"Of all the studies of Anglo-Muhammadan law, this is the most innovative and illuminating. In shifting the scholarly gaze from how colonial authorities fashioned this law to how Muslim legal practitioners of varied backgrounds engaged with it, Sohaira Siddiqui transforms our understanding of Islamic legal thought and practice under colonial rule."--Muhammad Qasim Zaman, author of Islam in Pakistan: A History "This is the best book on Islamic law in South Asia in Western scholarship. Combining exceptionally sophisticated readings of Muslim scholarly texts with rigorous yet ingenious theorization of colonial power, Siddiqui fundamentally reorients our conception of the modern career of the Islamic legal tradition, in South Asia and beyond. A book of monumental significance that is as lyrically written as it is brilliant."--SherAli Tareen, author of Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire "Siddiqui offers the first in-depth study of the crucial role that Indian Muslim lawyers, judges, and jurists played in shaping the colonial administration of Islamic law. Through penetrating analysis across multiple languages and genres, she shows how these figures interwove colonial and Islamic epistemologies in ways that remain deeply relevant today."--Julia Stephens, author of Governing Islam: Law, Empire, and Secularism in Modern South Asia.