Religion and Ethnicity Among Muslims

The thematic focus of the present volume is an outcome of Dr. A.R. Saiyed’s long term engagement in the field of sociology of Islam and minority studies. There were two precursors in the choice of the subject, namely, his biographical locations at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi (a university that upheld the ideals of composite culture and ethnic pluralism in its educational theory and practice); and the University of Kentucky, USA (where he was inducted into the perspective of modernization as an inexorable transformative principle). The various articles in this volume on the forms and observances of syncretic Islam in India reflect Dr. Saiyed’s abiding commitment to examine sociologically the principle of composite culture. The volume’s focus on ethnicity and ethnic strife among Indian Muslims represents Dr. Saiyed’s conceptual trajectory that had its beginning in the perspective on modernization and its culmination in a sociological recognition of several ‘breakdowns’ in modern society. The volume is divided into two major sections: (a) Religion and society, and (b) Ethnicity and ethnic relations. These two sections are thematically linked in the sense that they together narrate the historical career of a community in the Indian subcontinent. The first section portrays how syncretic Islam, and not the pure scriptural Islam, formed the basis of religious observances of the Muslims. The second section focuses on various issues which were born when the experiment of building a modern nation or creating a modern personality began to slide under the burden of its own misconceptions and inadequacies.