ABSTRACT
Among the many factors involved in the Islamic revival of contemporary Nepal is the simple yet essential fact that participation in it provides the possibility of greater communal identity and solidarity-as well as greater social opportunities-for Muslims in a non-Islamic environment. It also provides a sense of membership in what Nepali Muslims view as the authentic religious worlds from which these ideologies emerge, particularly Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and north India. In conjunction with tremendous political changes in Nepal in the last several decades, religious revival affords the possibility of greater participation in national political processes that shape the future of this marginalized religious minority. It also, perhaps most importantly, holds out the possibility of fulfilling the simple yet significant desire to create a meaningful religious world in an otherwise profoundly foreign one. What this means and how it takes place has been one of the central concerns of this book.
