ABSTRACT
A plethora of categories is used in mainstream discourse to distinguish between various types of Muslims and Islam – good, bad, liberal, fundamentalist and so on (Mamdani 2002). In modern India, given its complex history of religious conflict, colonial intervention and the Partition, Muslims are often classified as nationalist or anti-nationalist, patriotic or unpatriotic, trustworthy or untrustworthy (Pandey 1999), and it is within these terms of representation that various Islamic sectarian tendencies have themselves become ‘types’ (Hacking 1999). The appellation ‘Wahhabi’ is often tantamount to at best reactionary, or at worst terrorist, while ‘Sufi’ signifies peace, heterodoxy and rootedness in the nation (Menon 2015). Most of these categories are, however, polemical and are bereft of any doctrinal or theological content. These terms usually serve the purpose of articulating aversion to or distaste for ‘others’ who do not abide by ‘our’ values of secular, liberal modernity (Mahmood 2006; Menon 2014). Differently put, these words tell us more about the subjects who invoke them, than their designated objects.
