Description

"Anna Bigelow offers a study of Malerkotla, a town in India where the Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu residents have coexisted for centuries, worshipping at the same sacred site in the heart of the town - the tomb shrine of the Sufi saint who founded the settlement. The stories Malerkotlans tell themselves and those that others tell about Malerkotla combine to make sense of the anomalous peace it experienced during Partition and provide a basis for continuing community engagement and interreligious harmony." "Combining archival and interview material, this study offers an important counterbalance to many conflict studies and a corrective to portrayals of Islamic cultures as militant and intolerant. Malerkotla thus becomes an object lesson in how a complex, multireligious society is imagined, produced, and perpetuated."--Jacket