Mappila Muslim Culture

This book provides a comprehensive account of the distinct culture of the Mappila Muslims, a large community from the southern Indian state of Kerala. Although they were the first Muslim community in South Asia, the Mappilas are little-known in the West. Roland E. Miller explores the Mappilas' fourteen-century-long history of social adaptation and their current status as a successful example of Muslim interaction with modernity. Once feared, now admired, Kerala's Mappilas have produced an intellectual renaissance and renewed their ancient status as a model of social harmony. Miller provides an account of Mappila history and looks at the formation of Mappila culture, which has developed through the interaction of Islamic and Malayali influences. Descriptions of current day life cycles, religion, ritual, work life, education, and leadership are included.

Not Only Is This Book The First Full Introduction To The Mappilas Available, It Is Also Likely To Remain The Definitive Study For Years To Come. Slightly Damaged Copy.

Reveals a distinct trajectory of Islamic history that developed among Muslim merchant communities across the medieval Indian Ocean.

Islam in India, as elsewhere, continues to be seen as a remainder in its refusal to "conform" to national and international secular-modern norms. Such a general perception has also had a tremendous impact on the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent, who as individuals and communities have been shaped and transformed over centuries of socio-political and historical processes, by eroding their world-view and steadily erasing their life-worlds. This book traces the spectral presence of Islam across narratives to note that difference and diversity, demographic as well as cultural, can be espoused rather than excised or exorcized. Focusing on Malabar - home to the Mappila Muslim community in Kerala, South India - and drawing mostly on Malayalam sources, the author investigates the question of Islam from various angles by constituting an archive comprising popular, administrative, academic, and literary discourses. The author contends that an uncritical insistence on unity has led to a formation in which "minor" subjects embody an excess of identity, in contrast to the Hindu-citizen whose identity seemingly coincides with the national. This has led to Muslims being the source of a deep-seated anxiety for secular nationalism and the targets of a resurgent Hindutva in that they expose the fault-lines of a geographically and socio-culturally unified nation. An interdisciplinary study of Islam in India from the South Indian context, this book will be of interest to scholars of modern Indian history, political science, literary and cultural studies, and Islamic studies.

In academic religious studies and musicology, little attention has been given to chanted word, hymns, and songs, yet these are often the key spiritual practices for lay devotees. To address this gap in knowledge, Harold Coward presents a thematic study of sacred sound as it functions in word, chant, and song for devotees in the Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, and Sikh traditions. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction of a particular tradition's word/scripture, followed by case studies showcasing the diversity of understanding and the range of chant and song in devotee practice, and concludes with a brief illustration of new trends in music and chant within the tradition. Written in a style that will appeal to both scholars and lay readers, technical terms are clearly explained and case studies explicitly include devotees' personal experiences of songs and chants in public and private religious ritual.