‘Cosmopolitanism’ has come to be an ubiquitous category of scholarly analysis in discussions of the dynamic histories and cultures of Muslim peoples in many parts of the world. In particular, the term has come to stand for a vision of community that extends beyond the particularistic limitations of kinship, ethnicity or nation to encompass an ‘ummatic’ or even more ‘humanistic’ vision of inclusivity and acceptance. Such visions, in turn, usually encompass a vast complex of attributes: of diversity, religious pluralism, and openness to others; of mobility and travel; and of yearning for a universal community of faith that can transcend the mundane boundaries of everyday life. Many historians, anthropologists and religious studies scholars have deployed the concept of cosmopolitanism to frame discussions of topics such as the circulation of Muslim texts, trading diasporas and interactions between members of different religious traditions. Some have used the term more as an adjectival signifier for what they view as ‘positive’ aspects of Muslim histories, often intending this as a potential corrective to contemporary crises of community and co-existence. In this, cosmopolitanism has often been looked to as an antidote to the plagues of obscurantism, sectarianism and violence that still too often attaches to visions of Muslim societies by contemporary observers outside the tradition. Such discussions have displayed a tendency toward the abstract and the idealised. However, any full accounting of cosmopolitanism requires moving past normative visions toward understandings of the world as it actually was (and is), with all its attendant tensions, dislocations and displacements.

Recent histories have sought to move past more theoretical articulations to understanding the day-to-day struggles that mobility and the interests of state and other powers can produce. Stimulated by this emerging and thought-provoking scholarship, our aim is to challenge cosmopolitanism by focusing on various contexts of coercion across Asia. This volume provides a more complex and nuanced understanding of what cosmopolitanism might look like in historical practice. It includes contributions from historians and anthropologists exploring past dynamics and enduring legacies of coercive dynamics on the production of Muslim cosmopolitanism across diverse Asian contexts, particularly China, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean world.