The readings in this series are designed to cover important facets of Islam in South Asia, and to enhance our understanding of ‘Islam Observed’ and ‘Islam Interpreted’. The volumes will cover India’s encounter with the West; the search for an Islamic and secular identity in a colonial context; the intellectual struggle between the modernists and traditionalists for the Islamic heritage; the regional and social traditions hat have enabled Muslims to develop a composite personality; and the rise of Muslim nationalism leading to the creation of Pakistan. Literature, music, drama and wit and humour will be covered as well to illuminate aspects of social history. Volume I reveals, with the aid of travellers, novelists, missionaries and administrators , how the notion of a distinct and exclusive Muslim identity came to be invented in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The second half of this volume, based on scholarly writings, provides a corrective to these images and representations. Mushirul Hasan, the editor, reiterates in his introduction: ‘As a historian, my concern is to introduce, through this selection, the unity and variety of a religion that has had a long career in the subcontinent. I am equally concerned to dispel certain misleading notions about Islam and its followers. Indeed, this is an academic exercise that is designed, as it were, to set the record straight’. Islam in South Asia is an essential reference guide for scholars working on South Asia across cultures.
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