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SUMMARY:Book Launch: The Muslim Secular by Dr Amar Sohal - Amar Sohal (Uni
 versity of Cambridge)\, Faisal Devji (University of Oxford)\, Teresa Bejan
  (University of Oxford)
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20231009T160000
DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20231009T173000
UID:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/7a2e6364-4eb1-47b4-94e8-23873b05091a/
DESCRIPTION:BOOK LAUNCH: The Muslim Secular (Oxford University Press\, 202
 3) by Dr Amar Sohal\nComments: Prof. Faisal Devji and Prof. Teresa Bejan\n
 \nConcerned with the fate of the minority in the age of the nation-state\,
  Muslim political thought in modern South Asia has often been associated w
 ith religious nationalism and the creation of Pakistan. The Muslim Secular
  complicates that story by reconstructing the ideas of three prominent thi
 nker-actors of the Indian freedom struggle: the Indian National Congress l
 eader Abul Kalam Azad\, the popular Kashmiri politician Sheikh Abdullah\, 
 and the nonviolent Pashtun activist Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Revising the commo
 n view that they were mere acolytes of their celebrated Hindu colleagues M
 .K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru\, this book argues that these three men co
 llectively produced a distinct Muslim secularity from within the grander f
 amily of secular Indian nationalism\; an intellectual tradition that has r
 etained religion within the public space while nevertheless preventing it 
 from defining either national membership or the state. At a time when many
  across the decolonising world believed that identity-based majorities and
  minorities were incompatible and had to be separated out into sovereign e
 quals\, Azad\, Abdullah\, and Ghaffar Khan thought differently about the p
 roblem of religious pluralism in a postcolonial democracy. The minority\, 
 they contended\, could conceive of the majority not just as an antagonisti
 c entity that is set against it\, but to which it can belong and uniquely 
 complete. Premising its claim to a single\, united India upon the universa
 lism of Islam\, champions of the Muslim secular mobilised notions of feder
 ation and popular sovereignty to replace older monarchical and communitari
 an forms of power. But to finally jettison the demographic inequality betw
 een Hindus and Muslims\, these thinkers redefined equality itself. Rejecti
 ng its liberal definition for being too abstract and thus prone to majorit
 arian assimilation\, they replaced it with their own rendition of Indian p
 arity to simultaneously evoke commonality and distinction between Hindu an
 d Muslim peers. Azad\, Abdullah\, and Ghaffar Khan achieved this by deploy
 ing a range of concepts from profane inheritance and theological autonomy 
 to linguistic diversity and ethical pledges. Retaining their Muslimness an
 d Indian nationality in full\, this crowning notion of equality-as-parity 
 challenged both Gandhi and Nehru's abstractions and Mohammad Ali Jinnah's 
 supposedly dangerous demand for Pakistan. (More information on this public
 ation here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-muslim-secular-978
 0198887638?cc=gb&lang=en&).\n\nTo be added to the mailing list\, please em
 ail saih@history.ox.ac.uk. Follow us on Twitter (OxfordSAIH) and Facebook 
 (OxfordSAIHSeminar) for updates.\nSpeakers:\nAmar Sohal (University of Cam
 bridge)\, Faisal Devji (University of Oxford)\, Teresa Bejan (University o
 f Oxford)
LOCATION:St Antony's College (Old Fellows’ Dining Room\, St Antony’s C
 ollege\, Oxford)\, 62 Woodstock Road OX2 6JF
TZID:Europe/London
URL:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/7a2e6364-4eb1-47b4-94e8-23873b05091a/
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DESCRIPTION:Talk:Book Launch: The Muslim Secular by Dr Amar Sohal - Amar S
 ohal (University of Cambridge)\, Faisal Devji (University of Oxford)\, Ter
 esa Bejan (University of Oxford)
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