| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper analyzes the political project of secular Islam as outlined by the Indian political and religious leader, Muhammad Shah-also known as Aga Khan III (1877-1957). As first president of the All India Muslim League, Muhammad Shah facilitated the installation of separate electorates for Muslims as well as the call for Partition. The reformist notion of Islam he invoked for this separatist programme was informed by the secular and modernizing projects of the colonial public sphere. Simultaneously, however, Muhammad Shah claimed a divine role as Imam of the Ismaili Muslim community-a position validated by Ismaili beliefs and teachings of messianic Islam. The paper engages Muhammad Shah's writings and the devotional texts of the Ismailis to illustrate how the heterogeneous forms of practices peculiar to the vernacular history of Islam in early modern South Asia were displaced by the discourse of religious identity in the colonial period.
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