In her study of Urdu language politics in late colonial India, Kavita SaraswathiDatla traces the rise and eventual demise of an alternative Urdu movement thatenvisioned the language not as a marker of Muslim religious identity, but as ameans to articulate a modern secular nationalism with roots in India’s Islamicpast. By highlighting this largely forgotten moment...Read More

Everyone seems to be interested in Islamic political thought these days, nodoubt as a result of the rise and fall of Islamisms/post-Islamisms and othercontemporary configurations of Islam and politics. And then there are the claimants for a new caliphate. However, most concerns with political thought– with the exception of the large Princeton Encyclopaedia edited by...Read More

At the time Tambar wrote The Reckoning of Pluralism, there was a briefopening in Turkish political life during which ethnic and sectarian pluralitywas both imaginable and debatable. This opening, initiated by the ruling AKP,attempted to create an official conversation about the Alevis and the Kurds.This move indicated that those who have state power were willing...Read More

The Arab Spring, which began in December 2010, mobilized the Arab massesto depose once-uncontestable autocratic rulers. Many observers predicted thatthis regional uprising would move the Arab world from autocracy to democracyin no time. However, the present scenario speaks to the contrary. Althoughmany are struggling to understand its long-term effects, one thing iscertain: This ongoing event...Read More