“This is 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.  Ethnography, political history, economic history, intermingle, and creatively so, in this unique book—a tribute to a gifted and observant author.  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, Director of Middle East Studies,

    Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

    “No other book that I know of has such a wealth of detail on the belief systems and praxis of an Islamic religious community.  Blank’s many-level approach makes this one of the most interesting works I have read: his description of customs, lifestyles, and ideas is based on both unprecedented study of written material and his own painstaking, assiduous field research.  His text also, very properly, aims to dispel some of the stereotypes that disfigure Western preconceptions of Islam.  This unconventional book is a major contribution to scholarship.”

     Ainslie T. Embree, Professor Emeritus of History

    Columbia University.

     "Students of religion, particularly of the Islamic tradition, are indebted to Blank for the skillful manner in which he has opened windows on this heretofore little understood community."

     Ali S. Asani, Professor of Religious Studies, Harvard University

     (reviewed in History of Religions)

     "Through painstaking research Jonah Blank has produced an exhaustive study which shows how Islam could be put to work without contradiction with modernity in modern nation-states."

     Maqbool Ahmed Sira, Islamic World