Shivaji is a well-known hero in western India. He defied Mughal power in the seventeenth century, established an independent kingdom, and had himself crowned in an orthodox Hindu ceremony. The legends of his life have become an epic story that everyone in western India knows, and an important part of the Hindu nationalists' ideology. To read Shivaji's legend today is to find expression of deeply held convictions about what Hinduism means and how it is opposed to Islam. James Laine traces the origin and development if the Shivaji legend from the earliest sources to the contemporary accounts of the tale. His primary concern is to discover the meaning of Shivaji's life for those who have composed-and those who have read-the legendary accounts of his military victories, his daring escapes, his relationships with saints. In the process, he paints a new and more complex picture of Hindu-Muslim relations from the seventeenth century to the present. He argues that this relationship involved a variety of compromises and strategies, from conflict to accommodation to nuanced collaboration. Neither Muslims nor Hindus formed clearly defined communities, says Laine, and they did not relate to each other as opposed monolithic groups. Different sub-groups, representing a range of religious persuasions, found it in their advantage to accentuate or diminish the importance of Hindu and Muslim identity and the ideologies that supported the construction of such identities. By studying the evolution of the Shivaji legend, Laine demonstrates, we can trace the development of such constructions in both pre-British and post-colonial periods.

Making Place for Muslims in Contemporary India looks at how religion provides an arena to make place and challenge the majoritarian, exclusionary, and introverted tendencies of contemporary India. Places do not simply exist. They are made and remade by the acts of individuals and communities at particular historical moments. In India today, the place for Muslims is shrinking as the revanchist Hindu Right increasingly realizes its vision of a Hindu nation. Religion enables Muslims to re-envision India as a different kind of place, one to which they unquestionably belong. Analyzing the religious narratives, practices, and constructions of religious subjectivity of diverse groups of Muslims in Old Delhi, Kalyani Devaki Menon reveals the ways in which Muslims variously contest the insular and singular understandings of nation that dominate the sociopolitical landscape of the country and make place for themselves. Menon shows how religion is concerned not just with the divine and transcendental but also with the anxieties and aspirations of people living amid violence, exclusion, and differential citizenship. Ultimately, Making Place for Muslims in Contemporary India allows us to understand religious acts, narratives, and constructions of self and belonging as material forces, as forms of the political that can make room for individuals, communities, and alternative imaginings in a world besieged by increasingly xenophobic understandings of nation and place.

Networks, Labour and Migration among Indian Muslim Artisans provides an ethnography of life, work and migration in a North Indian Muslim-dominated woodworking industry. It traces artisanal connections within the local context, during migration within India, and to the Gulf, examining how woodworkers utilise local and transnational networks, based on identity, religiosity, and affective circulations, to access resources, support and forms of mutuality. However, the book also illustrates how liberalisation, intensifying forms of marginalisation and incorporation into global production networks have led to spatial pressures, fragmentation of artisanal labour, and forms of enclavement that persist despite geographical mobility and connectedness. By working across the dialectic of marginality and connectedness, Thomas Chambers thinks through these complexities and dualities by providing an ethnographic account that shares everyday life with artisans and others in the industry. Descriptive detail is intersected with spatial scales of ‘local’, ‘national’ and ‘international’, with the demands of supply chains and labour markets within India and abroad, with structural conditions, and with forms of change and continuity. Empirically, then, the book provides a detailed account of a specific locale, but also contributes to broader theoretical debates centring on theorisations of margins, borders, connections, networks, embeddedness, neoliberalism, subjectivities, and economic or social flux.

The author looks at a place where the conditions for religious conflict are present, but active conflict is absent, focusing on a Muslim majority Punjab town (Malkerkotla) where both during the Partition and subsequently there has been no inter-religious violence.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Note on Transliteration and Translation -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Frontier with the House of Gold -- Chapter 2. A Foundation for History -- Chapter 3. Dear Son, What Is the Matter with You? -- Chapter 4. A Demon with Ruby Eyes -- Chapter 5. The Half Smile -- Chapter 6. A Conquest of Pasts -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Acknowledgments -- Index

This book reconstructs Hindu–Muslim relations from a European standpoint. Drawing from the Indian context, the author explores options for Western Europe – a region grappling with the refugee crisis and populist reactions to the growth of Muslim minorities. The author shows how India can serve not only as a model but also as a warning for Europe. For example, European liberals may learn not only from the achievements of Indian secularism but also from its crisis. Based on extensive interviews with Indians from diverse backgrounds, from politicians to social activists and from the middle class to slum dwellers, the volume investigates a wide range of perspectives: Hindu and Muslim, religious and secular, moderate and militant. Relevant, engaging and accessible, this book speaks to a broad audience of concerned citizens and policy makers. Scholars of political science, sociology, modern history, cultural studies and South Asian studies will be particularly interested.

Slavery originated during the age of savagery and it was widely prevalent in ancient Egypt,Greece and Rome,centuries before the coming of Christ.Ancient India also had slaves but they were so mildly treated that foreign visitors like Megasthenes, who were acquainted with their fate in other countries,failed to notice the existence of slavery in this country.The present study documents for the first time the Muslim slave system as it obtained in medieval India under Muslim rule.

The work is unique in the sense that it has not only delved into historical antecedents of the contemporary attitudes of the new generation of Indian Muslims, but has also brought out their adjustment mechanisms and reactions to the demands which are made upon them from a section of the majority. For the understanding of different aspects of behaviour of the minority vis-a-vis the majority, the author has liberally drawn upon the relevant literature of three branches of social sciences, viz., Psychology, Sociology and Political Science. The studies of minority-majority relations elsewhere are referred to for making the reader aware that to a very large extent minorities, wherever they are found, behave in the similar way. Reviews “... The perspective offered by the author in the present study augurs well for the cause of nation-building in the specific context of the persisting and ever elusive communal problem in India.†Prof. Iqbal Narain “The publication is so fascinating that I read more than half by the time I reached Lucknow†. Prof. H.S. Asthana “The first full length study of the mass psychology of the Muslim mind after Mujib’s The Indian Musilms .... Qamar Hasan has used the tools of academic research to study the Muslim factor in Indian Politics... read it because it is a same voice in the madness all around. Tapan Basu, Sunday “The book clearly brings out reactions indicative of fear of domination and urge to dominate ... the book has made a definite contribution in the understanding of inter-and intra-group relationships.†Pramod Kumar “The author must be complimented for his bold and frank revelations about the attitudes of Muslims and Hindus towards each other, their self appraisals and their assessment.†Dr. K. Ravichandra, Review Projector, Vol. VIII, Nos. 10–12 “The causes and cures of the serious problems bedevilling relations between the Muslim minority in India and the Hindu majority badly need studying within a socio-psychological framework. Qamar Hasan is on the right track for a social scientist to throw light on the problems of his people, but he needs to settle on just one frame of reference and typology and then test some bolder hypotheses.’’

Dr Kozlowski's important study pioneers a fresh approach to the study of a critical Muslim institution: the endowments or awqaf which almost everywhere in the Islamic world provide support for mosques, schools and shrines. The wealthier Muslims who establish endowments inevitably have an eye on social, political and economic conditions and have traditionally used awqaf as part of an effort to preserve their wealth and influence, especially in periods of change and uncertainty. The book focuses on the use of endowments by Muslims suffering the dislocations caused by the imposition of British rule in India and examines in detail the social and political implications of the controversy over endowments that took place in the imperial courts and councils. The author's observations and insights can be applied to many periods and places in the Muslim world and his novel approach will attract all those interested in the study of Islam.