Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia, co-edited with David Gilmartin. Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2000.

Muslims have been an integral part of South Asia for over a thousand years. Why then is it so defiantly hard to define them as ‘indigenous’? Why are they not as seamlessly Indian as Sikhs, who have been there for less time, or as Jains, who have been there longer but in fewer numbers?

Part of the difficulty lies with the stress on Islam and Hinduism as religious world views. Not only are Islam and Hinduism seen to be alternative belief systems but they are deemed to be competitive and irreconcilable.