Tag Archives: History

PhD thesis: Indo-Islamic Societies through Arabic and Persian inscriptions

Johanna Blayac, Genesis and history of the first Indo-Muslim and Indo-Islamic Societies through Arabic and Persian inscriptions (7th-14th centuries), PhD thesis in History, EPHE, Paris, 16 December 2009.

“Islamic inscriptions of the Indian subcontinent, that were collected and published since the end of the 18th century, have not been studied with a global problematic until now. The first two-hundred and ninety-six Arabic and Persian known inscriptions from the region (7th-14th centuries) are put together here, – listed, (re)edited, and analysed, to study the formation and history of the first Indo-Muslim and Indo-Islamic societies, through the multiple aspects of epigraphic sources, both textual or philological and material. This thesis thus begins by showing the various political, social and economic processes operating during the different phases of Muslim and Islamic penetration and implantation in the different regions of the Indian subcontinent through the chrono-geographic  distribution of the inscriptions. It subsequently studies, by region and then by dynasty during the Delhi sultanate period, the composition and the representations of the Indo-Muslim elites, merchants, religious men, statesmen and soldiers, from the very texts of the inscriptions and the names and duties they provide. At last, it considers the first regional architectural remains, greatly composite, and the epigraphic programmes of the main monuments ordered by the sultans of Delhi, as “architectural” discourses, and thus reflects of the articulations and “tension” between the Islamic phraseology and the social, political and religious contexts.”

Keywords: Medieval India, Islamic epigraphy/inscriptions, Islamic conquest, Muslim settlement, Delhi sultanate, Indian Ocean, Sind, Gujarat, Kerala, Indo-Islamic societies, composite cultures.

 

Book: Piety and Politics in the Early Indian Mosque

Finbarr Barry Flood (ed) (2008) Piety and Politics in the Early Indian Mosque. New Delhi, Oxford University Press.

This book is a reader that will be of great interest not only for scholars but also for teachers and students. It brings together the different historical approaches of mosques contructed after North-West India came under control of the Ghurid sultanate originating from Afghanistan in the 1190s. In his long introduction, the author wonderfully articulates the multiple contexts through which the earliest mosques in South Asia were constructed. All this to better understand how different historical approaches and discourses around the category of mosques have been shaped over time. It is not surprising then that this book found a place in the OUP series entitled “Debates in Indian History and Society.

Rémy Delage

More infos

http://www.oup.com

Book launch in Karachi, AFK, 15 October 2008

 

On the occasion of the visit of MIFS members to Pakistan, the French Alliance of Karachi (AFK) hosted an evening with Michel Boivin who presented his new edited book:

Michel Boivin (ed) Sindh though History and Representations. French Contributions to Sindhi Studies. Karachi, OUP, 2008.

The AFK, the MIFS and OUP co-organised on that occasion the second seminar conference on the cultural and historical legacy of Sindh and Pakistan:

Dr Michel Boivin, CNRS (Paris)
Introduction to the book “Sindh Through History and Representations”

Dr Rémy Delage, CNRS (Paris)
Sehwan and Sindh through the maps

Dr Michel Boivin, CNRS (Paris)
Managing the sources for writing Lal’ Shahbâz Qalandar’s biography

Sohail Bawani, Karachi University
Ethnographic Reflections on the performance of the dhammâl at the shrine of La’l Shahbâz
Qalandar

Ameena Sayyid at the gathering

Special Guests

Ameena Sayyid, Managing Director of OUP

Dr. Fateh M. Burfat, Head of Department of Sociology, University of Karachi