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Exploring Muslim Contexts

Muslim Cultures of the Indian OceanDiversity and Pluralism, Past and Present

Edited by Stéphane Pradines and Farouk Topan

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About this book

Explores the role of Islam in forming and transforming interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean World from a longue durée perspective

  • Highlights the centrality of Muslim cultures in understanding interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean
  • Explores the role of Islam in forming and transforming global interactions and local agencies across the Indian Ocean
  • Offers intra-Muslim perceptions of beliefs, practices and activities, both religious and other
  • Presents 15 case studies across Ethiopia, Gujarat, Java, Kerala, the Malay-Indonesian archipelago, Maldives, Oman, Tanzania, Zanzibar and the Persianate cultural zone

This book examines the role of Muslim communities in the emergence of connections and mobilities across the Indian Ocean World from a longue durée perspective. Spanning the 7th century through the medieval period until the present day, this book aims to move beyond the usual focus on geographical sub-regions to highlight different aspects of interconnectivity in relation to Islam. Analysing textual and material evidence, contributors examine identities and diasporas, manuscripts and literature, as well as vernacular and religious architecture. It aims to explore networks and circulations of peoples, ideas and ideologies, as well as art, culture, religion and heritage. It focuses on global interactions as well as local agencies in context.

Reviews

The volume makes an original and distinctive contribution to the subject, and more generally to Indian Ocean studies. One of the volume’s strengths is precisely its multidisciplinary approach that makes it also suitable for different area studies in Human and Social Sciences.
The Indian Ocean is a vast mediterranean between Africa, Asia and Australasia; united geographically by the monsoons; woven into an intricate cultural web by Islam and other religions; by languages like Arabic and Kiswahili; and by a literate tradition that has survived in manuscripts of poetry and prose. These papers were presented at the conference at the Aga Khan University, and explored in this rich volume.
Table of contents

Introduction
Stéphane Pradines and Farouk Topan

PART 1: MUSLIM IDENTITIES, LITERATURE AND DIASPORAS

  1. Developing the Harari Muṣḥaf: The Indian Ocean Milieu of Ethiopian Scribes
    Sana Mirza
  2. The Making of a Qur’ān Manuscript in Lamu Archipelago: The Indian Ocean Cross-cultural Influence
    Walid Ghali
  3. Muslim Identities of the Indian Ocean: The Ibadi Al Bu Sa’id of Oman during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
    Beatrice Nicolini
  4. Religion, Ethnicity and Identity in the Zanzibar Sultanate
    Valerie J. Hoffman
  5. Transcending Boundaries: Sayyida Salme/Emily Ruete and Siti binti Saad
    Farouk Topan
  6. Exploring the Geographies and Locales in Shaykh Jamali Dehlawi’s Siyar al-ʿārifīn (The Virtues of Gnostics)
    Gulfishan Khan
  7. A Persian view of the Maritime Muslim Frontier in Southeast Asia: The Jāmiʿ al-barr waʾl-baḥr
    Roghayeh Ebrahimi
  8. ‘Sword of the Two Sanctuaries’: Islam of and in the Modern Indian Ocean
    M. Reza Pirbhai

PART II: MONUMENTS AND HERITAGE IN MUSLIM CONTEXTS

  1. The Indian Ocean as a Martime Cultural Landscape and Heritage Route
    Eric Falt
  2. Indian Ocean Heritage and Sustainable Conservation, from Zanzibar to Kilwa
    Stephen Battle and Pierre Blanchard
  3. Early Swahili Mosques: the Role of Ibadi and Ismaili Communities, Ninth to Twelfth Centuries
    Stéphane Pradines
  4. Traditional Bohra Dwellings of Gujarat, India: Architectural Response to Cultural Ethos
    Madhavi Desai
  5. Regionalism in Religious Architecture of India: A Comparative Study of Mosques in Gujarat and Kerala
    Miki Desai
  6. Architecture of Coral Stone Mosques of the Maldives
    Mohamed Mauroof Jameel
  7. The Development of Early Islamic Architecture and Decoration in the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago (Nusantara)
    Bernard O’Kane

About the Contributors
Index

About the contributors

Stéphane Pradines

Stéphane Pradines is an archaeologist and Professor of Islamic Art, Architecture and Archaeology and the founder and Head of the Indian Ocean programme at the Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC) in London. Pradines is also a UNESCO, WMF and Google Arts expert for the Indian Ocean region. He is associate researcher to the CNRS Lab in Paris: UMR 8167 Orient & Méditerranée, Atlas of Medieval ports programme. He was the director of the excavations of the walls of Cairo (Egypt) and at excavations in the Indian Ocean (Maldives) and East Africa (Gedi in Kenya, Kilwa and Mafia in Tanzania, Mayotte in Comoros). He is now in charge of the excavations on the fort of Lahore, Pakistan (AKTC-SP). He is the founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World, and he is also the editor of Earthen Architecture in Muslim Cultures (2017) and Ports and Forts of the Muslims. Coastal Military Architecture, from the Arab Conquest to the Ottoman Period (2020). His latest book is Historic Mosques in sub-Saharan Africa, from Timbuktu to Zanzibar (2022).

Farouk Topan

Farouk Topan is Professor Emeritus at the Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, London. He has taught at the universities of Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, Riyad and the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London. He is also a writer of Swahili fiction and has published several short stories and two of his plays have been part of the school curriculum in Tanzania.

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