The Shi‘a in Modern South Asia Religion, History and Politics

While most studies of Shi'i Islam have focused upon Iran or the Middle East, South Asia is another global region which is home to a large and influential Shi'i population. This edited volume establishes the importance of the Indian subcontinent, which has been profoundly shaped by Shi'i cultures, regimes and populations throughout its history, for the study of Shi'i Islam in the modern world. The essays within this volume, all written by leading scholars of the field, explore various Shi'i communities (both Isna 'Ashari and Isma'ili) in parts of the subcontinent as diverse as Karachi, Lucknow, Bombay and Hyderabad, as well as South Asian Shi'i diasporas in East Africa. Drawing from a range of disciplinary perspectives including history, religious studies, anthropology and political science, they examine a range of themes relating to Shi'i belief, practice, piety and belonging, as well as relations between Shi'i and non-Shi'i communities.

Preface; Introduction Francis Robinson; 1. Faith deployed for a new Shi'i polity in India Sajjad Rizvi; 2. The Isma'ili – Isna 'Ashari divide among the Khojas Michel Boivin; 3. Local nodes of a transnational network Muhammad Amir Ahmad Khan; 4. Shi'ism, humanity and revolution in twentieth-century India Justin Jones; 5. Universalising aspirations Soumen Mukherjee; 6. Travelling leaders and connecting print cultures Shireen Mirza; 7. Shari'a, Shi'as and Chishtiya revivalism Tahir Kamran and Amir Khan Shahid; 8. Third wave Shi'ism Simon Wolfgang Fuchs; Contributors; Index.

Justin Jones is Associate Professor in the Study of Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford. He works on Islamic societies in modern South Asia, and is the author of numerous publications including Shi'a Islam in Colonial India: Religion, Community and Sectarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Ali Usman Qasmi is Assistant Professor of History at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan. He is the author of Questioning the Authority of the Past: The Ahl al-Qur'an Movements in the Punjab (2011) and The Ahmadis and the Politics of Religious Exclusion in Pakistan (2014).