Co-existence of Sharīʿa and the Modern State: A Historical Perspective from South Asia

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-187
Author(s):  
Muhammad Zubair Abbasi
Author(s):  
Ondrej Beránek ◽  
Pavel Tupek

In various parts of the Islamic world over the past decades, virulent attacks have targeted Islamic funeral and sacral architecture. Rather than being random acts of vandalism, these are associated with the idea of performing one’s religious duty as attested to in the Salafi/Wahhabi tradition and texts. Graves, shrines and tombs are regarded by some Muslims as having the potential to tempt a believer to polytheism. Hence the duty to level the graves to the ground (taswiyat al-qubūr). In illuminating the ideology behind these acts, this book explains the current destruction of graves in the Islamic world and traces the ideological sources of iconoclasm in their historical perspective, from medieval theological and legal debates to contemporary Islamist movements including ISIS. The authors look at the destruction of graves in various parts of the Islamic world including the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, and trace the ideological roots of Salafi iconoclasm and its shifts and mutations in an historical perspective. The book contains case studies, among others, on Ibn Taymiyya, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, the Saudi religious establishment, Nasir al-Din al-Albani, and ISIS and the destruction of monuments.


1998 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 271-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Robinson

British Empire in India saw major transformations in the identities of its Indian subjects. The growth of the modern state, the introduction of new systems of knowledge, the expansion of capitalist modes of production, and the spread of communications of all forms—railway, telegraph, post, press—made possible the fashioning of all kinds of new identities at local, regional and supra-regional levels. One of the identities which developed most strikingly was the Muslim. Indeed, at independence in 1947 it gained the particular accolade of embracing its own modern state in the shape of Pakistan. This political outcome, however, was just part of an extraordinary series of developments in Muslim identities under British rule which shed light not just on the nature of British rule but also on major changes at work in Muslim society.


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