Crossing the Threshold: Understanding Religious
Identities in South Asia

Dominique-Sila Khan
London: I.B. Tauris, 2004. 185 pages.

Debate over the Hindu and Muslim religious identity, as well as the nature
of the two communities’ interaction, has generated different answers. To
some, it has been an interaction full of conflict and conflict-resolution
between two irreconcilable faiths. To others, it remains impossible to recon-
struct their history as one of convergence or divergence, due to the consider-
able variation in their cultures and religions over time. Khan addresses the
question from a different perspective. According to her, “the Hindus or the
Muslims whom the question addresses are not real characters” (p. 4): The
religious identity of the “Self” is not completely distinct from that of the
“Other” in medieval India. Thus, the sporadic clashes between Hindus and
Muslims have been due mainly to political reasons and occasionally to eco-
nomic factors, but definitely never to religious differences.

Khan’s book dwells on the making of identity in the Indian subcontinent
between medieval India and the end of the twentieth century. It seeks to
explore the spiritual encounters between the indigenous Hindu traditions
and Islam, their historical harmonious coexistence, and their present
predicaments, with special reference to the intermediary position of Nizari
Ismailism, a Shi`i sect. Based on field research, observation, and personal
experience, the author demonstrates with vivid case studies, legends, and
folklore how the two peoples had formerly lived by shared deities and how
the change of identity based on Hindu nationalism and Islam has wrought
havoc.

The book is broadly divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 examines
some important terminologies that underpin religio-cultural identities in
Indian history. In ancient and medieval India, people were distinguished by
socio-religious strata, first by the varna system (socio-ritual categories) and
later by the jati panth (caste and sect) system. A similar thing applied to
Indian Muslims, who were hierarchically categorized as Ashrafs (referring
to nobles, foreign Muslims) and Ajlafs (referring to converts), but not sim-
ply as “Muslims.” 

The interface between the indigenous Hindu religion and Islam goes
beyond the terminological resemblance and reaches the heart of religious rit-
uals and ideologies. In chapter 2, the author cites three modes of interaction

Book Reviews 111



between the two communities. This includes mutual “reliance” on each
other’s saints, regular “sharing” of sacred time and space by worshipping
each other’s sacred figures, and “borrowing,” through which elements from
one religious tradition are assimilated into the other. These three modes cul-
minated in “liminality,” a conscious single phenomenon that looks in oppo-
site directions with its two faces, a distinct territory in itself but with an
indistinct border that permits “the smooth passage of ideas, doctrines and
practices in all directions” (p. 50).

This bond between both communities started to fade away during the
creation of “Orthodoxy,” a religious “enclosure” that ensures clear-cut reli-
gious identities for Hindus and Muslims. This historical development is the
main focus of the third chapter. Khan identifies several agents that con-
tributed to it: the phenomena of “Sanskritisation” and “Ashrafisation,”
which sought to appropriate liminal teachers into Hinduism or Islam, respec-
tively; the rulers’ alliance with a particular religion; the British colonial polar-
ization of the Hindu/Muslim dichotomy; and the revivalists’/reformists’
efforts to suppress any heterodoxy in their respective communities. All of
these factors, according to the author, contributed to the emergence of a new
identity based on a Hindu/Muslim dichotomy.

In chapter 4, the author regards the notions of nation-state and religion
as the last phases in the new identity’s evolution. She mentions several polit-
ical philosophers whom she considers responsible for consolidating these
new identities: for example, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Keshav Baliram
Hedgewar, and Vivekananda on the Hindu side, and Muhammad Iqbal, Abul
Ala Mawdudi, and the scholars of Aligarh on the Muslim side.

Overall, on the threshold are the two siblings of liminal communities,
namely, the Nizari Ismailis and the Imamshahis, who have ensured the
smooth fluidity of religious ideas, doctrines, and rituals between Hindu-
ism and Islam. According to Khan, crossing the threshold (by eliminat-
ing, absorbing, or marginalizing liminal communities) has left indelible
marks on the region, leading to the creation of two rival and antagonistic
states.

The book is well articulated and logically organized. The first two chap-
ters concentrate on the historical identities, while the last two chapters focus
on the emerging new identities. Under close examination, however, it is not
difficult to discover that the book has been written from a particular frame
of reference and for a specific interest group at a particular point of time.
Undoubtedly, Sufis played an important role in Indian Islam in their attempt
to bridge the gap between the two communities. However, we must not

112 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 23:2



exaggerate their role. Not all Indian Muslims were Sufis, and not all Sufis in
India were submerged in a twilight world of spirituality in which the Hindu
and Islamic sacred figures were perpetually or alternately worshipped. The
history of Indian Islam is not exclusively hagiographical.

The notion of image-making (Self vs. Other), which is the book’s cen-
tral argument, is questionable. Al-Biruni (973-1048), whose monumental
work on India was widely acclaimed, contrasted Islamic culture sharply
with Hindu culture. He states that “the Hindus are entirely different from us
in every respect… they totally differ from us in religion, as we believe in
nothing in which they believe, and vice versa.” Referring to the Hindu caste
system, he says that “we Muslims, of course, stand entirely on the other side
of the question, considering all men as equal, except in piety.” (See Muham-
mad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni, Alberuni’s India: An Account of the Religion,
Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws,
and Astrology of India about 1030, ed. Edward C. Sachau [London: Rout-
ledge, 2000], 1:17-19 and 1:100, respectively.)

In Khan’s book, we are clear as to how and when the identity was grad-
ually built on nationalistic grounds, but we are not that clear as to how and
when the initial normative identity sank into oblivion. Herein lies a lacuna
in the historical record. In fact, Khan neither refers to al-Biruni’s work nor
mentions the impact it might have had on the Hindu or Muslim communi-
ties. Other than that, the book is rich in information, useful for those inter-
ested in folk religion, and comes at a time of a growing search for common
ground between India and Pakistan.

Abdul Kabir Hussain Solihu
Assistant Profession, Department of General Studies 

International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Book Reviews 113