By IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, 21 July 2015: Vice President of India M. Hamid Ansari on Monday released a book entitled “Locale, Everyday Islam and Modernity” authored by US-based Indian academician M. Raisur Rahman at a function here in New Delhi.
Addressing on the occasion, the Vice President said that he is fully delighted to read such a valuable book which is in fact a chapter of North Indian history on Qasbahs. History should be recorded as to why the institution of Qasbah has suddenly started declining and has almost disappeared. Reason is purely Economic as people had to leave their place for their livelihood. He congratulated the author for bringing out such a valuable book.
Dissolving the distinctions between centre and periphery, this book presents the Qasbahs of colonial India as vital and vibrant centres of intense intellectual and cultural activity. The book demonstrates that the emergence of modernity among Muslims was a process during their colonial encounter in which Qasbah residents were active agents, and the Islam that emerged was that of everyday living.
Through this book the author, an Associate Professor, Department of History, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA has explored why locales remain major identity-markers and what makes Qasbahs continue to evoke memory and nostalgia.
The dignitaries present on the occasion of book launch included former chief election commissioner of India Dr SY Qureshi, former vice chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia Dr Shahid Mehdi and journalist-writer Sugata Ghose.
