Delhi, the capital of the Mughal empire, despite its political decline in colonial 19th century, still represented a very powerful cultural attraction. A Muslim middle class emerged in its midst whose strategy for social ascent did not originate in secularization, but rather in pointed piety. What role did religion play in the self-definition of this Muslim middle class? Margrit Pernau pursues the answer to this question and studies the influences and ways of Islam in the historical and social context of the day. She reveals for what groups and at what time plural identities breaching the individual religions occurred and how they shaped the respective religions and were shaped by the same.weiterlesen