Islamic Revival in Nepal: Religion and a New Nation

Drawing upon extensive fieldwork among Muslims in Nepal (conducted in 2005-06, 2008, and 2009-10), this book examines the terrains of Muslim identity and contemporary Islamic revivalist movements based in the Kathmandu valley. It explores the complex interweaving of local and global factors that shape these movements and traces the ways that Nepal's Muslims have become active participants in both a larger global movement of Sunni revival and Nepal's own local politics of representation in a context of political transition to democracy and secularism.By drawing upon the voices and experiences of Nepali Muslims themselves'”through interviews, participant observation, analysis of local Urdu and Nepali texts'”this book demonstrates that the movement reflects ideological shifts in Nepal's political and religious environment and in Muslim thought, politics, and piety. It shows that through religious revival, Muslims seek to enrich communal, political and individual life through renewed piety and the politicization of religion. Through an examination of Nepali Muslims' history of alterity, an unprecedented incident of anti-Muslim violence in the national's capital in 2004, and the discourses and practices of the organizations at the forefront of the revival, this book questions how and why this is the case and examines what it tells us about contemporary movements of Islamic revival among minorities on the margins'”both geographic and social'”of the so-called Islamic world.