Islam In South Asia In Practice (ebook)

Argumento de Islam In South Asia In Practice (ebook)

This volume of Princeton Readings in Religions brings together the work of more than thirty scholars of Islam and Muslim societies in South Asia to create a rich anthology of primary texts that contributes to a new appreciation of the lived religious and cultural experiences of the world's largest population of Muslims. The thirty-four selections--translated from Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Gujarati, Hindavi, Dakhani, and other languages--highlight a wide variety of genres, many rarely found in standard accounts of Islamic practice, from oral narratives to elite guidance manuals, from devotional songs to secular judicial decisions arbitrating Islamic law, and from political posters to a discussion among college women affiliated with an "Islamist" organization. Drawn from premodern texts, modern pamphlets, government and organizational archives, new media, and contemporary fieldwork, the selections reflect the rich diversity of Islamic belief and practice in South Asia. Each reading is introduced with a brief contextual note from its scholar-translator, and Barbara Metcalf introduces the whole volume with a substantial historical overview.

"[G]iving access to a wide-range of texts, Islam in South Asia in Practice as an anthology is a rich source of the study of modern/pre-modern South Asian Islam--its religious practices, institutions, and worldview. Islam in South Asia in Practice can better serve as an introduction as well as guide and reference book, respectively, to a wide-ranging texts and practices and scholarly debates and discussions on South Asian Islam. In sum, given the extensive variety of topics and issues and broad selection of themes and concerns it covers is a must read for all those students and scholars who are interested in the history of Islam in South Asia in general and 'in practice' in particular."--Tauseef Ahamd Parray, Islam and Muslim Societies Journal

"[Islam in South Asia in Practice] successfully achieves its place as both a challenge to the Orientalist models of scholarship of the past as well as makes accessible the arguments and primary sources to a larger audience. . . . [T]he overall quality and tone of the articles is one that . . . pushes the field in important and meaningful ways, but manages to do so in a manner that can play well in classrooms."--Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, Journal of Contemporary Asia

"Barbara Metcalf has helped transform the study of modern South Asian Islam by her insistence on close readings of texts; her attention to religious practice, institutions, and worldview; and her refusal to dismiss the concerns of South Asian actors. This edited volume, with its magisterial introduction, exemplifies these qualities while giving us access to a wide range of texts from throughout South Asia. She and her collaborators are owed great thanks."--Juan Cole, author of Engaging the Muslim World

"This is undoubtedly the richest collection of materials on South Asian Islam ever to be published in a single volume. What makes it so rich is its contributors' presentation and interpretation of primary texts, rather than any attempt to broach a synthetic narrative, however complex. This approach allows the book to be used in different ways: as an introduction to the wealth of Muslim texts and practices in South Asia, as a guide to scholarly debates on South Asian Islam, and as a reference. Barbara Metcalf's introduction is a masterpiece of lucid condensation."--Faisal Devji, New School

"This is a book of the first importance. It offers a way of engaging with Muslims and Muslim societies that takes them out of orientalist and political discourses and instead focuses on what Muslims actually say and do. It should form approaches to Islam among generations of students. Barbara Metcalf's masterly introduction gives the whole book a rich context infused with deep historical understanding."--Francis Robinson, University of London0Princeton Readings in Religions v
Note on Translation, Transliteration, and Acknowledgments vii
List of Illustrations xiii
Contributors xv
Preface: Islam in South Asia in Practice by Barbara D. Metcalf xvii
Maps xxvi

Introduction: A Historical Overview of Islam in South Asia by Barbara D. Metcalf 1
Devotion and Praise: To Allah, Muhammad, Imams, and Elders Introduction by Barbara D. Metcalf 43
Chapter 1: Satpanthi Ismaili Songs to Hazrat Ali and the Imams by Ali S. Asani 48
Chapter 2: The Soul's Quest in Malik Muhammad Jayasi's Hindavi Romance by Aditya Behl 63
Chapter 3: Pilgrimage to the Shrines in Ajmer by Catherine B. Asher 77
Chapter 4: Women's Grinding and Spinning Songs of Devotion in the Late Medieval Deccan by Richard Eaton 87
Chapter 5: Qawwali Songs of Praise by Syed Akbar Hyder and Carla Petievich 93
Chapter 6: Na't: Media Contexts and Transnational Dimensions of a Devotional Practice by Patrick Eisenlohr 101
Chapter 7: Shi'i Mourning in Muhurram: Nauha Laments for Children Killed at Karbala by Syed Akbar Hyder and Carla Petievich 113
Chapter 8: Islam and the Devotional Image in Pakistan by Jamal J. Elias 120

Holy and Exemplary Lives
Introduction by Barbara D. Metcalf 135
Chapter 9: Ibn Battuta Meets Shah Jalal al-Din Tabrizi in Bengal by Barbara D. Metcalf 138
Chapter 10: Narratives of the Life of Haider Shaykh in Punjab by Anna Bigelow 144
Chapter 11: The Daily Life of a Saint, Ahmad Sirhindi, by Badr al-Din Sirhindi by Carl Ernst 158
Chapter 12: Sufi Ritual Practice among the Barkatiyya Sayyids of U.P.: Nuri Miyan's Life and'Urs, Late Nineteenth-Early Twentieth Centuries by Usha Sanyal 166
Chapter 13: Transgressions of a Holy Fool: A Majzub in Colonial India by Nile Green 173

The Transmission of Learning
Introduction by Barbara D. Metcalf 187
Chapter 14: Saving Tamil Muslims from the Torments of Hell: Vannapparimalappulavar's Book of One Thousand Questions by Ronit Ricci 190
Chapter 15: The Taqwiyyat al-Iman (Support of the Faith) by Shah Isma'il Shahid by Barbara D. Metcalf 201
Chapter 16: The Brilliance of Hearts: Hajji Imdadullah Teaches Meditation and Ritual by Scott Kugle 212
Chapter 17: Studying Hadith in a Madrasa in the Early Twentieth Century by Muhammad Qasim Zaman 225
Chapter 18: Jihad in the Way of God: A Tablighi Jama'at Account of a Mission in India by Barbara D. Metcalf 240
Chapter 19: A College Girl Gives a Qur'an Lesson in Bangladesh by Maimuna Huq 250

Guidance, Sharia, and Law
Introduction by Barbara D. Metcalf 265
Chapter 20: Ibn Battuta as a Qadi in the Maldives by Barbara D. Metcalf 271
Chapter 21: Guiding the Ruler and Prince by Muzaffar Alam 279
Chapter 22: A Colonial Court Defines a Muslim by Alan M. Guenther 293
Chapter 23: Maulana Thanawi's Fatwa on the Limits of Parental Rights over Children by Fareeha Khan 305
Chapter 24: Shari'at Governance in Colonial and Postcolonial India by Ebrahim Moosa 317
Chapter 25: Two Sufis on Molding the New Muslim Woman: Khwaja Hasan Nizami (1878-1955) and Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927) by Marcia Hermansen 326
Chapter 26: Fatwa Advice on Proper Muslim Names by Muhammad Khalid Masud 339
Chapter 27: A Rallying Cry for Muslim Personal Law: The Shah Bano Case and Its Aftermath by Sylvia Vatuk 352

Belonging
Introduction by Barbara D. Metcalf 371
Chapter 28: Forest Clearing and the Growth of Islam in Bengal by Richard Eaton 375
Chapter 29: Challenging the Mughal Emperor: The Islamic Millennium according to'Abd al-Qadir Badayuni by Ahmed Azfar Moin 390
Chapter 30: Custom and Conversion in Malabar: Zayn al-Din al-Malibari's Gift of the Mujahidin: Some Accounts of the Portuguese by Engseng Ho 403
Chapter 31: Muslim League Appeals to the Voters of Punjab for Support of Pakistan by David Gilmartin 409
Chapter 32: Advocating a Secular Pakistan: The Munir Report of 1954 by Asad Ahmed 424
Chapter 33: Maulana Yusuf Ludhianvi on the Limits of Legitimate Religious Differences by Naveeda Khan 438
Chapter 34: The Indian Jama'at-i Islami Reconsiders Secular Democracy by Irfan Ahmad 447

Glossary 457
Index 461