anti-Muslim laws, and the selective criminalization of Muslims have become worryingly routine. Redding astutely captures how such long-standing anti-Muslim sentiments are mirrored in the state's legal system, making this book essential reading for anyone interested in current debates on a range of interconnected topics: the ambiguities of secular law, Islamic divorce, constitutionalism, religious nationalism, and legal pluralism.
