Community and Consensus in Islam, first published in 1989, represented a bold attempt to introduce the role of ideas in the interpretation of Indo-Muslim politics between 1860 and the Partition of India in 1947. It questioned the widely held view at the time that Indian Muslim politics of the period could be explained by reference to pragmatic interests alone. Instead, Farzana Shaikh argued that the influence of ideas rooted in Islamic tradition must form a crucial dimension of any wellgrounded explanation of the determinants of Indo-Muslim political practice.
In this masterful study the configurations of colonial politics in India are set against the backdrop of tensions between two contrasting intellectual traditions – the Islamic and the liberal-democratic – to show how their different assumptions about the proper ends of political action sharpened the opposition between diverse constitutional positions that led to Partition. Today it stands as a vital contribution to the debate about this momentous event.
This book will be of interest to historians of modern India and Islam as well as to students of contemporary Muslim politics.
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