A History of Islamic Societies

The contemporary history of Muslim peoples in the Indian subcontinent has its origins in the breakup of the Mughal Empire and the imposition of British rule in India. The change of regimes set in motion forces that would alter the religious practices and sociopolitical structures of the subcontinent’s Muslim populations and lead eventually to the formation of three national states – two predominantly Muslim, and one in which there is a substantial Muslim minority. Historically, Afghanistan was a boundary territory, part of Central Asia and part of the Indian subcontinent. Its recent history is closely linked to that of Pakistan.

From the Mughal Empire to the partition of the Indian subcontinent

On the eve of its modern transformation, the Mughal Empire was a patrimonial regime, like the Ottoman and Safavid empires, that strongly emphasized its Persianate cosmopolitan and its Indian identities. Muslim religious life in the subcontinent was highly pluralistic and not under state control. The long century of Mughal decline, from 1730 to 1857, favored the consolidation of a provincial Muslim gentry. A shared literary culture, similar religious practices, and noble (sharif) status defined the Muslim communities, which were clustered around the mosques, schools, tombs, and gentry residences in the Muslim quarters and small towns (qasbahs) of North India.