Book Talk | Intra-Muslim Polemics in South India: Intimacies, Mass Publicity, and Secularism

The National Law School of India University (NLSIU) is organizing a book talk by Dr. Nandagopal R. Menon on his book ‘Intra-Muslim Polemics in South India: Intimacies, Mass Publicity, and Secularism‘. NLS Faculty Padmini Baruah will be the discussant.

About the book

How do we understand differences and disputes among various branches of Islam? This book places intimacies, rather than radical incompatibilities, at the centre of its in-depth ethnographic account of mass-publicized theological polemics among Sunni Muslims in the south Indian state of Kerala. What unites Muslims of different Sunni groups also divides them and incites polemics—Islam as a shared system of knowledge and practices, bonds of kinship and other social relations, and the common condition of being a beleaguered religious minority in a Hindu majoritarian democracy. Diverging from works that have focused on how Islamic practices like ritual prayers facilitate the fashioning of theologically grounded pious selves, the book argues that intra-Muslim polemics marginalize theology and have little to do with cultivating piety. Instead, polemics constitute inter- and intra-religious socialities, enable Muslims to articulate their connections to India and other imaginaries, and produce Islam as a public religion in a secular nation-state.

About the author

Dr. Nandagopal R. Menon is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Center for Modern Indian Studies (Cemis) of the University of Göttingen. His academic interests include religion, secularism, media and Islamic movements in south Asia. His research has appeared in edited volumes and journals such as History of Religions and Modern Asian Studies.