Muslim Becoming
Aspiration and Skepticism in Pakistan

Muslim Becoming challenges the claim that Pakistan’s relation to Islam is fragmented and problematic. Offering a radically different interpretation, Naveeda Khan contends that Pakistan inherited an aspirational, always-becoming Islam, one with an open future and a tendency toward experimentation. For the Individual, this aspirational tendency manifests in a continual striving to be a better Muslim. It is grounded in the thought of Mahammad Iqbal (1877-1938), the poet, philosopher, and politician considered the spiritual founder of Pakistan. Khan finds that Iqbal provided the philosophical basis for recasting Islam as an open religion with possible futures as yet unrealized, which he did in part through his engagement with the French philosopher Henri Bergson. Drawing on research in the neighborhoods and mosques of Lahore and on readings of theological polemics, legal history, and Urdu literature, Khan points to striving throughout Pakistani society: in prayers, theological debates, the building of mosques, readings of the Qur’an, and religious pilgrimages. Emphasizing the skepticism toward the practices of others that accompanies aspiration, Khan seeks to affirm aspiration while also acknowledging its capacity for violence. Republished in Pakistan with a new introduction by the author.

“Philosophically rich, written in a style that invites conversation, and ethnographically grounded in literary texts, as well as in the ordinary flows of neighborhood relations, Muslim Becoming surely deserves the designation of a modern classic.”

— VEENA DAS, author of Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary

“Naveeda Khan’s book is a clear, original, and arresting argument about Pakistan as a state of becoming. Interested in nothing less than the formation of a new way of being Muslim in Pakistan, Khan argues that Muslim attempts at perfection in Pakistan are neither communal nor turned toward the past, but rather located in modern citizenship and aspirations toward an entirely novel future. This makes Islam more, rather than less, flexible there. Given the stereotypical and repetitive nature of so much writing about Pakistan today, Muslim Becoming is a breath of fresh air. It deserves to be widely read by academics, journalists, and policy makers.”

— FAISAL DEVJI, author of The Terrorist in Search of Humanity: Militant Islam and Global Politics

NAVEEDA KHAN is Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University.

Publishing date: May 2026
ISBN: 978-969-7834-83-9
Binding: Paperback
Rights: Pakistan
Availability: In Stock