Muslim Cosmopolitanism

Khairudin Aljunied is Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore. He is author of several books, most recently Radicals: Resistance and Mobilization in Colonial Malaya (2015) and Colonialism, Violence and Muslims in Southeast Asia: The Maria Hertogh Controversy and Its Aftermath (2009).

Much of the world news focuses on the chaos of Arab Muslim states and the threats that Arab Muslim refugees bring to Western nations. Despite the region's ethnic identity issues, Aljunied (National Univ. of Singapore) asserts that Muslims living in the three Southeast Asia states (Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia) have continued to live in relative harmony without the troubled dynamics present in parts of the Middle East. Aljunied asserts a cosmopolitan Southeast Asia where homes and houses of worship exist peacefully side by side. To make his argument, Aljunied takes readers on a narrative adventure: first through the marketplace and its multi-ethnic interactions; then to the mosque and its collaboration of forms; next to it, the oldest Hindu temple and the space exchanges between these two. He moves on to consider the place of women’s scarves in public life and offers brief autobiographies of leading public intellectuals. Considerations of diversity are even present in women’s headscarves. The one space where there is tension with cosmopolitanism is within the governments themselves. A good read.

• Acknowledgements Abbreviations List of Illustrations and Photographs Preface Seeing like a Muslim Cosmopolitan Part I: Places Chapter One: Everyday Cosmopolitanism in the Marketplace Chapter Two: The Cosmopolitan MosqueChapter Three: Blogging Muslim Cosmopolitanism Part II: Personas Chapter Four: Cosmopolitan Muslim Public IntellectualsChapter Five: Hijabis as Purveyors of Muslim Cosmopolitanism Part II: Politics Chapter Six: Constricting Cosmopolitanism: Secular States in Muslim Southeast AsiaConclusion Bibliography