Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Farhad Daftary, The Ismailis: Their 

History and Doctrines (New York: Cambridge University 

Press, 1990); Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shii 

Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shiism (New 

Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985); Barnaby 

Rogerson, The Heirs of Muhammad: Islam’s First Century 

and the Origins of the Sunni-Shia Split (Woodstock, 

N.Y.: Overlook Press, 2007); Abdulaziz Abdulhussein 

Sachedina, Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdi in 

Twelver Shiism (Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1981); W. Montgomery Watt, The Formative 

Period of Islamic Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Uni-

versity Press, 1973).

imambarah

  See h

usayniyya

.

imambargah

  See h

usayniyya

.

iman

  See 

faith

.

India

 

(Official name: Republic of India)

Located in South Asia, the modern country of 

India extends 1,000 miles east and west and 

1,000 miles north and south at its widest points. 

It has an area of nearly 1.3 million square miles, 

about one-third the size of the United States. It is 

composed of five chief geographical regions: the 

Himalayan Mountain Range along its northern 

K  348  

imambarah

---

border, the Indus and Ganges River Plains, the 

Thar Desert in the west near the p

akistan

 border, 

the Deccan Plateau that defines peninsular India,

and a 4,350 mile coastline (including island ter-

ritories) that meets the Arabian Sea, the Bay of 

Bengal, and the Indian Ocean. It shares its longest 

border with b

angladesh

 in the east, followed 

by Pakistan in the west, China and Nepal in the 

north, and Burma and Bhutan in the northeast. 

Sri Lanka lies just 18.5 miles off the southern 

coast of India. India has several sizeable cities: 

Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), Delhi, Mumbai (for-

merly Bombay), Chennai (formerly Madras), and 

Bangalore. The national capital is New Delhi, a 

modern extension to the old city of d

elhi

; it is 

situated on the banks of the Yamuna River in the 

Indo-Gangetic plain.

The government of India is a federal parlia-

mentary 

democracy

—the largest in the world. It 

has a multiparty political system, with the two 

leading parties being the Indian National Con-

gress Party and the Baharatiya Janata Party (BJP, 

Indian People’s Party). The majority party alliance 

in the parliament selects the prime minister, who 

chairs a council of ministers and holds executive 

power. India also has an elected president, but this 

is a ceremonial office. The president’s term is five 

years. Each of India’s 28 states has its own elected 

state legislature and chief minister. There are also 

seven union territories, four of which are located 

in outlying areas. The others are the territories of 

Delhi (like Washington, D.C.), Chandigarh in the 

Punjab, and Pondicherry (Puducherry), a former 

French colony located in southern India.

India’s population is estimated to be nearly 

1.15 billion (2008). Hindus are by far the major-

ity (80.5 percent). Sikhs make up about 2 percent 

of the population, and other minority religions 

include Zoroastrians, Christians, Buddhists, and 

Jews. Muslims make up about 13.4 percent of 

the total, or about 160 million. This means India 

has one of the largest Muslim populations in the 

world after i

ndonesia

 and Pakistan. Prior to the 

1947 partition of India that resulted in the cre-

ation of Pakistan, it is estimated that about 24.3 

percent of the country’s population was Muslim 

(1941 census). According to the 2001 census of 

India, 97 percent of the country’s Muslims live in 

13 states. The states with the highest percentages 

are Jammu and k

ashmir

 (67 percent), West Ben-

gal (25.2 percent), Kerala (24.7 percent), Uttar 

Pradesh (18.5 percent), Bihar (16.5 percent), and 

Karnataka (12.2 percent). Several of the union 

territories also have large percentages of Muslims: 

Lakshadweep (95 percent), Assam (30.9 percent), 

and Delhi (11.7 percent). About 61 percent of 

India’s Muslims today are involved in 

agricUl

-

tUre

, whereas those living in cities tend to be 

Visitors flock to the shrine of Hajji Ali, Bombay (Mum-

bai), India.

(Juan E. Campo)