The Mosques of Colonial South Asia

“Through five illuminating case studies of disputes surrounding mosques across
British India and Burma, Sana Haroon explores the dilemmas of public worship
in a colonial secular state. Showing how mosques became spaces of social
influence and control, she traces the ascent of prayer-leaders and mosque
custodians as these lesser-known counterparts to Sufis and ‘ulama became
widespread intermediaries between ordinary Muslims and legal officialdom.”

-- Nile Green, Professor of History, UCLA

“Deftly bringing together colonial legal archives with vernacular texts in
Urdu, The Mosques of Colonial South Asia offers a bold new approach to
understanding lived Islam in colonial South Asia. Ranging from the late-nineteenth
century to the mid-twentieth, and from Rangoon to Lahore, the
book centers the mosque as a site of social change, sectarian debate, and legal
regulation. The result is a highly original take on a crucial aspect of Muslim
public life, the mosque, that historians have mostly overlooked.”

-- Brannon D. Ingram, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Northwestern University, USA
Haroon’s book will undoubtedly be of lively interest to scholars of Muslims in South Asia as well as graduate students of South Asian Muslim history. -- Usha Sanyal * The Journal of Islamic Studi