Author: M Abdul Fathah
Publisher: GRFDT
In the post-modern age, where religious identities have a direct bearing on the formation of transnational polity, the transitory and circulatory migration of Kerala Muslims in India into Saud Arabia hold paramount importance in the sense that this ‘sojourn’ has been characterized with retained collective consciousness and partial alienation from host society. Nevertheless, the dominant narrative on religious recesses of Muslim migrants from the state of Kerala and abroad is anchored in a generalization that presupposes direct convergence between religious trajectory in the state and reformist Islam in Saudi Arabia, often idealizing this ‘deculturation’ in the religious realm. While this does much to attend to the general pattern of reformism in the state, arguably, does little to demonstrate large scale religious alienation felt by bearers of traditional religion in the predominantly Salafi host setup.