ABSTRACT
This book contributes to developing such 'thick descriptions' by examining a diversity of representations of/by Muslims in South Asia and the diaspora across a range of texts. It seeks to break down the unequal binary stereotypes surrounding religion and secularism; to challenge the ossification of religion as a single entity; and to highlight the diversity of quotidian religious practice as a possible space of enchantment, as well as touching on it's more commonly discussed potential for conflict. The book describes the Islam of South Asia is syncretic, it is still very much Islam, and several essays also touch on the religion's prescribed and proscribed practices and the fact that tawhid or the oneness of God is the crucial concept for most Muslims. However, the book cumulatively demonstrates that Muslims themselves are doing much inventive and politically incisive imagining. Said famously uses Karl Marx's epigram, 'They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented', as a point of departure for Orientalism.
