In the ruins of a medieval palace in Delhi, a unique phenomenon occurs: Indians of all castes and creeds meet to socialize and ask the spirits for help. The spirits they entreat are Islamic jinns, and they write out requests as if petitioning the state. At a time when a Hindu right wing government in India is committed to normalizing a view of the past that paints Muslims as oppressors, Anand Vivek Taneja's Jinneaology provides a fresh vision of religion, identity, and sacristy that runs counter to state-sanctioned history. The ruin, Firoz Shah Kotla, is an unusually democratic religious space, characterized by freewheeling theological conversations, DIY rituals, and the sanctification of animals. Taneja observes the visitors, who come mainly from the Muslim and Dalit neighborhoods of Delhi, and uses their conversations and letters to the jinn as an archive of voices so often silenced. He finds that their veneration of the jinn recalls pre-modern religious traditions in which spiritual experience was inextricably tied to ecological surroundings. In this enchanted space, Taneja encounters a form of popular Islam that is not a relic of bygone days, but a vibrant form of resistance to state repression and post-colonial visions of India.
"An ingeniously researched and beautifully told story of how an avowedly secular Indian nation state goes about monumentalizing, and thereby eviscerating the lived presence of Muslim-ness from the great Mughal city of Delhi. Deeply evocative of the doublespeak of majoritarian nationalism that the world is witnessing today."
Shahid Amin, author of Conquest and Community: The Afterlife of Warrior Saint Ghazi Miyan
"The compelling book delves into India's enigmatic silences and unacknowledgeable memories in the aftermath of Partition. When geneaology and social memory fail, jinnealogy activates threads of desire and possibility unavailable to us in secular time. A beautiful and urgent book with a taste of Borges' stories."
Stefania Pandolfo, author of Knot of the Soul
"Anand Taneja's Jinnealogy is a brilliant and moving meditation on extraordinary attempts to recover a lost culture. Once you consider seriously the practice of writing letters to the jinn at a medieval ruin in Delhi, you will be drawn into an enhanced world. Highly recommended."
