No Birds of Passage

A sweeping account of three Gujarati Muslim trading communities | whose commercial success over nearly two centuries sheds new light on the history of capitalism | Islam | and empire in South Asia. During the nineteenth century | three Gujarati Muslim commercial castes—the Bohras | Khojas | and Memons—came to dominate Muslim business in South Asia. Although these communities constitute less than 1 percent of South Asia’s Muslim population | they are still disproportionately represented among the region’s leading Muslim-owned firms today. In No Birds of Passage | Michael O’Sullivan argues that the conditions enabling their success have never been understood | thanks to stereotypes—embraced equally by colonial administrators and Muslim commentators—that estrange them from their religious identity. Yet while long viewed as Hindus in all but name | or as “Westernized” Muslims who embraced colonial institutions | these groups in fact entwined economic prerogatives and religious belief in a distinctive form of Muslim capitalism. Following entrepreneurial firms from Gujarat to the Hijaz | Hong Kong | Mombasa | Rangoon | and beyond | O’Sullivan reveals the importance of kinship networks | private property | and religious obligation to their business endeavors. This paradigm of Muslim capitalism found its highest expression in the jamaats | the central caste institutions of each community | which combined South Asian | Islamicate | and European traditions of corporate life. The jamaats also played an essential role in negotiating the position of all three groups in relation to British authorities and Indian Muslim nationalists | as well as the often-sharp divisions within the castes themselves. O’Sullivan’s account sheds light on Gujarati Muslim economic life from the dawn of colonial hegemony in India to the crisis of the postcolonial state | and provides fascinating insights into the broader effects of capitalist enterprise on Muslim experience in modern South Asia.