No Birds of Passage: A History of Gujarati Muslim Business Communities, 1800–1975

No Birds of Passage explores the remarkable business success of three Gujarati Muslim commercial castes: the Bohras, Khojas, and Memons. Often stereotyped as “Westernized” and as Hindus in all but name, these groups are better seen as having developed a distinctive Muslim capitalism, in which religious and commercial prerogatives are inseparable.

Table of Contents:
Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraphs Contents Notes on the Text Introduction Part I 1. The Making of Gujarati Muslim Middle Power Circa 1800–1850 2. The Vise of Legal Exceptionalism and Colonial Capitalism 1850–1880 3. Clarifying and Contesting Religious Authority 1880–1912 4. Racialized Empire, Thrifting, and Swadeshi 1880–1912 Part II 5. Corporate Crises from the Balkan Wars to the Great Depression 1912–1933 6. The Battle over Jamaat Trusts 1923–1935 7. The Jamaats and the End of the Raj 1933–1947 8. Decolonization and Postcolonial Dilemmas 1947–1975 Conclusion Abbreviations Notes Acknowledgments Index

Review :
An important contribution to a growing body of scholarship on the internal, social, economic, and religious structures of South Asian mercantile, moneylending, and corporate communities ...a masterful argument for studying economic and business history through the lens of Muslim religious authority, legal practice, and identity. -- Amanda Lanzillo Developing Economies This is an audacious scholarly conversation between received categories of classical political economy and South Asian Islam that is likely to provoke debate among specialists in the field. For the general student of history however, it is a book that demands close attention for its outstanding contributions to the craft, both in its expansive approach toward the archive as in its deft interweaving of religion, culture and politics within the complex terrain of capitalist enterprise and law. The structure, prose and narrative richness of the book are likely to ensure a life for it outside the scholarly niche of economic history. -- Madhumita Mazumdar Telegraph India No Birds of Passage is a brilliant and strikingly innovative contribution to the history of trade and diaspora in the Indian Ocean. Based on an impressive array of sources, it tells a compelling story about the emergence of a distinctive form of Muslim capitalism that continues to shape the region today. -- Sunil Amrith, author of Unruly Waters The intersection of community, caste, and capitalism is a matter of abiding interest for South Asian historians of both the early modern and modern periods. Michael O'Sullivan's well-documented and closely argued work on Gujarati Muslim entrepreneurs over two centuries is a significant intervention in this field. It merits a wide readership, and is also certain to provoke debates well beyond the confines of South Asian studies. -- Sanjay Subrahmanyam, author of Europe's India This sophisticated and fine-grained case study is a model of how to write revisionist economic histories that resonate with the experiences of people in most of the world. No Birds of Passage succeeds precisely because its conceptual apparatus is built on giving endogenous institutions their due, bringing together a range of sources in multiple languages, and openly embracing paradoxes without which this story of Muslim capitalism would have remained illegible. This is an exciting contribution to the burgeoning global histories of capitalism. -- Mrinalini Sinha, author of Specters of Mother India A major contribution to South Asian history. O'Sullivan's sweeping account of Gujarati Muslim business communities is more than a business history. It is an impressive examination of how the Khojas, Bohras, and Memons reshaped community corporate identities through their interactions with the colonial state, Indian nationalism, Muslim politics, and postcolonial regimes. -- Douglas E. Haynes, author of Small Town Capitalism in Western India This is a landmark work of scholarship, meticulously recovering the transimperial worldviews of Gujarati Muslim business communities both before and after the age of imperial capitalism. Attentive to historical asymmetries of race and sovereignty, O'Sullivan's dynamic and capacious study will inform future work on imperial and postcolonial economic history as well as on the social-religious logics of capital accumulation. -- Manu Goswami, author of Producing India