The Gabriel of Madness

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

Since a right-wing Hindu nationalist government came to power in 2014, Indian Muslims have faced rampant Islamophobia, lynchings and mob violence, discriminatory legislation, and economic ostracism. How have Indian Muslims—the largest religious minority in the world’s largest democracy—responded to the failures and demise of state secularism? Using the lens of Urdu poetry, this beautiful ethnography explores how Indian Muslims have drawn upon Islamic traditions to actualize free-thinking selves and imagine a pluralistic society unbeholden to coercive state power. Through poetic symposiums, interviews, social media, and deep conversations with diverse Muslim interlocutors, from religious leaders to politicians, civil society activists to poets, Anand Vivek Taneja paints a portrait of the vitality of Indian Muslim artistic, ethical, and spiritual life at a moment of existential crisis.