Hinduism and Islam are usually considered to be poles apart, especially on religious grounds. But in this work, the author has endeavored to demonstrate that in spite of sharp differences between them, they met on religious, commercial, intellectual and political levels both in and outside of India. Although orthodox Hinduism and orthodox Islam could hardly reconcile, it is shown here that they were bound to accommodate each other. However, the real fusion took place with the coming to India of a host of Sufis; especially the lives and conduct of the left wing mystics of both religions made the two peoples to come closer through Bhakti mysticism. Of the many Bhakta-Mystics who strove in this direction, Dr. Hedayetullah made a special study of kabir (d. 1518) who dedicated his whole life to the achievement of Hindu-Muslim unity on socio-religious levels. So far Kabir has not only been denied his rightful credit as an apostle of Hindu-Muslim unity, but he has also been misunderstood by many. In the present work, he is shown to have gained the place of honor between the two religions as a mediator and a harmonizer. His efforts were crowned with success-the resultant Indo-Islamic culture and civilization is a living proof.

Chiefly on Hindu-Muslim unity.

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. During the height of Muslim power in Mughal South Asia, Hindu and Muslim scholars worked collaboratively to translate a large body of Hindu Sanskrit texts into the Persian language. Translating Wisdom reconstructs the intellectual processes and exchanges that underlay these translations. Using as a case study the 1597 Persian rendition of the Yoga-Vasistha—an influential Sanskrit philosophical tale whose popularity stretched across the subcontinent—Shankar Nair illustrates how these early modern Muslim and Hindu scholars drew upon their respective religious, philosophical, and literary traditions to forge a common vocabulary through which to understand one another. These scholars thus achieved, Nair argues, a nuanced cultural exchange and interreligious and cross-philosophical dialogue significant not only to South Asia’s past but also its present.

Focuses on moments in world history when cosmopolitan ideas and actions pervaded specific Muslim societies and cultures, exploring the tensions between regional cultures, isolated enclaves and modern nation-states.

In The Summer Of 1999, While The Kargil War Was Being Fought, Amitava Kumar Married A Pakistani Muslim. That Event Led To A Process Of Discovery That Made Kumar Examine The Relationship Not Only Between India And Pakistan But Also Between Hindus And Muslims Inside India. The Result Is This Fiercely Personal Essay On The Idea Of The Enemy. Written With Complete Honesty And With No Claims To Journalistic Detachment, This Book Chronicles The Complicity That Binds The Writer To The Rioter. Unlike Both The Fundamentalists And The Secularists, Kumar Finds Or Makes Utterly Human Those Whom He Opposes. More Than A Travelogue Which Takes The Reader To Wagah, Patna, Bhagalpur, Karachi, Kashmir, And Even Johannesburg, This Book, Then, Becomes A Portrait Of The People The Author Meets In These Places, People Dealing With The Consequences Of The Politics Of Faith. With A Writer'S Eye For Detail, Kumar Has Drawn A Map Of Violence. Informed More By A Traveller'S Sense Of Observation Than A Safe, Academic Moralism, Husband Of A Fanatic Refuses To Monumentalize Suffering Instead, It Presents Tragedy As Ordinary, And Hence, More Difficult To Accept Easily. In A Village Beside The Ganges Near Bhagalpur, In A Psychiatric Ward In Srinagar, In A Classroom In Ahmedabad ... Everywhere That The Author Goes, The Reader Is Compelled To Accompany Him On A Journey To The Heart Of Hatred.

Gandhi, a devout Hindu, believed faith could nurture the civilizational harmony of India, a land where every religion had flourished. Jinnah, a political Muslim rather than a practicing believer, was determined to carve up a syncretic subcontinent in the name of Islam. His confidence came from a wartime deal with Britain, embodied in the 'August Offer' of 1940. Gandhi's strength lay in ideological commitment which was, in the end, ravaged by the communal violence that engineered partition. The price of this epic confrontation, paid by the people, has stretched into generations. M.J. Akbar's book, meticulously researched from original sources, reveals the astonishing blunders, lapses and conscious chicanery that permeated the politics of seven explosive years between 1940 and 1947. Facts from the archives challenge the conventional narrative, and disturb the conspiratorial silence used to protect the image of famous icons. Gandhi's Hinduism: The Struggle Against Jinnah's Islam delves into both the ideology and the personality of those who shaped the fate of a region between Iran and Burma. It is essential reading for anyone interested in modern Indian history, and the past as a prelude to the future.