Perilous Intimacies

Friendship-particularly interreligious friendship-offers both promise and peril. After the end of Muslim political sovereignty in South Asia, how did Muslim scholars grapple with the possibilities and dangers of Hindu-Muslim friendship? How did they negotiate the incongruities between foundational texts and attitudes toward non-Muslims that were informed by the premodern context of Muslim empire and the realities of British colonialism, which rendered South Asian Muslims a political minority?

In this groundbreaking book, SherAli Tareen explores how leading South Asian Muslim thinkers imagined and contested the boundaries of Hindu-Muslim friendship from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. He argues that often what was at stake in Muslim scholarly discourse and debates on Hindu-Muslim friendship were unresolved tensions and fissures over the place and meaning of Islam in the modern world. Perilous Intimacies considers a range of topics, including Muslim scholarly translations of Hinduism, Hindu-Muslim theological polemics, the question of interreligious friendship in the Qur'an, intra-Muslim debates on cow sacrifice, and debates on emulating Hindu customs and habits.

Based on the close reading of an expansive and multifaceted archive of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu sources, this book illuminates the depth, complexity, and profound divisions of the Muslim intellectual traditions of South Asia. Perilous Intimacies also provides timely perspective on the historical roots of present-day Hindu-Muslim relations, considering how to overcome thorny legacies and open new horizons for interreligious friendship.

Short-listed for Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Textual Studies, American Academy of Religion 2024 Long-listed for Karwaan Book Award, Karwaan: The Heritage Exploration Initiative 2024

This magisterial monograph brings razor-sharp focus to the analysis of Islamic discourses on Hindu–Muslim friendship in modern South Asia. Perilous Intimacies models close reading of and unrelenting listening to a range of heretofore neglected sources. Journal of Islamic Studies
By examining the complexities and ambiguities within theological and legal traditions, [Tareen] argues for a more nuanced understanding of religious identity and difference. The India Forum
Tareen’s focus on studying the Hindu-Muslim relations through the discourses of traditionally educated Muslim scholars opens a novel problem space for understanding inter-religious encounters in South Asia. Reading Religion
In this path breaking work on Muslim intellectual thought on the question of Hindu–Muslim friendship, Tareen shows the transformation of the colonial public sphere through the power relations controlled by the state. A panoramic view of Muslim intellectual history, political theology and social ontology, this book combines historical explication with a lucid analysis of diverse ideas and processes that shaped and affected social relations in the early and late colonial period...A landmark contribution to scholarship. Economic & Political Weekly
Tareen's book is a learned and thought-provoking contribution to the question of whether there can be friendship between Hindu and Muslim communities in South Asia. It draws intriguingly on Derrida on the fragility of political friendship. For anyone thinking seriously about the problem of secularism and sovereign power, this book is strongly recommended. -- Talal Asad, author of Secular Translations: Nation-State, Modern Self, and Calculative Reason
Perilous Intimacies is terrific. Tareen is a precise and nuanced thinker and leans into (rather than shying away from) slippery concepts that are often presented by other analysts as uninterrogated, naturalized binaries. This book will be an excellent resource for scholars thinking about tradition and reform, South Asian Islamic history, secular modernity, and political theology. -- Anna Bigelow, editor of Islam through Objects
Intra-Muslim debate outweighs external issues and events in considering modern-day Hindu-Muslim friendship. In lapidary prose, SherAli Tareen explores how British rule redefined the parameters but not the particulars of Muslim-Hindu relations in the Asian subcontinent. His is an argument at once bold, eloquent, and compelling, essential for students of critical theory as well as global history. -- Bruce B. Lawrence, author of Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit
This innovative study brings much depth and insight to our understanding of how South Asian Muslim scholars have viewed friendship across religious boundaries. It illuminates new facets of Islamic thought in colonial India and authoritatively introduces styles of argumentation long characteristic of Muslim scholarly culture. Tareen’s book is important, timely, and accessible, and it deserves to be read widely. -- Muhammad Qasim Zaman, author of Islam in Pakistan: A History
It is intellectual, nuanced, and thought-provoking..an exemplary analysis of how a minority grapples with its identity in the context of diversity and threat of erasure (real or perceived). Contemporary Sociology

SherAli Tareen is associate professor of religious studies at Franklin and Marshall College. He is the author of Defending Muḥammad in Modernity (2020).

Faisal Devji is professor of Indian history and fellow of St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford, where he is also the director of the Asian Studies Centre.

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