Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship After Empire

Friendship between Hindus and Muslims offers both promise and peril, particularly after the end of Muslim political sovereignty in South Asia. This book explores how leading South Asian Muslim thinkers imagined and contested the boundaries of Hindu-Muslim friendship from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, highlighting unresolved tensions and fissures over the place and meaning of Islam in the modern world. It also provides a timely perspective on the historical roots of present-day Hindu-Muslim relations and offers ways to overcome thorny legacies and open new horizons for interreligious friendship.

Format: Hardback
Length: 360 pages
Publication date: 19 September 2023
Publisher: Columbia University Press

Friendship, particularly interreligious friendship, holds both promise and peril. After the end of Muslim political sovereignty in South Asia, how did Muslim scholars grapple with the possibilities and dangers of Hindu-Muslim friendship? How did they navigate the incongruities between foundational texts and attitudes toward non-Muslims informed by the premodern context of Muslim empire and the realities of British colonialism, which rendered South Asian Muslims a political minority?

In this groundbreaking book, SherAli Tareen delves into how leading South Asian Muslim thinkers envisioned and contested the boundaries of Hindu-Muslim friendship from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. He argues that often what was at stake in Muslim scholarly discourse and debates on Hindu-Muslim friendship were unresolved tensions and fissures over the place and meaning of Islam in the modern world.

Perilous Intimacies explores a range of topics, including Muslim scholarly translations of Hinduism, Hindu-Muslim theological polemics, the question of interreligious friendship in the Quran, intra-Muslim debates on cow sacrifice, and debates on emulating Hindu customs and habits. Based on the close reading of an expansive and multifaceted archive of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu sources, this book illuminates the depth, complexity, and profound divisions of the Muslim intellectual traditions of South Asia.

Perilous Intimacies also provides timely perspective on the historical roots of present-day Hindu-Muslim relations, considering how to overcome thorny legacies and open new horizons for interreligious friendship.

Weight: 644g
Dimension: 159 x 238 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780231210300