Islamization in ‘Secular’ Bangladesh

Masahiko Togawa is Professor at the Research Institute for Languages & Cultures of Asia & Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS), Japan. As a cultural anthropologist, he specializes in religion and society of Bangladesh and West Bengal, India. He has published several books and many journal articles on kinship, family, religion, minority communities, etc. Professor Togawa has authored Abode of the Goddess: Kinsgship, Caste, and Sacrificial Organization in a Bengali Village (2006, Manohar). He has also co-edited Kinship and Family among Muslims in Bengal (2021, Manohar) and Minorities and the State: Changing Social and Political Landscape of Bengal (2011, SAGE).Humayun Kabir is Assistant Teaching Professor of anthropology at the Department of Environment, Culture & Society, Thompson Rivers University, British Columbia, Canada. Recently, he served as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. His research focuses on Islamic education and identity politics, Islamism and democracy, religious minority communities, etc. with a particular focus on Bangladeshi, but broadly modern South Asian, context. Dr. Kabir’s contributions have appeared as encyclopedia entries, book chapters, and journal articles.Md. Masood Imran is Professor at the Department of Archaeology, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He earned a PhD from Hiroshima University, Japan. At national and international levels, Professor Imran has published numerous journal articles, and several book chapters and books. His research specialization is on critical theory, identity and representation politics of the past, spatial patterns of cultural heritage sites, predictive 3D modelling of monuments, and generating VR versions of cultural heritage sites. His latest book, Safeguarding-Governmentality of Cultural Heritage: Democratising, Conserving, and Representing the Past(s) of Global South was published in 2024 by University Press Dhaka.

• Introduction.- Islamization, Secularization, Modernization and the Identity Question.- Beyond Bipolar Opposition and Re-Secularisation and/or Re-Islamisation in Rural Bangladesh.- “Sonar pathor bati”: Crafting Identity Beyond the binary of Bangalee and Musalman. Belongingness to Bangalee Nationalism: Exploring the Muslimness and Indigenousness in Bangalism.- NGOs and Islam in Bangladesh: Politics of Antagonism.- The Deobandi Tradition and the Politics of “Protection of Islam” in Bangladesh.- Reconsidering Politics: The Case of the Tablighi Jamaat in Bangladesh.- Post-Islamist Thoughts of the Ulama of Bangladesh.- Post-Shahbag: The Rise of F-Commerce and Transformative Online “Islamic Public Sphere” in Bangladeshi Digital Space.- Neither Feminist, Nor Islamist: Tablighi Women’s Negotiation for Redefining Gender Boundaries in the Religious Sphere.- Gender, Identity, and Making of a ‘Religious Community’: Experience of Ahmadiyya Women in Bangladesh.- Epilogue.