1st Edition
Muslim Communities and Cultures of the Himalayas Conceptualizing the Global Ummah
This book chronicles individual perspectives and specific iterations of Muslim community, practice, and experience in the Himalayan region to bring into scholarly conversation the presence of varying Muslim cultures in the Himalaya.
The Himalaya provide a site of both geographic and cultural crossroads, where Muslim community is simultaneously constituted at multiple social levels, and to that end the essays in this book document a wide range of local, national, and global interests while maintaining a focus on individual perspectives, moments in time, and localized experiences. It presents research that contributes to a broadly conceived notion of the Himalaya that enriches readers’ understandings of both the region and concepts of Muslim community and highlights the interconnections between multiple experiences of Muslim community at local levels.
Drawing attention to the cultural, social, artistic, and political diversity of the Himalaya beyond the better understood and frequently documented religio-cultural expressions of the region, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Anthropology, Geography, History, Religious Atudies, Asian Studies, and Islamic Studies.
List of figures
List of contributors
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
Language Abbreviations
1. Diversity, Continuity, and Disjuncture: Approaching Multivocal Perspectives on Being Muslim in the Himalaya
Jacqueline H. Fewkes and Megan Adamson Sijapati
2. Topiwalla Jinn and the Past-Times of Violence in Kashmir
Cabeiri deBergh Robinson
3. Everyday Religiosity and Extraordinary Experiences: Nepali Muslim Narratives of Hajj
Megan Adamson Sijapati
4. Portrait of an Indian Freedom Fighter: Munshi Abdul Sattar
Abdul Nasir Khan
5. Land of the Ungoverned: On the Historiography of Lawlessness at the Frontier of Empire
Jonah Steinberg
6. Perspectives: A Photo Essay
Jacqueline H. Fewkes and Megan Adamson Sijapati
7. "When a Woman is Educated in Islam": Conversations with Alima of Ladakh
Jacqueline H. Fewkes
8. Hindu Shopkeepers, Qur'anic Verses: Intersecting Practices Between Muslims and Hindus of Nepal
Mohd Ayub
9. The Social and Political Life of a Relic: The Episode of the Moi-e-Muqaddas Theft in Kashmir, 1963–1964
Idrees Kanth
10. "Himalayan Ummah" as a Meeting Point Between Various Islamic Cultures: The Case of Chinese Muslim Community Trading Interactions in Amdo
Marie-Paule Hille
11. Messy Narratives of Belonging: Hijrat and the Khache
Anisa Bhutia
Biography
Jacqueline H. Fewkes is Professor of Anthropology at the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, USA. She is also the author of Trade and Contemporary Society Along the Silk Road (Routledge, 2008) and Locating Maldivian Women’s Mosques in Global Discourses (2019).
Megan Adamson Sijapati is Professor of Religious Studies at Gettysburg College, USA. She is also the author of Islamic Revival in Nepal: Religion and a New Nation (Routledge, 2011) and co-editor of Religion and Modernity in the Himalaya (Routledge, 2016).
