ENGLISH

Making a Muslim: Reading Publics and Contesting Identities in Nineteenth-Century North India

By S. Akbar Zaidi

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
2021
ISBN
1108490530, 9781108490535
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
2 MB (2000967 bytes)
Pages
266\270
Topic
Religion
Time added
2024-10-05 11:51:43
islam; islamic; deen; deeni; quran; qur'an; koran;

Description

Using primarily Urdu sources from the nineteenth century, this book allows us to rethink notions of 'the Muslim', in its numerous, complex and often contradictory forms, which emerged in colonial North India after 1857. Allowing the self-representation of Muslimness and its manifestations to emerge, it contrasts how the colonial British 'made Muslims' very differently compared to how the community envisaged themselves. A key argument made here contests the general sense of the narrative of lamentation, decay, decline, and a sense of self-pity and ruination, by proposing a different condition, that of zillat, a condition which gave rise to much self-reflection resulting in action, even if it was in the form of writing and expression. By questioning how and when a Muslim community emerged in colonial India, the book unsettles the teleological explanation of the Partition of India and the making of Pakistan.

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