This study explores the semiotic development of Islamic nationalism as a form of political theology during its formative period of 1857-1947 as articulated in the writings of prominent Urdu-speaking theologians. The study presents Islamic nationalism as a project of Muslims’ collective emancipation from colonialism and the possible subjugation of Islam and Muslims to the post-colonial secular state. Islamic nationalism’s constructive task is to interpret Islamic symbols in political terms toward articulating a modern Muslim nationalism. Its critical task is to critique the modern ideas of secularism, nationalism, and colonialism, on the one hand; and Muslim history with respect to a historiography centered on the primacy of caliphate as a spiritual-political institution, on the other hand. Politically, Islamic nationalism seeks, albeit in modern forms, Muslims’ religio-cultural autonomy and/or political sovereignty. In semiotic terms, Islamic nationalism integrates the Islamic symbols of islām, God, Prophet Muhammad, the Qur'an, qaum, sharīʿat, millat, ummat, and khilāfat with the symbols of secular nationalism, namely, nation, freedom, equality, and popular sovereignty. The extent and nature of the integration is determined by the internal consistency of the Islamic symbolic system which requires the national symbols to be interpreted in light of Islam’s sacred symbols. Islamic nationalism thus amounts to the desecularization/decolonization of Muslim imagination and the public sphere. Among the different forms of Islamic nationalism, the study explores the proto-nationalist Sayyid Ahmad Khan; the proponents of a secular post-colonial India, Abul Kalam Azad and Jamʻiyyatul ʿUlamā Hind; the critics of secular nationalism, Muhammad Iqbal and Sayyid Abu’l Aʻlā Maududi; and the advocates of separatism Jamʻiyyat ʿUlamā-i Islām. The study concludes that, despite the diversity of approaches to Islam and nationalism, nearly four decades of political theology proved decisive in popularizing the idea that Muslim nationality (qaumiyyat) was based on religion, that Islam as the consummate religion brooked no division between private-religion and public-politics, and that the obligation to implement Islamic law and ethics (sharīʿat) necessitated territorial sovereignty.

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