The Deoband Madrassah Movement ― Countercultural Trends and Tendencies

Moj explores the history of Deobandi Islam, a South Asian Sunni sect that started in 1866 when a madrassah movement was launched in norther India. It has survived and spread mainly through its madrassah network, he says, which has produced Deobandi prayer leaders, preachers, and politicians but has also paved the way for extremist Deobandi organizations like the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Jhangwi. Rather than looking at the movement in the usual context, he interprets it from a counter-cultural perspective. He covers the research context, the origin of the Deobandi Madras Movement (DMM): seeds of a counterculture, the DMM in united India: activist countercultural trends, the DMM in Pakistan: countercultural politics and extremism, Deobandi Islam: countering folk Islam and popular customs, and the DMM versus mainstream society: viewpoints of Deobandi journals and students. Annotation c2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Muhammad Moj is a research fellow at the University of Western Australia. He has served as a civil servant for the government of Pakistan for more than 15 years.