Teena Purohit

Areas of Interest: South Asian Studies and Islamic Studies

Biography

Teena Purohit joined the Department of Religion in Fall 2009. A scholar of South Asian religions with specialties in Muslim and Hindu devotional literature, religious identity formation, and modern Islam, Purohit’s particular interests revolve around theoretical issues like conceptions of religion in modern Islam and the impact of colonial forms of knowledge on modern Muslim intellectual thought. She teaches courses on Islam, Islam and modernity, Hinduism, Religion and violence, theory and methods in the study of religion, and Islam and the West. Her first book, The Aga Khan Case: Religion and Identity in Colonial India, was published in 2012 by Harvard University Press. Her second book, Sunni Chauvinism and the Roots of Muslim Modernism was published in 2023 by Princeton University Press.

She is currently writing a book on Ali bin Abi Talib, tentatively titled Ali: Avatars and Apparitions.

Current CV

Books

Sunni Chauvinism and the Roots of Muslim Modernism

The Aga Khan Case: Religion and Identity in Colonial India
By: Teena Purohit

To learn more about The Aga Khan Case, listen to the following interview conducted
by New Books in Islamic Studies.

Courses

• CAS RN 200 Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Religion
• CAS RN 214 Islam
• CAS RN 316/616 Modern Islam
• CAS RN 213: Hinduism
• CAS RN 355: Religion and Violence
• KHC RN 103: Islam in the Eyes of the West
• CAS RN 425/725 Topics in South Asian Religions