Table of contents : 1. The concept of the public sphere and its evolution. The discourse on the public sphere and its critique; The public sphere and Islam; The evolution of the public sphere in colonial India -- 2. The Islamic activists and their movements in India. The educational movements; Faith and revival movements -- 3. Religious discourse and contested doctrines. The truth; Contested categories; The agenda; Forms and lines of intervention; The leader; Messiah and renewer of the faith; The mission; Daʻwa and tablīgh -- 4. Public action and political meaning. Participation or patrimony; On the outlines of a polity; Assertion or submission; On defence and self-defence; Activism or contemplation; From engagement to jihād; Exclusion or tolerance; On the emergence of sectarian radicalism -- 5. Social commitment and a new society. Islamic or secular society; Religious or national education; Islamic or secular law; Islamic social relief or welfare society -- 6. Conclusion. Islamic project; Islamic sphere -- Appendix I. The 'tack' of the Deoband School; Articles of faith and the Barelwi Group; Objectives of the Nadwa Council and Seminary; Firangī Maḥall activist and scholar Abdul Bari (1878-1926); Articles of faith of the Ahl-i Ḥadīth; The six essentials of the Tablīghī Jamāʻat; Articles of faith of the Aḥmadīya; Statutes of the Jamlis-e-Aḥrār-e Islām; Creed (14 Points) of the Khāksār Movement -- Appendix II. Statutes of the Jamʻr̄yat-e ʻUlamāʼ-ye Hind (JUH) -- Appendix III. Duties and powers of the Amīr al-Hind.