There are issues that come in the way of happier friendships. Politics is one such issue as friendship are intricately entwined with political life. Friendship illuminates knowledge about the self and the other, creating an alternative “way of life” (Rabinow 1994) that may “expand and enrich our intellectual landscape” (Papova 2014). It can, at the same time, be an “illusive concept, difficult to be defined” (Devere 2005). Simultaneously sturdy and fragile, friendships are innately political. For German Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt, friendship is allied to politics; and is necessary for politics. She believed that discourse provided essence to friendship, and it was through discourse that the world was rendered humane (Nixon 2015). Straddling the power dynamics, friendship can be both a promise or a peril, navigating proximities and boundaries, intimacies and distances, possibilities, and limits in (friendly) encounters between individuals, states, or communities. In this book, Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship After Empire, SherAli Tareen traces the history of friendship between Hindus and Muslims by exploring and engaging with the competing visions of this friendship that often led to intra-Muslim scholarly debates on the limits and boundaries of Muslim/non-Muslim relations.