In this episode, Lindsey and Ali interview Dr. Jyoti Gulati Balachandran, Assistant Professor of History at Penn State, about her book [Narrative Pasts: The Making of a Muslim Community in Gujarat, c. 1400-1650](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/narrative-pasts-9780190123994?cc=us&lang=en&#) (Oxford University Press, July 2020) The Gujarat region of western India has a long role as a maritime and commercial center in the Indian Ocean, but the rich history of its Muslim community - and the important role of Sufis in developing Gujarat’s identity as a distinct region - has been overlooked. Dr. Balachandran argues that Arabic and Persian literary production among learned Muslim men was crucial to the development of Gujarat as a coherent region between the 15th and 17th centuries, plugging it in to developments across South Asia and beyond. Sufis were particularly important in this endeavor, and she urges us to seriously consider why and how different genres such as taẓkira or manāqib were chosen by these writers instead of dismissing them all under the imposed category of hagiography. Balachandran shows how textual histories and the tomb complexes of Sufi scholars contribute another source for history beyond that of the court, serving as two poles that reinforced one another’s place in time as well as a specific region. Sufis allowed Sultans to ensure that the Muslim community expanded and prospered, and just as the Sultans militarily defined their kingdoms, Sufis sketched out realms of spiritual rule through these institutions and narratives about the past. One important example that Dr. Balachandran touches on is the figure of Shaykh Ahmad Khattu, a 15th century Sufi who became the Shaykh of Ahmad Shah I of the Muzaffarids of Gujarat. While there is little contemporary writing about ...
In this episode, Rustin is joined by Dr. Neda Maghbouleh and Dr. Narges Bajoghli to interview Dr. Amy Malek, Assistant Professor of International Studies at the College of Charleston about her latest article, [“Paradoxes of Dual Nationality: Geopolitical Constraints on Multiple Citizenship in the Iranian Diaspora.”](http://muse.jhu.edu/article/745776) Dr. Malek invites listeners to consider how, despite popular notions that dual citizenship leads to greater mobility and rights, it can sometimes lead to the opposite. After giving us an overview of the concept of dual citizenship and its normalization after the 1990s, she highlights how citizenship scandals have been mobilized for political gain in liberal democracies like Canada, Australia, and the United States. She then turns to significant examples from the Iranian diaspora. Cases like those of Sam Dastyari in Australia and Sahar Nowrouzzadeh in the U.S. show how shifting geopolitical constraints can make dual citizenship a significant liability, particularly for public-facing or politically charged figures. ...
In this episode, Rustin and Ali interview Dr. Kelly Anne Hammond, Assistant Professor of East Asian History in the Department of History at the University of Arkansas, about her book, China’s Muslims and Japan’s Empire: Centering Islam in World War II (University of North Carolina Press, November 2020). During World War II, Sino-Muslims (Hui Muslims) were an important focal point for Imperial Japanese propaganda. Japanese imperial officials saw Sino-Muslims as crucial intermediaries that could help not only defeat nationalist and communist opposition in China, but also help bolster an image of the empire as anti-Western protectors of Islam. Building on an older academic tradition of Islamic Studies in Japan, knowledge of Islam was put into imperial service. Combined with the patronage of Muslim schools, mosques, and hajj pilgrimage, the empire aimed to create transnational Muslim networks that were centered in Japan and used Japanese as their new lingua franca. Dr. Hammond shows that these efforts were met with limited success due to the community’s religious and political diversity, as well as the military defeat of Imperial Japan. Even those who were receptive to Japanese efforts ultimately had to ally themselves with other powers following the end of the war, yet the legacy of their role as intermediaries remained even in the Cold War era. ...
