Critique of European Christianity and Modernity in the Writings of Sanaullah Makti Tangal, a 19th Century Islamic Scholar from Kerala

Abstract This article explores Christian-Muslim debate in 19th-century South India through the writings of the reformist Islamic scholar Sanaullah Makti Tangal (1847–1912). Tangal spent most of his time critiquing the blurred boundaries of Western conceptions of religion, modernity, and secularism, in ways not unlike much later scholars such as Talal Asad and Saba Mahmoud. The distinctiveness of Tangal’s approach was the construction of an alternative Islamic modernity that could take the place of Western Christian norms. Modernity, in Tangal’s eyes, was not a token of rationalism or secularism, but a tool for purifying Islam in Kerala from unwanted elements adopted from local cultures. This article also places Tangal’s thought against the backdrop of the theological and philosophical debate introduced to Kerala by the colonial administration between scholars who endorsed or rejected the European reconstruction of religion.