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.
Stephane 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.
Editorial 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.”
—Jorge Santos Alves, Universidade Católica Portuguesa
“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.”
—Professor Abdul Sheriff, University of Dar es Salaam