Islamic Revival In Nepal: Religion And A New Nation

Book Summary

Drawing on extensive fieldwork among Muslims in Nepal (conducted in 2005-06, 2008, and 2009-10), this book examines the terrains of Muslim identity and contemporary Islamic revivalist movements based in the Kathmandu valley. It explores the local and global factors that shape these movements, and traces the ways that Nepala (TM)s Muslims have become active participants in the larger global movement of Sunni revivalism, and Nepala (TM)s own local politics of representation in the context of political transition to democracy and secularism. By drawing upon the voices and experiences of Nepali Muslims themselves, through interviews, participant observation, analysis of local Urdu and Nepali texts, the book demonstrates that the movement reflects ideological shifts in both Nepala (TM)s political and religious environment, and in Muslim thought, politics, and piety. Examining the unprecedented anti-Muslim violence in the nationala (TM)s capital in 2004, and the discourses and practices of the organizations at the forefront of the revival, this book examines what this tells us about contemporary movements of Islamic revival among minorities on the margins - both geographic and social - of the so-called Islamic world.

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