·
Double-movement between the
local cultures of South Asia and the universal norms of Islam
·
The religious traditions of
Muslim newcomers were really not so foreign—thus they were actually conceived
simply as another ethnicity, incorporated into the organic social/ethnic strata
(caste system)
o
Thus the ease and interplay
of conversions
o
Thus the organic religious
and cultural syncretism
·
Despite this, colonial and
post-colonial discourse view them strictly as religiously and culturally
foreign
o
This would influence the
discourse among Muslims and Hindus themselves
·
Islam in India cannot be
separated from its Indian context—it is distinct from the Islam of any other
context
o
The desire of Indian
Muslims to ground themselves in the middle east is born of the colonial
discourse; the failure of them to truly connect to the geographical home of
Islam is born of their history
·
Orientalist scholars,
colonial administrators, religious reformers, and nationalist historians—each
with their own agenda—have made strenuous efforts to establish such dichotomies
and project them backwards in time
o
The two-nation approach
assumes too much fixedness
·
The particularity of the
Indo-Islamic tradition: cannot be
properly understood outside of its historical context
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