Mullahs on the Mainframe: Islam and Modernity among the Daudi Bohras - Softcover

"This is a groundbreaking work.... This brilliant study is both academically rigorous and a welcome introduction to the real success of this Islamic community in the modern world. Highly recommended." - Library Journal; "[A] model piece of scholarship, the kind of work you want to give to younger scholars so as to awaken them to the wonders and the variety of the world.... Here is one brilliant venture by a young, superbly trained American social scientist who delves into the world of Indian Muslims, and renders that world with artistry, precision, and detail." - Fouad Ajami, author of Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey; "[Blank's] book should be read for his portrait of a group trying to carve out a place for their practices while maintaining peaceful relations with religious activists and secularists alike, a delicate tightrope act that he chronicles well." - John R. Bowen, Washington Post Book World

The values of traditionalist Islam are often portrayed as inherently hostile to those of a modern, pluralistic society. This book shatters many of these stereotypes. Jonah Blank provides a first-hand account of the Daudi Bohra community, a Shi'a denomination numbering 1 million, concentrated in South Asia but spread worldwide. This society has no contradiction between Islamic traditions and full-fledged modernity. The Bohras uphold orthodox Muslim practices, such as in prayer and dress, while at the same time embracing aspects of modern culture not in direct conflict with their core beliefs. They send their children, of both genders, abroad for education, exhibit greater gender equality than most of the communities of the Indian sub-continent, and have become Internet pioneers, uniting members around the world. This volume shows how a premodern clerical elite has embraced modernity, not rejected it.