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Welcome to the New Books Network.
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Hi everyone, my name is Khadija Amenda and welcome to the New Books Network podcast. Today I'm going to interview PC Saeed Alavi, who has written a recent monograph titled as Seeking Allah's Hierarchy, Caste, labor and Islam in India. The book provides an ethnographic study of a Muslim barber community in South India, unraveling how these barbers negotiated concepts of hierarchy through Islamic values of piety, genealogy, morality, and wealth. VC Sedhalavi is Assistant professor of Sociology at Shivnadar University, Delhi, NCR welcome professor, to the New Books Network. Many congratulations on the release of your monograph. Before we go into the details, could you share the journey of writing Seeking Allah's Hierarchy?
B
Thank you Khadija for inviting me to NBN podcast. It is my absolute pleasure to be here and talking about the book's journey. The book was published recently by University of Pennsylvania Press. This is result of my PhD thesis submitted to Australia National University in 2022. But the journey of the book actually began in 2013 when I joined Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi as an MPHIL candidate. When I joined the program, my initial idea was to do a thesis on Muslim formation of Muslim identity in in a world system Perspective within the context of India. When I went to my potential supervisor with this project, he asked he asked me, do you actually want to do this kind of a very abstract theoretical stuff for your mph? It would be good to begin with a grounded anthropological work to begin your sociological career. I was not initially convinced, so so he asked me, you just figure out some kind of a topic for your MPhil project. Let's move away from world system analysis. Then I began thinking about what kind of ethnographic question that I can work with. Though I presented many projects to him, none of them impressed him. Eventually he asked me, is there caste among Muslims in Kerala? As someone coming from Kerala, I said, there is no caste in Islam. If you ask this question to anybody, any Muslim from the Indian subcontinent, you will actually get the same answer. Then he said Then why don't you figure that out through your MPhil dissertation? That's how this journey of thinking about Muslim social hierarchy began. So in the context of Kerala, I come from a Mahapala background. In Kerala, there are many social groups. At the top of the social hierarchy are the seeds who are locally known as Tangals. Then comes the group who are predominant in number. They form almost 80% of the population. Then come the fishers and barbers. So his question was, through your mphil dissertation, you figure out what kind of social hierarchy exists among these groups and how do they rationalize and justify these hierarchical practices. The book actually unearths and unravels this story of social hierarchy from Kerala.
A
Thank you for sharing this long and amazing journey with us. Thank you. Seeking Allah's Hierarchy primarily investigates the question of caste among Muslims in India, just like how you have sort of mentioned it to us. How would you like to introduce the book and its core concerns to our listeners?
B
Yeah, so this question of hierarchy is a perennial question. You know, it exists everywhere. Without hierarchy, no society operates. In the context of South Asia, there is a peculiar social phenomenon called caste, which is the category through which hierarchy is understood. It is primarily a Hindu social institution which divides population into mainly, actually five groups. At the top of the hierarchy will come the Brahmins, then the Kshatriyas, then the Vaishyas, then the Shudras. And outside this fourfold system, there is a huge sort of population who are today referred to as Dalits. So whoever talks about social hierarchy among non Hindu communities in India, be it Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, this already existing frame of caste is automatically attributed. So the book actually investigates whether we can translate this concept, caste, into social hierarchy that is existing among Muslims in South Asia.
A
What you mentioned is absolutely true. There is no society without its own meanings of hierarchy. Also, moving ahead, can you talk a bit about the ethnographic work you undertook for this project? I'm also keen to hear more about your use of autocritique as. As a methodological approach.
B
Yeah. As I already mentioned, you know, I come from a Mapila social background as a dominant social group in the region, both in terms of the ownership of means of production and also in terms of number. The those who belong to the Mapela groups, you know, they did not actually have to think about minuscule populations like barbers and Fishers, though they had constant interactions with him, with them. So I had, as a kind of person coming from a mapla background, I had inherited or imbibed the social hierarchical practices that existed in the locality, for instance, barbers in Kerala are derogatorily referred to as osan. So this term signifies social subordination, also signifies their undignified labor. At this, though kind of we were living in this society, you know, where everybody is interacting with each other. We were kind of normally using these terms to refer to our own friends, even though this term was considered derogatory. So I was. When I was writing the book, you know, I had a kind of a constant struggle to position myself, you know, as someone who has imbibed or has been brought up with this kind of a hierarchical mentality. So, though I personally do not talk about this in the book per se, I've written about this elsewhere. So I kind of devise a method called ethical listening, by which I mean positioning oneself as a individual who needs a kind of a moral education from your interlocutors. So that is the kind of method that I devise or I have followed through my own field work and in understanding my own prejudice and my own positionality, my own privileges. So it is through this kind of a frame that I look at, you know, how hierarchy operates among Muslims in Kerala.
A
I must also add that it was quite a personal read for me as I also belong to the region and the popular community as well. Now, moving ahead, the question of social hierarchy that runs throughout the book gives new meaning to caste as experienced by Indian Muslims. You argue that following a Hindu blueprint of caste sort of robs Muslims of the agency to interpret such a hierarchy on their own terms. How then does the question of caste actually work among the Indian Muslims?
B
Yeah, this is a very interesting question to think about the history of Islam also in South Asia, not just Malabar to begin with. Malabar. So Islam is supposed to have come to Kerala at the time of prophet Muhammad himself, that is, in the seventh or eighth century A.D. so all the Muslim groups in Malabar have stories associated with the arrival of Islam and their own conversion in the region. So this kind of a story should be contrasted with the expansion or dissemination of Islam in the North Indian context itself, which I will talk about in a while to stick to the Kerala Muslim context. So, as I mentioned, you know, the Islam came to Kerala in 8th century or 7th century AD so which means Muslims have been there in Kerala for 1300 or 1200 years minimum. So to say today in 2025, to say that Muslims are still thinking about social hierarchy using a frame of Hindu caste system doesn't actually give any kind of a historical agency to these Muslims. It also discounts the ideological influence of a monotheistic religion like Islam. Similar kind of a critique we can pose to Christianity or even Judaism, even other religions in South Asia. That is one. The second is when we are actually using the term caste to think about social hierarchy, we are not actually figuring out or investigating what are the mechanisms, what are the processes, what are the justifications Muslims themselves have devised to think about their own hierarchical practices. So if we actually look at how this caste as a category came to be attributed to other communities like Muslims and Christians, you will find that, particularly beginning with 19th century colonial officials, that it was understood that Muslims or Christians have taken over caste because of an acculturation that was a political expediency in the region, because they are living with a majoritarian religion in the region. That kind of a frame doesn't give any kind of agency to Muslims. That is the second response to that. The third one, which also I would like to foreground in the context of Islam in the region. Even when we are, as I told you, that if political expediency or political pressure or acculturation was the framework to think about indirect community relations, that also doesn't work in the case of Kerala, because Islam came to Kerala through monsoon winds and Indian Ocean trade. So there was a kind of a peaceful dissemination of Islam that happened in the region. Even in the northern region. There is a common perception that Islam has spread in the North Indian region through invasion. That itself has been challenged by a lot of scholars like Richard Eaton, Barbara Metcalfe. They argue that even in the North Indian context, if we look at the places where Islam flourished, you do not actually see this kind of an invasion principle working. For instance, let's say Bengal, Kashmir, places of these kinds where Islam has flourished, even Assam, they did not have this the kind of invasion frame that we usually attribute to Islam's arrival in the region. So the basic point is, even the frame to think about caste or the phenomenon of social hierarchy needs to be kind of rethought. That needs to move from the idea of acculturation and diffusionism and also move from juxtaposing it with or along with Hinduism in the region.
A
Thank you so much for these discussions. Now let us go into the details of the book. In chapter two, you discuss reconfiguration of the myth of the arrival of Islam in Malabar through Muslim barbers, claims to lineage and ancestry. How does this intervention speak to existing debates on historical Arab connections in the region?
B
Yeah, this is the kind of. This is how I begin the book by talking about the narratives that each group in the region formulates and spins for their own identity. As I already mentioned, as Islam came to the region, there are lot of stories how Islam was embraced by various social groups. The dominant group, Mapilas, have historically been claiming that they are the first ones to convert to Islam. There are a lot of stories like, for instance, there is a narrative in the region which says that when Malik Biny Nar and his companions came to the region in the 8th century or 9th century, there were eight Mapila families who converted. All of them were either Brahmins or the Nayars, who were the kind of dominant caste in the region. So they converted and they became Muslim. This is a kind of a common kind of a story that the Mappalas would like to tell about their own formation. In contrast to these stories, barbers are actually asserting that unlike Mapilas who have converted, they are the descendants of an original Arab Muslim who accompanied Malik Ibn Dinar when they came for the propagation of Islam on the region. This particular narrative is also interesting in the sense that while this narrative is kind of built on the already available or accepted threat of the Islam's arrival in the region, Barbers kind of spins this in their own advantage. So Ma said that it was them who can kind of converted to Islam first in the region. But barbers will contest that and say that, you know, even before you converted, we were Muslims. We are the original Muslims. And this Barbara's narrative is also partly accepted by Mappilas. There were a lot of Maplas whom I interviewed. They also talked about the barber narrative. But they will have a kind of a particular take on the barber narrativity itself. To explain that, you know, it is important to go into the barber narrative itself. So barbers say, when the Malik IBN Dinar and his companions arrived at the region after propagating the faith for a few days, maybe for a month or two, they had to cut their hair and they had to get their nails cut. So they wanted a barber. According to the caste customs and the community customs existing in the region. They could not procure services from a Hindu caste. So even among Hindus, there have been barbers particular to particular castes. For instance, as I already told you, the fourfold division of Hindus in the Kerala region. The top group, the Brahmins in the Kerala region are called Namboodiris. The other group, there is no Kshatriya group per se, but there is a group called Nairs, who are the dominant caste in the region. They claim to be the Kshatriyas. In the region they had their own barbers and the groups, for instance, the Shudras had their own barbers. And all these barbers also could not work across the caste, let alone in their community barbering work. So the Malik Bini Dinar and his companions could not procure the services of a barber in the region. So one day Malik Bini dinar assembled his companions and discussed this problem. What should we do to get our hairs cut? Nails cut? Because these are also kind of signs of being a Muslim. There is a particular kind of a comportment that is expected of a Muslim which is in the region. It is that, you know, you should not have, let's say, a lot of hair, your nails should be cut. So things of this kind. So in the discussion that followed, one of the barbers volunteered and said, all right, since this is a required and mandatory service for all of us, I will do the job. So Malik Binyomin said, all right, so you do the job. You are agreeable to all of us. So the. This term agreeable can be translated to Malayalam as othon, which in Malayalam means, you know, a suitable person, an agreeable person. So barbers say even their identity. Osan, a derogatory term, is a transfiguration of the original term othan. Now this is how barbers formulate their own myth about their origin. Maplas contest this narrative by saying that it is true that it could be true that barbers are descendants of the Arabs. But the original Arab who became a barber did not become a barber on voluntary basis. Rather it was imposed upon him because he was not very good at propagating Islam in the region. So this job was imposed upon him. So there is this particular narrative itself, you know, of Islam's arrival in the region is used by various social groups in various registers. As Levi Strauss says, you know, the power of the myth is. Myth is that, you know, each group can stake particular kind of claims on the same myth. So that is the. That's how the myth becomes operational at a particular time. So in this case, this invention of this kind of a myth constructs barbers identity as superior to Mappella identity or fisher's identity in the region.
A
Thank you for sharing a narrative that is yet to get recognition even among the residents of the region. In chapter three, you focus on Muslim barbers in Malabar and the patronage network's the they were part of. What does this case help us understand about the negotiation of hierarchy and power among Muslims, particularly when these relationships are framed through Islamic legal ideas and local Narratives.
B
Yeah, thank you for this question. You know, we are actually getting to the ethnographic heart of the book. So in chapter three, I look at how barbers operated among Muslims by providing services of barbering. So as I already mentioned, barbers provided hair cutting, nail cutting. In the past, they were also asked to provide armpit shaving, even sometimes under shaving. These were the regular barbering activities. Barbers were also involved in various other rituals and ceremonies like midwifery. Barber women were involved in midwifery. Barber men will also conduct circumcision. They will also do ear piercing. All of these kinds of works barbers were doing. Now, for the regular barbering work, barbers had to travel within each locality every week or once in a fortnight. I should also say, you know how this barbering work operates in a locality in Kerala, Muslim community is organized into Mahal. Mahal can be kind of, can be roughly translated as a mosque based community. So attached to a Friday mosque, there will be a community of, let's say, 50 families or 100 families, even 300 families according to the size of the locality attached to the Friday mosque, there will also be a graveyard. So each member within this mahall system, in this mosque based community has a particular claim on the mosque, particular claim on the graveyard, particular claim on the religious officials in the. In the mosque, a barber was attached to this kind of a mahall system. Barber was not attached to individual household per se. He had a duty as a member of the Mahal. So a barber will visit the house of his patron. He could be a mapila, he could be a saeed, he could be a fisher. So he will visit both he and she. Barber men and barber women, they will visit these households regularly. And if they do these services regularly, once in a year or twice a year, according to the agricultural cycle in the region, they will be entitled to 5kg of rice, actually the paddy. The barbers had to come and collect it themselves. This was the only fixed reward they received for their regular barbering work. For the other works that they did, particularly the religious rituals and ceremonies like midwifery, circumcision and ear piercing, they will also be given some amount of money, depending on their patrons economic and family status. Now, this particular kind of a mechanism, in South Asia, you know, this is referred to as patronage. This patronage network operated at two registers. One, the maplas would rationalize this and also tell their own barber barbers that you are doing this work for making the community a Muslim. So barbers themselves also kind of embrace this idea that, you know, we are the ones who are making Muslims. In a sense, there was a moral obligation attached to this work in the region. Now why there is this kind of a moral obligation attached to this work? This was also a kind of an unequal system in the sense that there was no fixed compensation that barbers received for day's work. So this was not economical system for the barbers. They were dependent on their patrons for the provisions that they would receive. In a sense, they were at the mercy of their patrons. At the same time, it doesn't mean that they did not resist this kind of an unequal system. There are cases that I detail in the book, you know, where barbers are challenging this kind of a patronage system. But whenever barbers challenged this system because they were part of a Mahal based mosque community, transgressing or challenging their patrons was very costly. They will have to undergo social boycott and they will have to even go from the whole locality. So in a sense, this patronage network worked both with a carrot and stick kind of system where barbers were forced or compelled to believe or convince themselves that this is the only method that is possible. And added to this was also the kind of religious moral obligation that, you know, you are working for producing a good ideal Muslim community. So barbers took it, took this as a responsibility on themselves.
A
Yeah, we will also be talking about these challenges soon in the conversation as well. Also in chapter four, you take us into the everyday experiences of humiliation faced by Muslim barbers in Malabar. How do barbers themselves respond to these experiences? By asserting dignity, moral worth and claims to equality.
B
Yeah, maybe this is a good opportunity to take you to a kind of an ethnographic instance in the book. So in the, in chapter four, you know, it is titled as Humiliation and Subordination. I look at how barbers, while deeply enmeshed in this patronage network, they had to. How they had to undergo or suffer various kinds of humiliation and subordination. Let me give you one example. So one day in the southern region of Malabar, the term Malabar refers to the six northern districts of Kerala, Kerala state. So in the southern region of Malabar, one barber family wanted their child to learn an art form which is called daf. This DAF program is DAF is a kind of an art performance that is conducted by Muslims in the region, particularly as part of the celebration of Prophet Muhammad's birthday on Rabiola 12th. So this student was enrolled for learning DAF at the local madrasa and a saeed came to the madrasa to teach these students the duff. So the arrangement in the Locality was that each student's family will feed this Sayyid on a daily basis as long as the deaf learning is continuing in the madrasa. When the barber family's turn came to feed the Sayyid, some people in the locality informed the Sayyid that this barber family who is going to feed you today, they are actually barbers. The Sayyid actually did not know until then that this family, this kid, belonged to a barber family. When the Sayyid knew and learned this from the people in the locality, he informed the family that I do not want food today. The barber male member, he was enraged by this kind of front. He was also well connected in the locality, as I told you. Because barbers work with everybody in the house, in the mosque community, they are well connected to people in the locality. The barber went to the people in the locality and said, you know, this is what is happening and why should this happen? Nothing of this kind happened earlier. Why should this Sayyid decline our food? Then he was told that barbers food is makruh. Makruh is a Islamic jurisprudential category which refers to any kind of an activity which should be okay, which should not be done. If you do not, if you abstain from this activity, you will get reward if you do this. It's all right. There is no punishment metered out to you. So the barber's food was considered makruh. And he was told, this barber family was really enraged. How come that their own, whatever they are earning from their own manual labor is considered, quote unquote, illegal or illegitimate in the Islamic viewpoint? How is it that, you know, the Sayyid would not accept our food? So when this became a huge issue, the mahall community, mahall officials did not intervene on his behalf. He was dismayed by the behavior of the Mahall officials. Eventually he withdrew his child from learning the daft program. He did not have an opportunity to confront and make this system right. So in this particular instance, you see that various kinds of Islamic jurisprudential category like makruh, that you are not eating halal food. These kinds of categories are invoked to think about the food that is prepared by barbers. It doesn't mean that, you know, barbers do not challenge this. Barbers are wondering with people in the locality, how is it that Islamic jurisprudential categories are used to malign us, to challenge our own existence as a Muslim in the locality, Is it? They started asking people in the locality, is it Islamic? Aren't we also Muslims? So these kind of Questions. And these kinds of experiences became a kind of a ground on which barbers started having a kind of a moral position to think about their own humiliation, and also to rework and challenge Islamic notions that have been employed to justify and rationalize their own subordination and humiliation in the locality. So this chapter outlines what kind of humiliation and subordination existed both in the religious institutions and spaces like the case that I mentioned, but also in secular spaces like schools, kind of even in job market, in marriage. So in all these spaces, at this course of humiliation and subordination of operate, and in all these realms, barbers also challenge these discourses.
A
Thank you for sharing these critical ethnographic nuances with us. I guess my next question is a bit longer. In the final chapter, you examine how ideals of egalitarianism in Malabar both unsettle and reproduce hierarchy among the Muslim barbers. How do different strategies, such as unionization, Gulf migration, and let's say, something like education, along with genealogical projects like family gatherings and calendars on the other, reshaped dignity within the community?
B
Yeah, this is a. Since this is a long question, you know, maybe my answer will also have to be bit long. So as I was just saying, you know, there was a patronage network. This patronized network also exercised or operated at a score of humiliation and subordination in the locality. In the 1970s, barbers started challenging these kinds of subordination and humiliation that they were facing. How did this happen? As I was telling you, the patronage network was rooted in a discourse of Islamic moral narratives and also a discourse of subordination and a discourse of means, discourse of means, of production and ownership and control. So in the 1970s, some barbers began to be associated with left movement in the region. They got inspired by working in communist movements in the the region and learned the strategies of organizing and learned how workers in the in Kerala had gained certain kind of rights by conducting struggles, by conducting organized strikes, by unionizing themselves. So learning from these experiences of particularly factory workers and agricultural laborers in the region, some barbers in the 1970s started thinking about the possibility of solidarity among barbers. As I mentioned earlier, among Hindus, there were barbers. Even within Hindus, there were barbers serving particular castes. Among Muslims, there were barbers. Among Christians, there were barbers. So there was a struggle to think about humiliation and subordination as a common plane on which a discourse of solidarity can be built. So this initiative was taken by a few barbers in southern regions of Kerala. And they came together and established an organization called called Kerala State Barbers association, though it started in the 1960, late 1960s, it gained momentum in the 1970s. So what happened as a result was barbers started moving away from the patronage network by seeing the, or listening to the possibility of a solidarity, the possibilities of a new, new freedom that they can acquire, the new kind of an agency, new kind of a freedom that they can devise through political mobilization and by coming together as a singular group, rather than becoming a Muslim barber or a Hindu caste barber or a Christian barber. So this generated a kind of a huge, huge force in the region. As a result of this, barbers started opening Barber shops from 1970s across the regions in Kerala. And they had to undergo lot of physical assaults, various kinds of manipulation, social boycott, and also various kinds of, let's say, humiliation. Even when they were opening the barbershop, lot of physical manhandling also occurred at the barber shops. Whenever these kinds of physical assaults happened, Kerala State Barbers association as a group came together. They conducted a march in the region, a protest showing, saying, for instance, shouting slogans like Ingulab Zindabad, KSBA Zindabad. So this created a kind of an energy among barbers. And they also started seeing or imagining that a new kind of a future is possible. Riding on this discourse of freedom and autonomy, they devised charges for the work that they will do as a barber in the barber shops. They fixed working hours at the shops. They also decided what kind of works they will provide to their earlier patrons. In a sense, this kind of a transformation through unionization actually constructed the category of the barber. I mentioned earlier that, you know, they were initially referred to as, as Osan. Through this kind of a political mobilization and unionization, barbers across the region became kind of. They moved away from their earlier identity to becoming barbers, which gave them a kind of a new kind of identity, new kind of freedom, new kind of discourses of solidarity. When all these discourses were operational, when they started doing various kinds of activities to ensure that this will stay, various other kinds of things started happening as a ramification of this. This is what your question was kind of geared towards one. From the 1970s onwards, people in the region as a whole started going to the Gulf. This improved the socio economic conditions of the people in the region. Accordingly, barbers also, historically, from the 1970s onwards, barbers also started increasing their charges for the services that they are providing at the barber shops. Because they have a union, they have been able to kind of force this kind of a fair system, you know, wage compensation system at the barber shops. They also started operationalizing other kinds of discourses of dignity, discourses of egalitarianism, to challenge and to orient people, their earlier patrons, from a patronized kind of a mentality to becoming customers at the shops. So the. As a result of all this, there are a lot of things that are happening. One is that barbers are rethinking their identity from patronage network to that of a kind of a barber who has dignity rooted in being an original Arab Muslim. Unlike other Muslims in the region who have converted from various Hindu castes, the category mappala that I was referring to earlier, they are predominantly converts from Hindu lower castes. So the kind of claim that barbers can make with reference to being original Arab Muslim gives them a particular kind of a valence for their claims. Now barbers have started devising, or rather than kind of devising programs like family gatherings, writing family histories, producing calendars to think about or construct a new identity for them in the region. So, in essence, you know, the book actually maps a history of barbers in the region from the 1950s to 2025. So to say.
A
Yeah, thank you so much for this fantastic answer that you have mentioned. I'm sure Seeking Allah's Hierarchy contributes to alternative meanings to the questions of hierarchy and caste, as we conclude. Could you tell us about your future plans? Are there any projects you're currently thinking about or working on?
B
Yeah, maybe as a kind of a concluding remark, you know, I will end with reflecting on the title Seeking Allah's Hierarchy itself. So this term, you know, this may surprise, you know, some of the listeners. So why Allah's hierarchy? So as I told you, barbers were entrenched in a patronage hierarchy in which they were subordinated and humiliated. Now, because of all these discourses of equality coming from the political mobilizations, struggles, and also the challenge they are making to the discourses of Islam that have subordinated and humiliated them, there is something new that is happening in the region, particularly from the barber's point of view. What they are now saying is that, yes, there are hierarchies in all communities, there are hierarchies. And even among Muslims, there are hierarchies. But if you look at Quran, if you look at Allah's sayings, you will understand that Allah doesn't discriminate. Allah says in the Quran that everyone is equal in front of me, the most distinguished, in front of me is the most pious. Barbers say that we accept hierarchy only in terms of piety. We do not accept any other kinds of hierarchical concepts, categories that are operational among Muslims. In the region. This is a kind of a radical claim to make in both in terms of Islam but also in terms of caste. As we kind of, as we are rethinking the terminology itself now, this title of the book, you know, is actually trying to capture this kind of a particular kind of a political moment where barbers are saying that we only accept a hierarchy that is propounded by Allah, which we can also refer to as egalitarian hierarchy. As Jason Hickel and Naomi Highness, they have devised this term egalitarian hierarchy. So the book's title actually tries to capture this kind of political force within the region. As you asked the future plans, I'm particularly thinking about how do we think about Islam in South Asia? As I have been saying that there are various ways in which I'm thinking about Islam as a move from a practice oriented anthropological approach to thinking about Islam from a value oriented perspective. I'm still kind of thinking about this, but I have referred to this and given a kind of a provisional conceptualization of this in the book itself. So I'm working with this idea of Islam as a living tradition now. This is one kind of a project that I have been I'm currently working on. The second kind of a project is I am looking at Arabi Malayalam tradition in the Kerala region and its influence in constructing a Muslim identity in the region over the last 150 years.
A
We are eagerly awaiting for your upcoming projects as well. Thank you Seydalavi for joining us on the New Books Network podcast.
B
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Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Khadija Amenda
Guest: P. C. Saidalavi (Assistant Professor of Sociology, Shiv Nadar University, Delhi NCR)
Book Discussed: Seeking Allah's Hierarchy: Caste, Labor, and Islam in India (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
Date: February 4, 2026
Main Theme:
This episode explores Professor P. C. Saidalavi’s groundbreaking ethnography of a Muslim barber community in South India, uncovering the nuances of caste, hierarchy, and labor as navigated by Indian Muslims. Drawing on his personal and scholarly journey, Saidalavi challenges the imposition of Hindu frameworks on Muslim social stratification, foregrounding the community's own narratives, resistance strategies, and claims to dignity and equality.
Main Argument ([04:42]):
Critique of the "Caste as Exported" Idea ([09:17]):
Final Thoughts and Conceptual Innovations ([43:07]):
Future Research Directions ([45:30]):