Introduction

The chapter introduces two topics around which the book is organized: modern Qur’an commentaries in South Asia; and theorization of modern Islam. The research is focused on British India from the time of the Mutiny of 1857 to the moment of the Partition of united India in 1947. The reader is familiarized with the understudied subfield of South Asian Qur’anic exegesis. Moreover, the chapter lays the framework of current academic theorizations of modern Islam. These theorizations in the form of typologies like traditionalists and modernists are subjected to critical scrutiny in the current work based on a close study of Muslim exegesis of the Qur’an in North India.