Who are the Bengal Muslims? What are their social origins? How do they define their linguistic and regional identity? These questions are pertinent to an understanding of the contemporary debates, especially in Bangladesh, on what being a ‘Muslim’ and a ‘Bengali’ mean. The essays in this volume offer interesting insights into the social and cultural processes which contributed to the making of this community, the second largest Muslim ethnic population in ...
India's Muslim communities, comprising almost one hundred and forty million people, have significant political, cultural, and religious identities in contemporary times. The processes of their emergence, formation, and the articulation of community identities, before and after independence, have been researched and interpreted in many ways by scholars. This omnibus brings together three analytical frameworks--the empathetic view to identity formation, the ...