ABSTRACT
This chapter is going to interrogate the idea of the ummah by examining two sets of events in modern South Asia, a region with the largest concentration of Muslims in the world. Firstly, it will trace the debate between the idea of ‘composite nationalism’ and strong defence for Indian nationalist discourses in Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, and the critique of nationalism by Maulana Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi towards both Madani’s composite nationalism and Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s ‘Muslim nationalism’ by foregrounding the internationalist idea of the Muslim ummah in a post-Khilafat Muslim context. Secondly, it will locate the limitations of the idea of the ummah with the emergence of the Bangladeshi nation-state in a post-colonial setting based on linguistic nationalism that questions the unity and integrity of the imagined sense of the Muslim ummah.
