Usha Sanyal
Biographic Data
| ID | 195984 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Usha Sanyal |
| GIVEN NAMES | Usha |
| FAMILY NAME | Sanyal |
| SIGNATURE | SANYAL U |
| AFFILIATIONS | Wingate University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9381-2822 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Introduction. Place, Identity, and Politics
Indian Muslim women’s identity is being contested more than ever before under the BJP’s Hindutva regime. Newly imposed meanings of nation and nationalism have produced new imaginaries of the category of “Muslim women”—from being a mere victim of Islam and Muslim men, she has become a nurturer of jihadi mentality, antinational, and a symbol of non-inclusivity. This objectification reflects the ways in which Muslim women have survived disparities, …
Muzaffar Alam. The Mughals and the Sufis
Journal Article Muzaffar Alam. The Mughals and the Sufis: Islam and Political Imagination in India, 1500–1750. Get access Muzaffar Alam. The Mughals and the Sufis: Islam and Political Imagination in India, 1500–1750. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2021. Pp. 454. Paper $37.95. Usha Sanyal Usha Sanyal Wingate University, US Email: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9381-2822 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google S…
Uniform Civil Code and Muslim Women's Quest for Justice
The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), a Muslim women-led organization, has recently supported the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in India. This step by the BMMA has added a new dimension to the debate on reforms in personal laws, especially the Muslim Personal Law (MPL). More specifically, it signifies a shift in the BMMA's position. Since its inception in 2007, the BMMA has been advocating for the codification of MPL along the lines of Hindu Law…
Madrasa Imaginaries and the Politics of UP Government Reform Seen in the Light of Two Case Studies
This paper examines madrasa education in UP, with a particular focus on girls, during the 2017-23 period of BJP rule, led by Yogi Adityanath as chief minister. The paper is directed along three distinct lines of inquiry. First, I look back at British Indian colonial policy regarding institutions of higher learning, both Indian and Western, to understand the colonial roots of the current mistrust of madrasa education by secular Indians and the Hin…
Yoginder Sikand, Bastions of the Believers. Madrasas and Islamic Education in India
This is a very different book from Sikand's first book by Penguin (Sacred Spaces: Exploring Traditions of Shared Faith in India). In that book, he described a variety of what he calls ‘liminal’ religious traditions in different parts of India, traditions that cross boundaries between ‘Hindus’, ‘Muslims’ and ‘Christians’, among others. The quotation marks are his, to make the basic point that these are historical constructions, not self-evident, w…
The Mosques of Colonial South Asia
Madrasas and the Making of Islamic Womanhood By Hem Borker
In India, madrasas for Muslim girls have been increasing in number since the early 1990s, the result in part of rising levels of female literacy but also of the shortage and majoritarian ethos of government schools, leaving Muslim communities to rely on their own local leaders and resources to educate their young. Thus far, there have been few ethnographic studies of girls’ madrasas in India. Hem Borker’s book is only the second major ethnography…
Discipline and Nurture
This article presents an ethnography of a contemporary residential madrasa for teenage Muslim girls in a North Indian town undertaken by a team of two researchers. We focused on different aspects of the overall study, with Sanyal conducting participant observation within the madrasa and Farah interviewing a select number of graduates and former students in their home environments. The result is a comprehensive picture of the madrasa's transformat…
In Good Company
This article is part of Darakhshan Khan’s larger body of work on womenin the Tablīghī Jamā‘at, who, as she argues persuasively, have not been giventhe scholarly attention they deserve (barring a few notable exceptions,among them Metcalf 2000). Khan observes that the reasons for this rangefrom the fact that the public image of the Tablīghī Jamā‘at is that of itinerantmales, not females, and that gender segregation in South Asian Muslimcommunities …
Al-Huda International
Al-Huda International was founded in Islamabad in 1994 by Farhat Hashmi and has since spread across several continents. Its rapid spread has been considerably aided by the online classes in English and Urdu from its headquarters in Canada. Its goal is to teach the Qur’an in Arabic to as many women as possible so they can access the sacred text directly without mediation and live in greater harmony with Qur’anic values. One might argue that Al-Hud…
Devotional Islam and Politics in British India
Generational Changes in the Leadership of the Ahl-e Sunnat Movement in North India during the Twentieth Century
When A‘la Hazrat [Maulana Ahmad Riza Khan] was born, his . . . paternal grandfather put him in his lap and said, ‘This [grand]son of mine will be a great ‘ alim’ ... And one day someone knocked on the door. A‘la Hazrat, who was then ten years old, opened it and saw an elderly holy man (faqir) standing outside. . . . the man put his hand on A‘la Hazrat's head and said, ‘You are a great scholar.’Six months after [Maulana Mustafa Riza's] birth, Nuri…
Pīr, Shaikh and Prophet
A partir des « Malfūzāt » (homelies et reponses aux disciples) et de l'anthologie de poesie de Ahmad Riza, l'A. montre l'importance qu'accordait ce dernier a son maitre (« pīr ») Shah Al-e Rasul, la maniere dont il considerait les relations et l'autorite d'un pīr envers ses disciples, sa devotion au shaikh Abd ul-Qadir Jilani, fondateur de l'ordre qidiri des soufis, la place centrale du Prophete dans sa vie de « bon musulman » et l'importance de …
Pīr, Shaikh and Prophet
A partir des « Malfūzāt » (homelies et reponses aux disciples) et de l'anthologie de poesie de Ahmad Riza, l'A. montre l'importance qu'accordait ce dernier a son maitre (« pīr ») Shah Al-e Rasul, la maniere dont il considerait les relations et l'autorite d'un pīr envers ses disciples, sa devotion au shaikh Abd ul-Qadir Jilani, fondateur de l'ordre qidiri des soufis, la place centrale du Prophete dans sa vie de « bon musulman » et l'importance de …
Discipline and Nurture
This article presents an ethnography of a contemporary residential madrasa for teenage Muslim girls in a North Indian town undertaken by a team of two researchers. We focused on different aspects of the overall study, with Sanyal conducting participant observation within the madrasa and Farah interviewing a select number of graduates and former students in their home environments. The result is a comprehensive picture of the madrasa's transformat…
Al-Huda International
Al-Huda International was founded in Islamabad in 1994 by Farhat Hashmi and has since spread across several continents. Its rapid spread has been considerably aided by the online classes in English and Urdu from its headquarters in Canada. Its goal is to teach the Qur’an in Arabic to as many women as possible so they can access the sacred text directly without mediation and live in greater harmony with Qur’anic values. One might argue that Al-Hud…
Generational Changes in the Leadership of the Ahl-e Sunnat Movement in North India during the Twentieth Century
When A‘la Hazrat [Maulana Ahmad Riza Khan] was born, his . . . paternal grandfather put him in his lap and said, ‘This [grand]son of mine will be a great ‘ alim’ ... And one day someone knocked on the door. A‘la Hazrat, who was then ten years old, opened it and saw an elderly holy man (faqir) standing outside. . . . the man put his hand on A‘la Hazrat's head and said, ‘You are a great scholar.’Six months after [Maulana Mustafa Riza's] birth, Nuri…
Pīr, Shaikh and Prophet
A partir des « Malfūzāt » (homelies et reponses aux disciples) et de l'anthologie de poesie de Ahmad Riza, l'A. montre l'importance qu'accordait ce dernier a son maitre (« pīr ») Shah Al-e Rasul, la maniere dont il considerait les relations et l'autorite d'un pīr envers ses disciples, sa devotion au shaikh Abd ul-Qadir Jilani, fondateur de l'ordre qidiri des soufis, la place centrale du Prophete dans sa vie de « bon musulman » et l'importance de …
Generational Changes in the Leadership of the Ahl-e Sunnat Movement in North India during the Twentieth Century
When A‘la Hazrat [Maulana Ahmad Riza Khan] was born, his . . . paternal grandfather put him in his lap and said, ‘This [grand]son of mine will be a great ‘ alim’ ... And one day someone knocked on the door. A‘la Hazrat, who was then ten years old, opened it and saw an elderly holy man (faqir) standing outside. . . . the man put his hand on A‘la Hazrat's head and said, ‘You are a great scholar.’Six months after [Maulana Mustafa Riza's] birth, Nuri…
Devotional Islam and Politics in British India
Al-Huda International
Al-Huda International was founded in Islamabad in 1994 by Farhat Hashmi and has since spread across several continents. Its rapid spread has been considerably aided by the online classes in English and Urdu from its headquarters in Canada. Its goal is to teach the Qur’an in Arabic to as many women as possible so they can access the sacred text directly without mediation and live in greater harmony with Qur’anic values. One might argue that Al-Hud…
In Good Company
This article is part of Darakhshan Khan’s larger body of work on womenin the Tablīghī Jamā‘at, who, as she argues persuasively, have not been giventhe scholarly attention they deserve (barring a few notable exceptions,among them Metcalf 2000). Khan observes that the reasons for this rangefrom the fact that the public image of the Tablīghī Jamā‘at is that of itinerantmales, not females, and that gender segregation in South Asian Muslimcommunities …
Discipline and Nurture
This article presents an ethnography of a contemporary residential madrasa for teenage Muslim girls in a North Indian town undertaken by a team of two researchers. We focused on different aspects of the overall study, with Sanyal conducting participant observation within the madrasa and Farah interviewing a select number of graduates and former students in their home environments. The result is a comprehensive picture of the madrasa's transformat…
Madrasas and the Making of Islamic Womanhood By Hem Borker
In India, madrasas for Muslim girls have been increasing in number since the early 1990s, the result in part of rising levels of female literacy but also of the shortage and majoritarian ethos of government schools, leaving Muslim communities to rely on their own local leaders and resources to educate their young. Thus far, there have been few ethnographic studies of girls’ madrasas in India. Hem Borker’s book is only the second major ethnography…
Yoginder Sikand, Bastions of the Believers. Madrasas and Islamic Education in India
This is a very different book from Sikand's first book by Penguin (Sacred Spaces: Exploring Traditions of Shared Faith in India). In that book, he described a variety of what he calls ‘liminal’ religious traditions in different parts of India, traditions that cross boundaries between ‘Hindus’, ‘Muslims’ and ‘Christians’, among others. The quotation marks are his, to make the basic point that these are historical constructions, not self-evident, w…
The Mosques of Colonial South Asia
Introduction. Place, Identity, and Politics
Indian Muslim women’s identity is being contested more than ever before under the BJP’s Hindutva regime. Newly imposed meanings of nation and nationalism have produced new imaginaries of the category of “Muslim women”—from being a mere victim of Islam and Muslim men, she has become a nurturer of jihadi mentality, antinational, and a symbol of non-inclusivity. This objectification reflects the ways in which Muslim women have survived disparities, …
Muzaffar Alam. The Mughals and the Sufis
Journal Article Muzaffar Alam. The Mughals and the Sufis: Islam and Political Imagination in India, 1500–1750. Get access Muzaffar Alam. The Mughals and the Sufis: Islam and Political Imagination in India, 1500–1750. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2021. Pp. 454. Paper $37.95. Usha Sanyal Usha Sanyal Wingate University, US Email: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9381-2822 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google S…
Uniform Civil Code and Muslim Women's Quest for Justice
The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), a Muslim women-led organization, has recently supported the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in India. This step by the BMMA has added a new dimension to the debate on reforms in personal laws, especially the Muslim Personal Law (MPL). More specifically, it signifies a shift in the BMMA's position. Since its inception in 2007, the BMMA has been advocating for the codification of MPL along the lines of Hindu Law…
Madrasa Imaginaries and the Politics of UP Government Reform Seen in the Light of Two Case Studies
This paper examines madrasa education in UP, with a particular focus on girls, during the 2017-23 period of BJP rule, led by Yogi Adityanath as chief minister. The paper is directed along three distinct lines of inquiry. First, I look back at British Indian colonial policy regarding institutions of higher learning, both Indian and Western, to understand the colonial roots of the current mistrust of madrasa education by secular Indians and the Hin…
Sociology (11 works) · Political science (8 works) · Law (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Anthropology (5 works) · Art (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Islam (5 works) · Islamic Studies and History (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works)