The object of this paper is to analyze the ideas and criteria on which the status hierarchy among South Asian Muslims is founded. This question is a hotly debated one in Western acade mic circles as well as among Muslims themselves. Both tend, for ideological reasons, to build sharply contrasted models: equalita rian Islam opposed to hierarchical Hinduism. The contention of this paper is that both Muslim and Hindu society share basic pre conceptions about social hierarchy; it is erroneous and misleading to contrast them on this point. It is more rewarding to start from this basic homology in the social structure, and then to search for differences; such differences are to be found only at the top of the social hierarchy. As a consequence there is no reason to avoid the word «caste»: the Muslim society appears as a truncated caste system. The ethnographic material used in this paper is reinterpre ted in the light of medieval jurisprudence and of its reformula tions by modern reformers; it is contented that the medieval view of a hierarchical society has not been seriously challenged to this day.
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