Muslims and Media Images

This anthology consists of four parts and a total of eighteen commissioned articles on the subject by journalists, academics and religious leaders, mostly from India. It ends with two appendices and notes on contributors. As the editor notes in Acknowledgements, he had to put ‘much more effort into the edited volume than, perhaps, I would have into a volume of my own writings’. The result, therefore, is a variety of views on the issue, which at times conflict with each other. The dedication of the book is also telling, indeed it speaks volumes about the mentors of the editor and the influence they had on his line of thinking: ‘Comrade Saghir, Communist Party of India’. The editor was himself a member of the Communist Party but declares that he has ‘not renewed my party membership and have not met Comrade Saghir for the last 20 years’. (p. xiii) In his introduction, while narrating the reasons for compiling the book, he writes: ‘Although most Muslims do not at all subscribe to the extremism of militant Muslim groups… it is important to understand the reason behind their formation and increasing aggression’. (p. 2)