ABSTRACT

This article reviews some of the major works in sociology and social anthropology for a better understanding of Islam. Exploring the literature that addresses complexities involved in the textual and contextual making of Islam and 'Islamic', it discovers a conceptual way-out from the schematised understanding of Islam. This paper also delineates Islam as a constituted category, which emerges from its discursive engagement with modernity.  Highlighting John Bowen's (2012) work on Islam, it suggests an interpretative approach to looks at Islam’s textual resources and practices in a socially informed as well as discursively conditioned manner. 

Keywords: Islam, Iived Islam, Textual Islam, modernity, anthropology of Islam, interpretative approach