This book makes a significant contribution to the scholarship on the cultural and social history of the subcontinent's Muslim communities. Dr Maurizio Peleggi, Associate Professor, Dept of History, National University of Singapore and editor of the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies By exploring the intersection of shrine architecture, folklore, festival markets and artisan life, Hussain Ahmad Khan shows ... Read morethe contours of an indigenous "Arts and Crafts Movement" that resisted the Morris-and-Ruskin discourse of colonial art institutions. This is a fascinating addition to the literature on Muslims in colonial Punjab. - Nile Green, UCLA, author of Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean (Cambridge, 2011) The originality of Khan's study lies in its emphasis that artisanal production is not entirely a secular artefact. In placing craft as a scene of several encounters - of a "positivist" administration with Sufi ideas, of curatorial conceits within an indifferent, confusing profusion of objects and audiences - Khan radically complicates the story so far, combining theological insight with the study of art historical and governmental attitudes. Arindam Dutta, MIT Show Less