ABSTRACT
A search for the theological validation for Muslim presence in India required reconciliation between territorial affiliations of Indian Muslims on the one hand and their assumed propensity towards Pan-Islamism on the other. The tension between the ‘territoriality’ of watan (country) or qaum (nation) and the ‘universality’ of Islamic ummah (global Muslim community) has remained intense and alive among theorists and practitioners of Islam in India. In the period prior to Independence, the unsettled debate had variegated manifestations, viz., Muslim nationalism, composite nationalism, and Pan-Islamism. Post-Independence, the altered situation called for new innovations in thought and Muslim intellectual exercise responded by dissociating ummah and qaum as operational in different contexts without committing to any hierarchization of identity and, thereof, of loyalty. Similarly, the polarity between dar-al-harb (abode of war and persecution) and dar-al-Islam (land where Islam rules) was renounced. Thus India, with its principles of secularism and religious pluralism, is seen as qualifying to be dar-al-aman, that is, land of peace. This chapter attempts to analytically separate various threads in Muslim political thought without missing the context in which they emerged and gained predominance. It looks into various turns and twists, theoretical shifts, accommodations, and innovations that the Muslim elite, irrespective of their ideological location, have made to come to terms with the idea of Indian nationhood.
