In a pure Muslim land Shi'ism between Pakistan and the Middle East

Note on transliteration -- Introduction: alternative centers of Shi'i Islam -- All-Indian Shi'ism, colonial modernity, and the challenge of Pakistan -- Theology, sectarianism, and the limits of reform: the making of Shi'ism in the land of the pure -- Projections and receptions of religious authority: grand ayatollahs and Pakistan's Shi'i "periphery" -- Khomeini's perplexed Pakistani men: importing and debating the Iranian revolution since 1979 -- Longing for the state: dialectics of the local and the transnational in Sunni-Shi'i sectarianism -- Conclusion: South Asia, the Middle East, and Muslim transnationalism.

"Centering Pakistan in a story of transnational Islam stretching from South Asia to the Middle East, Simon Wolfgang Fuchs offers the first in-depth ethnographic history of the intellectual production of Shi'is and their religious competitors in this 'Land of the Pure.' The notion of Pakistan as the pinnacle of modern global Muslim aspiration forms a crucial component of this story. It has empowered Shi'is, who form about 20 percent of the country's population, to advance alternative conceptions of their religious hierarchy while claiming the support of towering grand ayatollahs in Iran and Iraq"--