Social Diversity, Hierarchy and Cultural Heterogeneity among Muslims of India
Published: May 15, 2020
Photo: Prasad
The Muslims from India were at one stage called ‘Hindavi’ Muslims, in Persian as well as Arabic and there are plenty of references in early British documents to ‘Hindoo Muslims’ and ‘Hindoo Christians’, to distinguish them respectively from Muslims and Christians from outside India.
Abstract: Though the media and other journalistic literature in recent years have projected Muslims as socially ‘monolithic’ and with the same ‘identity’ of ‘Muslimness’, Muslims in India, are as diverse and as disparate as ‘Hindus’. The religion as a thin veneer is spread over a block of diverse social practices and conceptions of sub-continental origin like caste, community, kinship, race, gender, language and food habits. This is why, Muslims in India have largely remained unaffected from social and political movements among Muslims elsewhere.
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