Academic Works, Books, and Writings:
Ahmad, Aziz. An Intellectual History of Islam in India.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1969. Print.
The first five chapters describe various Islamic sects, including
Muslim interactions with Hindus. The first chapter entitled “Sunni
Orthodoxy” contains a subsection called “Modernity,” describing how Ahmad Khan
started the modernist movement in India. The subsection “Popular
and Syncretic Beliefs” in chapter five delineates common beliefs and cultural
synchronism between Muslims and Hindus during the time of the Mughal Empire.
Our group used this book to understand the religious and cultural influences of
both Muslims and Hindus on Indian society.
Ahmad, Syed Nesar. Origins of Muslim Consciousness in India: A
World-system Perspective. New York: Greenwood, 1991. Print.
This book presents the effects of colonialism and global conflict
throughout the 19th and 20th centuries on Hindus and Muslims in India, and the
growth of conflict between them. Nesar describes how British Imperialism in
India heightened the division between Hindus and Muslims, despite their shared
Indian heritage. This book also portrays
many of the positions taken by Hindus and Muslims before the partition:
Revivalists, nationalists, traditionalists, and more. We used this source to develop a typology of
various Indian opinions during the colonial period.
Desika Char, S.V. Hinduism and Islam in India: Caste, Religion,
and Society from Antiquity to Early Modern times. Princeton: Markus Wiener
Publishers, 1997. Print.
This book covers a wide variety of comparisons of Hinduism and
Islam in India including the caste system, economics, and politics throughout India’s
history. This book takes the Hindu perspective of how Hindus reacted to the
infiltration of Islam in India. It reveals
specific traditions, practices, and beliefs of Hindus and Muslims in India that
caused rifts between the two groups.
Gottschalk, Peter. Beyond
Hindu and Muslim: Mulitple Identity in Narratives from Village India. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000. Print.
This book helped our group take an
anthropological look at the cultural connection between Hindus and Muslims in
India by focusing in on one locality in India, Arampur Nexus. The book emphasized how researchers tend to
look for divisions between the two groups while forgetting their shared Indian
heritage. The ethnographer interpreted
the landscape of the town with a less divisive perspective, noting many of the
nuances of Indian identity and history.
Ikram, S.M. Muslim Civilization in India. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1969. Print.
This book helped our group understand Muslim Indian history from
the 8th century until the rise of British colonialism in India. Chapter nine of this book entitled “The
Interaction of Islam and Hinduism” outlined the presence of Islam in India from
the pre-modern era of 712-1526 A.D. The
book described the influence of Akbar’s court on the Mughal Empire as well as
other political, economic, and social developments in India under Mughal
rule. The book concluded with a
description of the deterioration of the Mughal Empire during the nineteenth
century. This source helped our group
create a typology of the Muslim-Hindu interactions during the time of the
Mughal Empire.
“India as a World Power.” Foreign
Affairs 27.4 (1949): 540. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.
This source described the
conflict over the partition of India. It provided our group with important
statistics concerning the number of refugees in India and Pakistan after the
partition. The source also highlights
Ghandi’s negative view on the separation of India and Pakistan.
Islam, Arshad. “Babri Mosque: A Historic Bone of Contention.” The Muslim World 97 (2007):
259-286. ProQuest. Web. 16
Apr. 2013.
This source described the role the British
Empire played in aggravating the tensions between the Hindus and Muslims living
in India. This article drew special
attention to the Babri Mosque legend.
This legend that the Muslims destroyed a Hindu temple to build the Babri
Mosque was actually a British smear campaign to enrage and separate the Indian
people based on religious guidelines.
Izetbegović, Aljia. Islam between East and West.
Plainfield, IN: American Trust Publications, 1994. Print.
This book compares Islam in the East and West, through a social,
legal, political, cultural, and psychological perspective. This source helped
us understand the different viewpoints of the East and West overall
instead of in a specific region such as India.
Mawdudi, Sayyid Abu’l-A‘la. “Chapter 3: Sayyid Abu'l-A 'la
Mawdudi. Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts from
Al-Banna to Bin Laden. Ed. Roxanne L. Euben and Muhammad Qasim Zaman.
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 2009. 79-85. Print.
This chapter provides a broad
sketch of the political tensions in India during the first half of the 20th
century preceding independence. While describing the context in which the
influential Islamist thinker Mawdudi grew up, the chapter identified the key
players: the Hindu majority, Muslim minority, and predominantly Hindu but
avowedly secular Indian National Congress. At this time, two opposing Muslim
perspectives arose, reflecting many of the political and cultural implications
of plurality in India. While some supported uniting with the Hindus against the
common enemy of colonialism, Mawdudi and his contemporaries such as the Muslim
League feared how such unity would compromise the integrity of the Muslim
community. This source helped our group understand the culmination of
Muslim-Hindu tensions at the moment of independence.
Siraj, Maqbool Ahmed. “India: A Laborartory of Inter-religious
Experiment.” Religion and the Arts 12
(2008): 319-328. Ebsco Host. Web. 15
Apr. 2013.
This source provided a broad
summary of misconceptions about religion in India from the time of Kabir and
Nanak to the present day. This source
helped our group better see the formation of various religious movements and
then reactions against these movements.
Key to our research, this source pointed out that robust cultural
exchange occurred between Hindus and Muslims during the 650 years of Muslim
rule in India.
Multimedia: Images, Audio, and Videos:
Christian Colson, movie producer. “Slumdog
Millionaire (Hindu Attack).” Online video clip. Youtube. 25 April 2012. Web. 21 April 2013.
This video clip corroborates our evidence that
Western media and Hollywood depict the violence between Hindus and Muslims with
only one dimension and without historical context. Because millions of Western viewers watched Slumdog Millionaire, they left the movie
with a superficial understanding of Hindu-Muslim relations. While the movie clip accurately conveys
reality of violence between Muslims and Hindus, it takes a distinctly modern
approach: A minute long scene attack scene to convey hundreds of years of
history.
"Rabbi
Shergill - Bulla Ki Jaana Maen Kaun." YouTube. YouTube, 16
Mar. 2006. Web. 20 Apr. 2013.
This video
of Rabbi, a current Indian singer who incorporates 18th century Sufi
poetry into his music, is a prime example of cultural syncretism in India today
and a desire to transcend boundaries. We learned from reading the comments on
the YouTube page because Indians discussed the beauty of his work. This allowed
us to see the shared history of a religiously unified India that is shared
among some today.
Popular Stuff, Newspaper Articles, and Non-Academic
Books:
Guha, Ramachandra. “Two Indias.” The National Interest July/August (2009): Ebsco Host. Web. 20 Apr. 2013.
This source helped our group understand the recent political
history of India. The source described
the various political actors fighting in India, which includes one group fighting
for secularism and another fighting for politics guided by Hindu
orthodoxy. Importantly, this source
frames Indian politics within the context of modernity.
"India's
Muslims: Growing, Neglected." The Economist. N.p., 2 Mar.
2013. Web. 10 Apr. 2013.
This recent article from The
Economist discusses the demographic state of Indian Muslims, whose
population continues to rise despite the gradual decline in Indian growth rate.
This paints a poignant picture of urban and rural poverty among Muslims, whose
“social backwardness” (i.e. resistance to use contraception and tradition
gender roles) exacerbates their “economic backwardness.” Thus the article
proposes a relatively orientalist view of Muslims, portraying them as
“backwards” victims of the capitalist system. The data and views expressed in
this article support our historiographical and political theories about Muslims
in India.
Mishra, Pankaj.
"India’s Fantasy of Disloyal Muslims May Come True." Bloomberg View. Bloomberg, 19 Mar. 2013.
Web. 10 Apr. 2013.
Mishra, a
modernist Indian scholar, writes about the Islamaphobic discrimination
affecting Indian Muslims today. He addresses terrorism and the misconceptions
and realities surrounding Indian Muslims’ involvement—or lack thereof. Most
importantly, he addresses the impact of modernity and its conceptions of
democracy and pluralism as a cause of Indian Muslims’ detachment from
mainstream Muslim terrorism like Al Qaeda. Despite this, Muslims are often the
innocent scapegoat when terrorism occurs in India, and Mishra proposes that the
resentment from such prejudice is slowly causing the radicalization of Indian
Muslims, which he calls a “self-fulfilling prophecy” of the anti-Muslim Indian
majority. The article illustrates our findings about political prejudice well.
“Santan Jât Na Pûcho Nirguniyân.” Songs of Kabir. Trans. Rabindranath Tagore. New
York: The Macmillan Company. 1915. Web.
This primary source is a translated version of one of Kabir’s
poems. Kabir, who lived in India from
1440 to 1518, believed in the sacred teachings found in both Hinduism and
Islam. This particular poem describes
how people of various occupations and religious viewpoints look for God in
their lives. Our group researched Kabir
and his followers to understand how some Indians believed in the beautiful
unity of Hinduism and Islam.
Seager, Richard Hughes. The Dawn of Religious Pluralism: Voices
from the World's Parliament of Religions, 1893. La Salle, IL: Open Court,
1993. Print.
This primary source provided a
snapshot of one western perspective on pluralism. It included a brief section
entitled “Three Views of Islam” with essays by authors of both Arab and western
descent. While our group gained a
valuable understanding of pluralism by reading this source, the source did not end
up matching the final theme of our project: Hindu-Muslim interaction. The source did, however, help our group
contextualize the plurality within a modern framework.
Sharma, Betwa. “Kashmir Is on the Boil, Once
Again.” The New York Times. 14 Mar.
2013. Web. 22 April 2013.
This month-old article described the large
amount violence and unrest in Kashmir due to land disputes. This article captured how modern media
sources depict the confusion, violence, and conflict between Pakistanis and
Indians over Kashmir. Our group gained a
better understanding of the real implications of political decisions like
drawing national boundaries: Violence and chaos.
Statistical Date, Surveys, and Polls:
We found statistics in other sites,
but our historical approach did not necessitate this category.
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