The Impossible Indian offers a rare, fresh view of Gandhi as a hard-hitting political thinker willing to countenance the greatest violence in pursuit of a global vision that went far beyond a nationalist agenda. Revising the conventional view of the Mahatma as an isolated Indian moralist detached from the mainstream of twentieth-century politics, Faisal Devji offers a provocative new genealogy of Gandhian thought, one that is not rooted in a clichéd alternative history of spiritua...

Faisal Devji argues that new forms of militancy, such as the actions of al-Qaeda, are informed by the same desire for agency and equality that animates other humanitarian interventions, such as environmentalism and pacifism. To the militant, victimized Muslims are more than just symbols of ethnic and religious persecution-they represent humanity's centuries-long struggle for legitimacy and agency. Acts of terror, therefore, are fueled by the militant's desire to become a historical actor o...

"Offers a detailed analysis of the various political and ideological forces that were at play in the buildup to Pakistan's creation." ( Los Angeles Review of Books)Pakistan is both the embodiment of national ambitions fulfilled and, in the eyes of many observers, a failed state. Muslim Zion cuts to the core of the geopolitical paradoxes entangling Pakistan to argue that India's rival has never been a nation-state in the conventional sense. Pakistan...

What are the motives behind Osama bin Laden's and Al-Qaeda's jihad against America and the West? Innumerable attempts have been made in recent years to explain that mysterious worldview. In Landscapes of the Jihad, Faisal Devji focuses on the ethical content of this jihad as opposed to its purported political intent. Al-Qaeda differs radically from such groups as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiyah, which aim to establish fundamentalist Islamic states. In fact, Devj...

A compelling examination of the rise of Islam as a global historical actorUntil the nineteenth century, Islam was variously understood as a set of beliefs and practices. But after Muslims began to see their faith as an historical actor on the world stage, they needed to narrate Islam's birth anew as well as to imagine its possible death. Faisal Devji argues that this change, sparked by the crisis of Muslim sovereignty in the age of European empire, provided a way o...

Es ist noch nicht so lange her, dass die Säkularisierung als unvermeidliche Begleiterscheinung der Modernisierung galt. Säkularisierung wurde als Fortschritt wahrgenommen, der die Religion nach und nach durch rationale Vernunft ersetzt. Nun scheint es an der Zeit, den Säkularismus neu zu denken. Bilden die Prinzipien der Säkularisierung nicht ihrerseits eine Ideologie, der bestimmte Prämissen zugrunde liegen? Ist der Säkularismus nicht selbst zu einem quasi-religiösen Dogma geworden? Im Zu...

In the West, media coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan is framed by military and political concerns, resulting in a simplistic picture of ageless barbarity, terrorist safe havens, and peoples in need of either punishment or salvation. Under the Drones looks beyond this limiting view to investigate real people on the ground, and to analyze the political, social, and economic forces that shape their lives. Understanding the complexity of life along the 1,600-mile border between Afg...

Forged in the age of empire, the relationship between Islam and liberalism has taken on a sense of urgency today, when global conflicts are seen as pitting one against the other. More than describing a civilizational fault-line between the Muslim world and the West, however, this relationship also offers the potential for consensus and the possibility of moral and political engagement or compatibility. The existence or extent of this correspondence tends to preoccupy academic as much as po...

Finalist, 2024 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Textual Studies, American Academy of ReligionLonglist, 2024 Karwaan Book Award, Karwaan: The Heritage Exploration InitiativeFriendship—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 negotiat...

Finalist, 2024 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Textual Studies, American Academy of ReligionLonglist, 2024 Karwaan Book Award, Karwaan: The Heritage Exploration InitiativeFriendship—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 negotiat...