The general introduction sets out how the book differs from standard studies of the titular subjects, its objectives, methods and structure. It sets out three main ways in which the concept of religion is defined: normative political religion, descriptive sociological religion and evaluative legal religion. It notes that English law tends to be blind to the forms that religion, and especially Islam, takes and this can cause problems both for the faithful and for wider society. It identifies the theoretical models that shape the book – liberal individualism, multiculturalism and classical pluralism – and how these will be deployed and to what end. It identifies the institutions that will be discussed in relation to British Islam – banks, charities, schools, elections, clans – and sets out the hopes of the book as a whole.

The chapter starts with an observation: contemporary élite jurists pursue, vis-à-vis one another, a “hermeneutic of suspicion”, meaning that they work to uncover hidden ideoogical motives behind the “wrong” legal arguments of their opponents, while affirming their own right answers allegedly innocent of ideology. The rise of the hermeneutic of suspicion is a striking manifestation of the contemporary transformation of the relationship between legal élites and political economic élites. This transformation accompanies and corresponds to the progressive juridification, judicialisation and finally constitutionalisation of the contemporary social order.

By the 1990s, India’s appellate courts had become closely involved in the regulation of street vending in several metropolitan cities. However, despite the frequent use of legal mechanisms by street vendor collectives, there has been little progress towards “formalization” of the street vending economy. To understand the limited impacts of legal intervention, it is necessary to examine the timing and the circumstances under which street vendor collectives first turned to judicial forums for protecting their livelihoods. Based on a historical examination of street vendor politics in Bombay and Madras, I show that legal mobilization in both instances was a response to serious threats faced by the political regimes that had previously shielded street vendors from dispossession and exploitation, rather than being a direct result of new legal opportunities (such as the emergence of public interest litigation). Since organized street vendors had a strong preference for maintaining the status quo, litigation was used as an effective method for buying time in the face of a hostile or uncertain political environment, even when the ultimate verdict was not likely to favor street vendors.

This chapter analyzes the impact of the Indian Supreme Court's watershed case on quotas for "backward classes," the Indra Sawhneycase. It explores the role of the decision in the mobilization of Dalit Muslims, who have been excluded from the constitutionally mandated affirmative action regime for the erstwhile Untouchable or Dalit castes ("Scheduled Castes"). It shows how the incipient mobilization came to creatively interpret the decision, in particular its interpretation of Hindu caste and a partial recognition of Muslim social stratification, as an endorsement of their claims. The appropriation and activation of the judgment allowed the mobilization to generate further political support, convince state commissions and eventually mount a constitutional challenge in the Court. This account aims to highlight the symbolic potential of the Court's decisions, often through unintended mechanisms, to reshape and extend social movement politics. It also highlights the role of political constraints, organizational infrastructure and the Indian institutional context as relevant factors in assessing judicial impact.