Restoring Mosques, Preserving History

This article focuses on mosques on the southeastern coast of India that are built in a distinctive style and rooted in local architectural idioms. Such mosques are an integral part of the Tamil sacred landscape, indexing the region's long-standing Muslim presence as well as histories of maritime trade and mobility. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in preserving the cultural heritage of coastal Tamil Muslims among members of the community. At the same time, the Islamic built environment in India is under tremendous strain. Mosques, especially, are disparaged as “ocular reminders” of India's Muslim past. In this context, how can we understand the range of significations that such sites have for Muslims in everyday life? This article explores the sensory life around Tamil mosques and how such sites are reimagined as spaces of heritage, historical consciousness, and cultural value. The article argues that the material and aesthetic practices in and around mosques are crucial to understanding how a community constructs its past and thereby its modalities of belonging in the present. In doing so, the article highlights the various textures of everyday life of a community that has been understudied in scholarship on Islam in South Asia.