Vice-President releases book authored by M Raisur Rahman

Vice President Hamid Ansari today released a book 'Locale, Everyday Islam and Modernity' authored by M Raisur Rahman, saying his work has sought to explore the reasons why locales remain major identity-markers and why 'qasbahs' continue to evoke memory and nostalgia.
He described it as a "valuable" work which is in fact a chapter of North Indian history on Qasbahs.
History should be recorded as to why the institution of Qasbah has suddenly started declining and has almost disappeared.
The reason is purely economics as people had to leave their place for their livelihood, he said.
"Dissolving the distinctions between centre and periphery, this book presents the Qasbahs of colonial India as vital and vibrant centres of intense intellectual and cultural activity".

It demonstrates that the emergence of modernity among Muslims was a process during their colonial encounter in which Qasbah residents were active agents, and the Islam that emerged was that of everyday living, he said.
Rahman is an associate professor of Department of History in Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA.