After the Indian Mutiny of 1857 in which Muslims of India played a predominant role, the British tasked a Civil Servant William Wilson Hunter to submit a report on whether the Indian Muslims were "bound in Conscience to rebel against the Queen"? W.W. Hunter completed his report which subsequently became an influential work titled "The Indian Musalmans." In it, W.W. Hunter advanced the pragmatic view that a religious argument, or fatwa, could be used in favor of Her Majesty's Government as much as against it.