2015/02/05 by Nile Green · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #American Constitutional Law and Politics
paper · doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190222536.003.0005
openalex publication_date 2015/02/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
This chapter shows how Muslim religious entrepreneurs created new forms of Islam, and new Muslim religious firms, as a result of their interaction with Christian missionaries. Focusing on the fringes of the British Empire in the Indian princely state of Hyderabad, the chapter reveals the mechanics of religious exchange as a process of competition, adaptation and differentiation. By comparing the evangelical techniques of a British representative of the Church Missionary Society with a Sufi religious entrepreneur funded by local industrialists, the chapter shows the specific strategies of Christian and Muslim competitors operating in a quasi-colonial terrain of exchange. Although Muslims themselves see religious “innovation” as a negative asset, by working through the logic of religious economy the chapter argues that innovation - and, hence, religious change - was an important aspect of the Muslim religious response to both Christian colonialism and industrial modernity. By tracing transnational exchange in a local setting, the chapter in this way demonstrates how global history can be written from the microhistorical “bottom up.”