This slim volume on the Nizari Ismaʿili Shiʿi Muslims in the modern period offers some interesting information and raises some intriguing questions regarding minority Muslim communities. It is primarily concerned with the evolving relationship between British imperial authorities and the Nizari Ismaʿili Shiʿi community's leaders or imams—the Agha Khans—during the 19th and early 20th centuries. At the time, Britain controlled most if not all of the territories in which these Ismaʿili communities resided, including parts of Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and east and central Africa. As a result, much imperial correspondence and many records were generated concerning the Agha Khans. These materials constitute the basis of this study, making it a diplomatic history of British–Muslim relations.

According to the foreword by the author's doctoral-thesis advisor, van Grondelle was initially interested in mapping the Muslim communities in London in an effort to demonstrate their range and scope and how their presence was “potentially disruptive” to the current British government (p. vii). Such comments reflect the widespread existence of Islamophobia in European academic institutions even of the caliber of the University of Utrecht, where Van Grondelle acquired his Ph.D. Van Grondelle's own comments in the introduction reinforce this point when he states that his study seeks to “examine the processes and interactions that have led to the modernization and successful co-optation of a particular movement in Islam” so as to indicate how similar strategies might lead to the co-optation of other Muslim groups by the West (p. 1). The author develops this stated aim with reference to “sociologists of change” such as Granovetter, Gladwell, and Hinds. Van Grondelle argues that these scholars’ theories regarding the agency of certain types of actors in overcoming thresholds of change apply to the role of the Agha Khans in modernizing the Nizari Ismaʿili community and allying it with the British state (pp. 2–3).

Faisal Devji's preface helps situate this otherwise problematically conceived study by framing van Grondelle's investigation into Nizari Ismaʿili–British relations as one illuminating the sometimes contradictory nature of liberal Islam. As Devji notes, attempts by Western governments to foster a “moderate” Islam to counter more “extreme” versions sometimes do little more than promote the absolute authority of hereditary elites rather than engage liberal or progressive interpretations of doctrine. The roots of this lie in British imperial policy of indirect rule, which promoted the authority of “native” elites like the Agha Khan and even encouraged its expansion over previously nonaligned communities. These new, larger entities came to be designated as “Ismaʿili” communities.

In return for the greater resources afforded to the Agha Khans, Britain expected them to deliver the loyalty of Nizari Ismaʿilis. This mutually beneficial relationship had advantages for the community as well; namely, their protected status facilitated access to economic and educational opportunities within and across the empire, which in turn enabled them to generate greater wealth for themselves as well as their imams, the Agha Khans. For their part, the Agha Khans redistributed this wealth through development and modernization projects that continue to be the hallmark of this community's leadership and organizations. To the extent that the community evinces any “Islamic” character or behavior, it is largely through its heritage projects and research efforts, which connect an otherwise globally dispersed community to a remote Islamic past. Otherwise, the Agha Khans have largely abdicated engaging current interpretations of Islam, or proposing alternatives to them, thus producing the irony that van Grondelle's “good Muslims” are a community defined by loyalty to the Agha Khan rather than to Islam, much less to a “moderate” version of it.

The idea that indirect rule produces properly Westernized and politically quiescent Muslims is not confined to van Grondelle and the British imperial officers to whom he refers in this study. Many other Western governments, especially since 9/11, have attempted to locate interlocutors among Muslim communities in the West who can thwart hostile attitudes or violent actions believed to be inherent to Islam by “positively” influencing or “moderating” their coreligionists. Because van Grondelle sees the Agha Khans as ideal interlocutors, his study focuses on their lives and relations with British imperial officers to the exclusion of the experience of Nizari Ismaʿilis themselves. Thus, even though imperial or colonial archives contain information on the various Nizari Ismaʿili communities under British rule, van Grondelle provides references only to those documents or correspondence that directly involve the Agha Khans and British plans for them. Moreover, he notes that, although he had hoped to “contrast” these documents with sources from the Nizari Ismaʿili community, these were withheld because of the community's reluctance to share its internal records. According to the author, available Nizari sources are in any case not “scientifically neutral and verifiable” (p. 5).

Hence, van Grondelle proceeds to describe the history of the relationship between Britain and the Agha Khans. In Chapter 2, he briefly reviews the history of the Nizari Ismaʿili community and attempts to justify his use of the term “movement” rather than “community” to refer to Nizari Ismaʿilis. Once again referencing sociological literature, van Grondelle argues that despite Nizari Ismaʿilis’ use of the term “community” to describe themselves (which is not surprising, one might add, given Muslims’ tendency to self-define as such or as members of one or another kind of “umma”), more appropriate terms might be “cult” or “sect.” These, however, do not capture what he considers to be the social aspect of communal identity. Thus, van Grondelle settles on the term “movement” (pp. 14–18).

In Chapter 3, van Grondelle traces the origins of British–Agha Khan relations to the Great Game, or the contest over Central Asia between Britain and Russia during the latter half of the 19th century. The first Agha Khan (d. 1881) had secured the title and authority over strategic areas from his Qajar overlords in Iran, leading the British to confer on him the title “His Highness” and provide him and his short-lived successor occasional material support. In doing so, the British sought to secure for themselves areas near or in Central Asia where Nizari Ismaʿilis resided. Despite or perhaps because of the exile of the Agha Khans from Qajar Iran to British India, the British perceived their potential usefulness with regard to the Nizari Ismaʿili Khojas resident there. Late 19th-century Indian Muslims were heavily involved in debates over their role in the empire and the need to reform Islam, and the British therefore viewed the third Agha Khan (d. 1957) as a possible spokesman for the subcontinent's Muslims. Even as this never panned out, Agha Khan III was clearly a useful ally to the British during a period that included critical events such as the two world wars. He functioned as both exemplar of a loyal Muslim prince and guarantor of his followers’ support of British dominion. Agha Khan III's relationship with the imperial government and colonial agents, as van Grondelle indicates in Chapters 4 through 7, was intimate and important due to the presence of Nizari Ismaʿilis in many corners of the British Empire. As described in Chapter 7, Agha Khan III confided in the British government and sought its approval when he unexpectedly designated his grandson Karim rather than his son ʿAli as a successor. Another example of the close relationship that existed between the British and the Agha Khans is of course the continued use of the royal address “Highness” for the postindependence Karim Agha Khan IV. Van Grondelle provides many other fascinating examples of cooperation, collusion, and cooptation in the six chapters (Chapters 3–8) on the British government's relations with the Agha Khans.

The general outline of British–Agha Khan relations has already been established by others writing on the Nizari Ismaʿilis, such as Farhad Daftary in his master narrative, The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Van Grondelle's contribution is to focus on the British imperial perspective on that relationship and its evolution from one of diffidence to vested interest, especially during the early 20th century. The relationship between Britain and the Agha Khans continued into the postcolonial period in part due to precedent as well as the fact that by the mid-20th century Nizari Ismaʿilis constituted important diaspora communities (economically if not demographically speaking) in areas of the British Commonwealth. Although van Grondelle's narrative ends somewhat arbitrarily in 1969, it sheds detailed and intimate light on the relationship between the British and the Agha Khans and is therefore useful for those interested in the special status of this Ismaʿili community in British history. The potential broader significance of van Grondelle's project, however, is unfortunately unexplored given the author's exclusive focus on community leaders. Van Grondelle hoped to make his book accessible to a nonspecialist audience—one that includes policymakers—but in this reviewer's opinion his work undermines itself by virtue of its narrowly conceived inquiry.