New Books In Islamic Studies

Why Muslims in South India observe hierarchical intra-communal relationships despite the egalitarianism of their religionIn Seeking Allah’s Hierarchy: Caste, Labor, and Islam in India (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025), P. C. Saidalavi provides an ethnographic study of a Muslim barber community in South India, unraveling how these barbers negotiated concepts of hierarchy through Islamic values of piety, genealogy, morality, and wealth. Through this close-drawn study, Saidalavi argues that Muslim hierarchy exists and it works on its own terms. It both draws upon Islamic jurisprudential and moral discourses and is shaped by the larger economic, cultural, and political environment, including that of Hinduism. Yet ultimately, Muslim hierarchy is neither a replica nor a watered-down version of caste in Hinduism.Seeking Allah’s Hierarchy contends that the Islamization process in South Asia cannot be reduced to conceptual schemas or patterns dictating religious practice. Instead, this process works within a “lived tradit