Literary, cinematic and media representations of the disputed category of the 'South Asian Muslim' have undergone substantial change in the last few decades and in particular since the events of September 11, 2001. Here we find the first book-length critical analysis of these representations of Muslims from South Asia and its diaspora in literature, the media, culture and cinema. The collected essays highlight the significant role that literature, film,and music can play in opening up space for complex reflections on Muslim identities and cultures, and how such imaginative cultural forms can enable us to rethink secularism and religion.

Introduction: Contexts and Text Part I: Surveying the Field; Comparative Approaches 1. The Making of a Muslim 2. Representations of Young Muslims in Contemporary British South Asian Fiction. 3. Before and Beyond the Nation: South Asian and Maghrebi Muslim Women's Fiction Part II: Syncretism, Muslim Cosmopolitanism, and Secularism 4. Restoring the Narration: South Asian English writing and Al-Andalus 5. Music, Secularism and South Asian Fiction: Muslim Culture and Minority Identities in Shashi Deshpande's Small Remedies 6. 'A Shrine of Words': The Politics and Poetics of Space in Agha Shahid Ali's The Country Without a Post Office 7. Hamlet in Paradise: The Politics of Procrastination in Mirza Waheed's The Collaborator Part III: Currents within South Asian Islam 8. Liberalizing Islam through the Bildungsroman: Ed Husain's The Islamist 9. Enchanted Realms, Sceptical Perspectives: Salman Rushdie's Recent Fiction 10. Tahmima Anam's The Good Muslim: Bangladeshi Islam, Secularism and the Tablighi Jamaat Part IV: Representations, Stereotypes, Islamophobia11. Saving Pakistan from Brown Men: Benazir Bhutto as Pakistan's Last Best Hope for Democracy 12. Queer South Asian Muslims: The Ethnic Closet and its Secular Limits 13. After 9/11: Islamophobia in Kamila Shamsie's Broken Verses and Burnt Shadows