ISLAMIC CULTURES IN EAST AND SOUTH ASIA (Special issue of Asian Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1; Guest editor: Maja Veselič) (original) (raw)

Islamicate Traditions in South Asia: Themes from Culture & History

The Islamicate traditions of South Asia, a unique phenomenon resulting from the cohabitation and mutual influences of non-Muslim and Muslim societies, are the focus of the fourteen articles presented in this volume. The texts, written by invited specialists in different fields, cover a large array of themes. The main issues discussed by the authors refer to the widely understood cultural environment of South Asian Muslims, including their language, literature, history, thought and traditions. Divided into four sections ("Places & Images", "People", "Ideas & Notions", and "History & Language"), the volume also presents different research directions and methods followed by leading scholar authorities investigating various aspects of the Muslim presence and Muslim-influenced heritage in South Asia. This book is important for those who are dealing with the problematic of Islam and Islamicate cultural traditions in the form in which these features are present in the vast and differentiated area of South Asia. It will also prove to be a useful reference tool for students of humanities in general, and of South Asian studies in particular, especially those interested in Muslim history, culture and literature. Moreover, it should be helpful in researching the questions of intercultural communication as well as studying the confluences of cultures and languages not necessarily and exclusively in the South Asian context.

Reflections on Islam in the Asian continent

In the following paper I will attempt to look at how Islam arrived in three differ regions of the Asian continent: South Asia in the case of Pakistan, Central Asia represented by Uzbekistan and South East Asia symbolized by Malaysia and Indonesia, and settled down with time and how it is perceived and lived by the local population. A common denominator of these countries is the purity of their belief, meaning the strong identification they have towards the pure Islam. Unfortunately this concept is expressed in Pakistan by a certain amount of violence towards the other. The other here, meaning anyone not Sunni. Thus, the Shiite and the Christians have been unduly victimized by the majority of people of Taliban obedience. In Uzbekistan, Islam has been muzzled and subdued over decades during the Soviet years and mosques were turned in youth centers like the famous Mir al-Arab one, and religion was made to become a mere folklore. Today, there is in Uzbekistan a religious renewal, in spite of the fact that the regime in place is secular and atheist and is a mere mirror image of the Soviet era, trying to keep religion at bay. In Malaysia and Indonesia, there is an interesting version of Islam: open, tolerant and progressive, worth studying and imitating. Indeed, the constitutions of these countries have inscribed in gold freedom of belief and religion and equality before law to all citizens. As a result of that, these two countries are emerging and flourishing economies that have achieved a notable success in their area, and they are the home of millions of devout Muslims that practice pure and tolerant religion away from any extremism that has marred many other Muslim countries around the world.

Aspects of Islam in Asia Part 2: Islam in Action

An in-depth analysis on how Islam arrived in three different regions of the Asian continent and is now perceived and lived by the local populations, with a common denominator being the purity of their belief and the strong identification they have towards Islam.

Neither global nor local: Reorienting the study of Islam in South Asia

Asian Journal of Social Science, 2023

The framework of ‘lived Islam’ overshadows the study of Islam in South Asia, presupposing a ‘local Islam’ against a ‘global Islam’. In the post-9/11 context, the global is immediately associated with the political and the political with the undesirable. On the other hand, the local is portrayed as peaceful, accommodative and, hence, desirable. Such teleological approaches produce a priori desire for the local and undermine the political, foreclosing Muslim political legitimacy. By shifting attention to the Muslim movements in Kerala, I emphasise the significance of the political and jurisprudence in the exploration of Muslim lives. I conclude that while the Muslim subjectivity is decisively framed within the constraints of security concerns, Hindu sensibility and modern citizenship, jurisprudence enables the Muslim subject to engage substantially within and beyond these constellations of power, imagining a sovereign register of Islamic ethos.

Islam and the Three Waves of Globalisation: The Southeast Asian Experience

Islam and Civilisational Renewal, 2010

This article is intended to comment on the civilisational history of Islam in Southeast Asia. The history is explained and accounted for in terms of the three major waves of globalisation that have impacted the region since the arrival of Islam as early as the eleventh century. The first wave, itself initiated and dominated by Islam, was responsible for the introduction and establishment of Islam in the region to the point of becoming its most dominant civilisation. The expansion of Islam and its civilisation was in progress when the second wave hit the shores of the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago with the arrival of the Portuguese and other Western powers resulting in the colonisation of the region. The third wave, an American-dominated one, manifests itself in the post-colonial period which witnesses Southeast Asian Islam reasserting itself in various domains of public life. The author sees Southeast Asian Islam as the historical product of centuries-long civilisational encounters w...

Traditions and Tensions: Islam in Modern South Asia

The Marginalia Review of Books, 2022

A critical review essay for the Marginalia Review of Books on SherAli Tareen's pathbreaking study, Defending Muhammad in Modernity. The first section elaborates how turning to other sources and scenes of intra-Muslim factionalism nuances Tareen's account of sectarian formation. Sources such as Sufi correspondence and conversations (maktubat and malfuzat, respectively), flesh out the sensibilities that were being formed in and through, but also alongside, discursive developments in theological polemics. This is another way of attending to what Talal Asad calls the sensible body and the forms of life embedded in the grammar of tradition. The second part turns to Tareen’s critique of binaries and his claim that the use of binary logics is also connected to scholars’ (often-implicit) secular liberal assumptions. Here, I question how he approaches binaries in his sources and how he reads the work of historian Barbara Metcalf. Finally, I identify some areas of research that this book opens for future scholarship on intra-Muslim differences in modern South Asia and in the South Asian diaspora.