Islamic and Islamicate South Asia has become a focal point in academia, esp. since 9/11. Where did South Asian Muslims come from? How did they fare in interacting with Hindu cultures? How did they negotiate identity as ruling and ruled minorities and majorities? Islam in South Asia aims to synthesize the long history of Islam as an intrinsic part of Indian society seeing the vantage point of such a complex history as a series of cultural encounters that were mutually energizing.

Part I covers early Muslim expansion and the journey of the Arabs into South Asia and their formative phase in context of initial cultural encounter which produced a unique blend of Islamicated culture (app. 700–1300). Part II views the establishment of Muslim empire, cultures oscillating between Islamic and Islamicate, centralized and regionalized power, when Muslims became part of the Indian social fabric embodying cultural change through new urban centers and intellectual hubs as well as the expanding agricultural societies (app. 1300–1700). The third cluster is composed in the backdrop of regional centralization, territoriality and colonial rule, displaying processes of integration and differentiation, of marginalisation and privatisation of Muslim cultures in colonial setting, that helped the cause of masculinized Islam to create new forms of socialization which threatened to tear apart the tradition of tolerance in Muslim societies (app. 1700–1930). Tensions between Muslim pluralism and singularity evolving in public sphere as religious identity politics in the period of high nationalism followed by post-colonial predicaments make up the fourth cluster (app. 1930–2002).

The book would interest all those interested in intellectual, cultural and social history of Muslim South Asia, and in history of religions, as well as social scientists, social and cultural anthropologists, theologians and Indologists.

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
List of Illustrations

Introduction

Part I: Early Muslim Expansion, Cultural Encounter and its Constituencies

1.  Muslim Expansion. Trade, Military and the Quest for Political Authority in South Asia
Excursus: Historiography and Sources

2. Muslim Space and Divines

Part II: The Establishment of Muslim Empire Cultures: Between Islamic and Islamicate

3. Slaves, Sultans and Dynasties
Excursus: Shi’ities and Sunnites

4. Muslim heterogeneity. Margins becoming centres of Muslim Power
Excursus: Caste

5. Cultural Integration towards a Politics of Universal Dominion.  The Mughals
Excursus: Conversion and Mission

6. From Universal Dominion to Principalities

Part III: Territorial States and Colonial Rule, Accommodation and Differentiation of Muslim Cultures

7.  Regional States, National Markets and European Expansion
Excursus: Islamic Endowments

8. Cultural encounter, Reciprocities, and Muslim responses

9. From Appropriation to Collision and Colonial Stabilisation
Excursus: The Language Issue – Urdu

10. Institutionalisation of Muslim Communities and the quest for a new Islamicity
Excursus: Communalism

Part IV: Negotiating Muslim Pluralism And Singularity

12. The Muslim Public Divided

13. The Integration of nation-state and secession
Excursus: Islamic Fundamentalism

14. From the pulpit to the parade ground
Excursus: The social Structure of Muslims in India

15. Indian Muslims or Muslim Indians?

Afterword

Select Bibliography
Glossary
Islam in South Asia – Select Overview

Index of Names
Index of Places, Rivers and Regions
Index of Keywords