The Growth of Arabic Biographical Writing in South Asia from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8965719 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mohsin Ali (0000-0002-3825-3068, Association of Research Libraries, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 134-138 |
| Publication date | 2023-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0020743823000478 |
| OpenAlex | W4365515231 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 15 |
This essay surveys the Arabic biographical writing of select South Asian Muslim scholars from the late Mughal to the colonial period to argue that, for scholars participating in transregional networks of hadith scholarship, Arabic biographical writing served purposes distinct from Indo-Persianate biographical writing. South Asian scholars chose to write Arabic histories to access pasts and construct communities that centered the ʿulama’ as a distinct class of Muslims who represented the continuity of Islamicate discursive traditions across time and space. Arabic biographical histories indicate a different sense of temporality and geography than Indo-Persianate histories by both marking the passage of time through the transmission of religious knowledge over generations and mapping transregional scholarly networks. 1 However, this did not necessarily entail a disavowal of Indo-Persianate histories that placed greater emphasis on saintly miracles, blessings, and shrines. 2 This productive tension between Indo-Arabic and Indo-Persianate writing is missed when only Indo-Persianate texts are examined
Ancient history · Arabic · Archaeology · Art · Colonialism · Linguistics · Literature · Scholarship · South asia · Temporality · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Islamic Studies and History · Philosophy · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East
New Readings in Arabic Historiography from Late Medieval Egypt and Syria
The Idea of the Muslim World
Muhammad's Heirs
Classical Arabic Biography
Islam Translated
Arabic, the Arab Middle East, and the Definition of Muslim Identity in Twentieth Century India
Genealogies of Fundamentalism
Making Space Sufis and Settlers in Early Modern India
A Venture in Critical Islamic Historiography and the Significance of Its Failure
The Two Arms of Cambay
Transoceanic Arabic historiography
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |