In this episode, Lindsey, Rustin, and Ali interview Dr. Teren Sevea, Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Harvard Divinity School about his recent book, Miracles and Material Life: Rice, Ore, Traps and Guns in Islamic Malaya (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Dr. Sevea reveals the significance of Islamic miracle workers, called pawangs or bomohs, in the Malay world from the 19th century to the present. He maps out the spiritual economy of the Indian Ocean world and its many human and non-human actors. These figures, steeped in the practice and cosmology of Sufism, were instrumental to the material life of the societies they lived in. They frequently directed the extraction of natural resources, the adaptation and use of new technologies, and the navigation of land and sea. Combining an analysis of overlooked sources, including manuscripts and personal interaction with modern pawangs, Dr. Sevea shows how these miracle workers interacted with the Unseen world to aid and direct labor in the societies they lived in. For example, they were seen as masters of prospecting and mining tin, taming elephants and tigers, or even shooting guns. Even British colonial officials who dismissed them as “primitive” sought out their aid and guidance when it came to navigating the material world, admitting their skill despite their “superstitions.” To further complicate matters, some pawangs even considered these very same colonial officials as their own “companions” even while some of their peers encouraged war against their imperial masters. Despite their centrality to the past, pawangs and bomohs today are marginalized in official discourse and media within Malaysia and Singapore today. Yet they are still very present, whether in guiding their followers, healing the sick, or even ...
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. ...
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 ...
