Intra-Muslim Polemics in South India : Intimacies, Mass Publicity, and Secularism

Menon, Nandagopal R.

Oxford University Press（2024/07発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 204 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780198903321

Full Description

How do we understand differences and disputes among various branches of Islam? This book places intimacies, rather than radical incompatibilities, at the centre of its in-depth ethnographic account of mass-publicized theological polemics among Sunni Muslims in the south Indian state of Kerala. What unites Muslims of different Sunni groups also divides them and incites polemics—Islam as a shared system of knowledge and practices, bonds of kinship and other social relations, and the common condition of being a beleaguered religious minority in a Hindu majoritarian democracy. Diverging from works that have focused on how Islamic practices like ritual prayers facilitate the fashioning of theologically grounded pious selves, the book argues that intra-Muslim polemics marginalize theology and have little to do with cultivating piety. Instead, polemics constitute inter- and intra-religious socialities, enable Muslims to articulate their connections to India and other imaginaries, and produce Islam as a public religion in a secular nation-state.

Contents

The Way In
1. For and Against Polemics
2. Polemics versus Apologetics: Intimacy and Publicity
3. Techniques of Authentication: Originals, Counterfeits, and Publics
4. Phatic Sociality: Voice and Strategy in Intra-Muslim Encounters
Longing for Theology