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E-book
Author Tschacher, Torsten, author.

Title Race, religion, and the 'Indian Muslim' predicament in Singapore / Torsten Tschacher
Published London ; New York : Routledge, 2018

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 242 pages) : illustrations
Series Routledge studies on Islam and Muslims in Southeast Asia ; 3
Contents Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of Contents; List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Note on Transliteration and Conventions; 1. Introduction; "Race": Identity, Politics, Bureaucracy; Distinction without Difference? "Race" and "Religion"; The Primordial Predicament: Hybridity, Identity, and the "Indian Muslim"; The Outline of the Argument; Notes; 2. Histories of a Name: Making the "Indian Muslim"; Introduction: Identifying the "Indian Muslim."
"Klings" and "Mohammedans" in Pre-war Singapore; Making the "Indian Muslim" in Post-war Singapore; Conclusions: A History of Names; Notes; 3. Alternatives or "Sub-communities"? Engaging with Internal Difference; Introduction; Fault lines and Differences: Differentiating "Indian Muslim" Society; The Burden of "Race"? Indian Muslim Social Hierarchies as Caste; Conclusion; Notes; 4. Dress, Drama, and Divorce: The Clash of Masculinities; Introduction: "Racialising" Difference, "Culturalising" Religion
Revealing Deviance: Tudungs, Saris, and "Racialised" Religion; Drama over Divorce: Avoiding Stigma through "Racialisation"; Conclusions; Notes; 5. Religion or Culture? Popular Practice and the Perception of Difference; Divine Norm and Human Variation: Locating Difference in Popular Religion; Of Saints and Shrines: Locating Indian Muslim Difference; From Shrine to Museum, and Back? The Curious Case of the Nagore Dargah; "Indian Muslims" and "Indian Islam"; The Illusion of Difference: Some Conclusions; Notes
6. The Markers of Difference: History, Language, Identity; Introduction; Merchants or Paupers? Projecting "Indian Muslim" History; Malayisation: Process and Discourse; Making the Indian Muslim "Indian": Language, Religion, and Community; The Exigencies of a "Modern" Islam: Knowledge and the Problem of Language; Conclusions; Notes; 7. The Organisation of Religious Life; Introduction; Laws, Boards, and Secularism: Managing a Religion; At the "Pulse of the Community"? The Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura (MUIS)
It Takes Many to Do Much: Organising Indian Muslim Civil Society; Managing Indian Muslims: The Interface between State and Civil Society; Conclusions: Institutional Politics; Notes; 8. Representing "Indian Muslims": The Politics of Mediation; Introduction; Between Groups: Individuals and the Interaction of Institutions; Of "Leaders" and "Villages": Mediating Indian Muslim Interests; Contesting Religion: MUIS and the Indian Muslims; Conclusion: The Nature of Contestation; Notes; Conclusion; Disciplining and Disciplined Identities
Summary "Indian Muslims form the largest ethnic minority within Singapore's otherwise largely Malay Muslim community. Despite its size and historic importance, however, Singaporean Indian Muslims have received little attention by scholarship and have also felt side-lined by Singapore's Malay-dominated Muslim institutions. Since the 1980s, demands for a better representation of Indian Muslims and access to religious services have intensified, while there has been a concomitant debate over who has the right to speak for Indian Muslims. This book traces the negotiations and contestations over Indian Muslim difference in Singapore and examines the conditions that have given rise to these debates. Despite considerable differences existing within the putative Indian Muslim community, the way this community is imagined is surprisingly uniform. Through discussions of the importance of ethnic difference for social and religious divisions among Singaporean Indian Muslims, the role of 'culture' and 'race' in debates about popular religion, the invocation of language and history in negotiations with the wider Malay-Muslim context, and the institutional setting in which contestations of Indian Muslim difference take place, this book argues that these debates emerge from the structural tensions resulting from the intersection of race and religion in the public organization of Islam in Singapore"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject East Indians -- Singapore
Tamil (Indic people) -- Singapore
Muslims -- Singapore
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Discrimination & Race Relations.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Minority Studies.
East Indians
Muslims
Race relations
Religion
Tamil (Indic people)
SUBJECT Singapore -- Race relations
Singapore -- Religion
Subject Singapore
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781315303376
131530337X
9781315303390
1315303396