- Leiden University Institute for History,
Room No. 273, Johan Huizingagebouw, Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL, Leiden, The Netherlands - +31644943699
Mahmood Kooria
Universiteit Leiden, History, Graduate Student
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I am a postdoctoral fellow at Leiden University. Earlier I was a joint research fellow at the International Institute... moreI am a postdoctoral fellow at Leiden University. Earlier I was a joint research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) and African Studies Centre (ASC), Leiden. edit
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This article explores fragmented historical references on African itinerants in South Asia between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries who worked in the coastal regions as Islamic scholars, benefactors, and leaders. Utilizing epigraphic,... more
This article explores fragmented historical references on African itinerants in South Asia between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries who worked in the coastal regions as Islamic scholars, benefactors, and leaders. Utilizing epigraphic, architectural and textual sources on a few such personalities from Malabar and Bengal, I take a preliminary step towards debunking the exclusive association of Africans in South Asia with slavery and military labour. These historical figures are not anomalies rather they are representatives of a larger intellectual, legal, and religious network that fared between Asia and Africa. Although they are evident in historical sources, they have been systematically forgotten in contemporary memories and scholarship while this forgetfulness befits the prevalent stereotyping tendencies of Africa and Africans in South Asia.
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This introductory article to the special issue “Narrating Africa in South Asia” situates the African diaspora in the subcontinent against the broader backdrop of global mobilizations against systemic racism, economic inequality,... more
This introductory article to the special issue “Narrating Africa in South Asia” situates the African diaspora in the subcontinent against the broader backdrop of global mobilizations against systemic racism, economic inequality, inaccessible justice, and colonial educational system. The historical and contemporary experiences of Afro-descendants in South Asia are different from their North American and European counterparts on several fronts, even though they all experienced similar trials of obligatory migration and forced labour, slavery, marginalization, etc. In South Asia, racism is a constricted debating point among scholars and activists while its existence is largely rejected or downplayed in the public sphere. The Afro-descendants have been at the receiving end of various racist and racialist discriminations and their experiences resonate with many other systemic conundrums in the region. Here I lay out five key trends in the current state of research, and I argue that the narratives about them still need to be given a critical focus, with analyses of their forms, structures, contexts and histories. The present issue contributes to this attempt and fills important lacunae, especially with regard to the narrativization of racialism and racism as expressed in various genres. The contributors compose powerful narratives to reveal nuanced layers of reflective, rhetorical, stereotypical, populist, racialist, racist, or caste frameworks. These narratives horizontally and vertically command an appeal to the long historical and contemporary realities in the subcontinent, as well as to the struggles of African communities now gaining prominence all over the world.
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The biggest law college (madrasa) in Mecca during the first millennium of Islam was established by a Bengali ruler. It was known as Banjāliyya madrasa and became one of the premier institutes in the city, only to be followed two decades... more
The biggest law college (madrasa) in Mecca during the first millennium of Islam was established by a Bengali ruler. It was known as Banjāliyya madrasa and became one of the premier institutes in the city, only to be followed two decades later by another college established by a second Bengali sultan, born and brought up as a Hindu. This article explores the nuances of the founding of these two colleges and the implications of their history for the existing historiography of the Middle East, South Asian Islam, and the Indian Ocean world in terms of legal interactions. The first foundation project, overseen by an Abyssinian agent, demonstrates the ways in which law provided shared vocabularies and common ground for Asian, African, and Arab Muslims to exchange and negotiate their cultural, economic, political, and diplomatic aspirations. The very notions surrounding legalistic projects opened up possibilities which would otherwise have been inconceivable, and went beyond law as a religious doctrine. This story of an Afro-Asian-Arab triangle of interactions prompts us to rethink existing ideas about premodern Islam and Islamic law. Instead of seeing Arab regions as the sole exporters of Islam and its law, and believers in Asia and Africa as mere receivers, we need to recognize the reciprocal exchanges that existed from the premodern period on. The histories of the Bengali law colleges in Mecca shed light on these Afro-Asian-Arab interconnections and their role in the formation of South Asian Islam in particular and that of the Indian Ocean in general.
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For the Islamic communities, the Quran is not the only sacred text or object, but most religious texts is sacred and valuable for their comparative connectivity with the text and contents of the Holy Book. The phenomenological discourses... more
For the Islamic communities, the Quran is not the only sacred text or object, but most religious texts is sacred and valuable for their comparative connectivity with the text and contents of the Holy Book. The phenomenological discourses on Islamic textual-ity are very much centered on Sufism. The legal texts have hardly been acknowledged as part of religious signs, symbols or rituals, whereas those are considered the most important for the majority of Muslims in the Indian Ocean littoral who identify themselves as Sunnī and Shāfiʿī Muslims. The texts of the Shāfiʿī school have played a crucial role in disseminating and sustaining ideas and notions of Islam in the littoral from the age of the manuscripts until the present age of print and new media. As sources of this knowledge and their faith systems, those texts have found significant places in their religious imaginations and performances with varying meanings and functions as objects of sacralization, conservation, and commodification. This article analyses multiple forms of intentionality and temporal and spatial awareness in the making and keeping of these legal texts as valued and venerated objects.
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In the first week of October 2012, Amitav Ghosh visited Amsterdam to give a keynote address on “Confluence and Crossroads: Europe and the Fate of the Earth” organised by the European Cultural Foundation. Ghosh, who graduated in Social... more
In the first week of October 2012, Amitav Ghosh visited Amsterdam to give a keynote address on “Confluence and Crossroads: Europe and the Fate of the Earth” organised by the European Cultural Foundation. Ghosh, who graduated in Social Anthropology from Oxford University, is noted for his fictional writings that explore historical and transregional connections. His novels include The Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke. He has also published three collections of essays: Imam and Indian, Dancing in Cambodia and At Large in Burma, and Incendiary Circumstances. In addition, he is a regular writer for The New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times and other publications. He has taught at Delhi University, the Columbia University, Queens College (New York), and Harvard University. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by Queens College and the Sorbonne. I met him at the Hotel Ambassade in Amsterdam for a long conversation on the writing of history, historical fiction, and the historian and novelist’s respective crafts. The following lines are excerptions from the interview.
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Kafila, September 1, 2014
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Two Circles, 15 January 2013
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Café Dissensus, February 15, 2013
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Café Dissensus, October 27, 2013
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Café Dissensus Everyday, July 31, 2014
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Epigraphy and Indian Ocean Studies are both vibrant fields, yet their scholars are not always aware of each other’s work. Epigraphic records have long attracted the interest of specialists in diverse fields, whereas the oceanic littoral... more
Epigraphy and Indian Ocean Studies are both vibrant fields, yet their scholars are not always aware of each other’s work. Epigraphic records have long attracted the interest of specialists in diverse fields, whereas the oceanic littoral gained the attention of scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds more recently. Recent developments in both arenas can inform each other and help us understand the connections and mobilities of different communities through manuscripts, archival documents, ethnographic fieldworks, and oral traditions. The Indian Ocean rim has historically produced numerous inscriptions that can be considered as truly transregional, multilingual, multicentric, and multicultural in their contents and style, and truly reflective of the major concerns of Indian Ocean specialists. The Ezana Stele in Ge'ez, Sabaean, and Greek from fourth-century Axum (Ethiopia), the Kollam Copper Plates in Malayalam, Hebrew, Kufic, and Pahlavi scripts from ninth-century Malabar (India), the Tamil-Chinese inscription from Quanzhou (China) in the thirteenth century, or the Persian-Chinese-Tamil inscription from fifteenth-century Galle (Sri Lanka) are some telling examples.
In this symposium, the Leiden Centre for Indian Ocean Studies brings together a number of foremost experts in epigraphy and Indian Ocean studies to start a conversation on the potential shared ground between these fields of interest. On the basis of their ground-breaking research, they will highlight individual case studies and present their views on epigraphy, Indian Ocean Studies, and the way these fields can enrich each other through transdisciplinary exchanges.
We are motivated to start this discussion in the context of a recent volume, Social Worlds of Premodern Transactions: Perspectives from Indian Epigraphy and History, edited by Mekhola Gomes, Digvijay Kumar Singh and Meera Visvanathan. Most contributors to this volume share a focus on premodern inscriptions in their transregional, multilingual, and multicultural contexts, which we believe provides a solid starting point to bring epigraphy and the Indian Ocean together.
In this symposium, the Leiden Centre for Indian Ocean Studies brings together a number of foremost experts in epigraphy and Indian Ocean studies to start a conversation on the potential shared ground between these fields of interest. On the basis of their ground-breaking research, they will highlight individual case studies and present their views on epigraphy, Indian Ocean Studies, and the way these fields can enrich each other through transdisciplinary exchanges.
We are motivated to start this discussion in the context of a recent volume, Social Worlds of Premodern Transactions: Perspectives from Indian Epigraphy and History, edited by Mekhola Gomes, Digvijay Kumar Singh and Meera Visvanathan. Most contributors to this volume share a focus on premodern inscriptions in their transregional, multilingual, and multicultural contexts, which we believe provides a solid starting point to bring epigraphy and the Indian Ocean together.